Early morning finds us out on the highway, heading for Valladolid...
Salamanca lies on the northern banks of the Rio Tormes, and although it is a small city, it has that laid back atmosphere of a town or village. The people greet you on the street, give you directions without ignoring you, and most of them seem younger on average. I discovered that the reason for this is that Salamanca is a “University Town”… I found this out when I went down to load the Big Fella this morning…
“Dude…!! Where have you been…? This place is wall to wall girls…!” he said, eye-ing a pretty pink scooter parked across the road…
“Keep your panniers on, we’re hitting the road as soon as I have eaten that excuse for a breakfast I saw spread out on the table upstairs…” I replied… Sometime I have to be firm with the Big Fella…
This is the province of Castilla, where apparently the purest form of Spanish is spoken… I am beginning to think that Spain is a nation of lithpers….er, I mean lispers… Why they pronounce things in such a strange way is beyond me… A little effeminate if you ask me…
“Grathiath” should be Grasias… “Hereth” is Jerez for goodness sake!! And don’t get me started on Zaragoza… Apparently, as legend goes, there was a Spanish king with a very serious speech impediment, and he decided that all the sniggering taking place behind his back had to come to an end, so he instructed all his subjects to speak with the same impediment, and that is how the Spanish have come to lisp so much… All legend, I am sure, but a good story anyway… Now, where wath I…?
Ah yeth, leaving Thalamantha… Shit…now I’m doing it…!!
On many of the hills surrounding the smaller towns, castles such as this impressive one, were built to protect the people from the surounding villages...
The N-122, a great riding experience through central Spain...
Riding through the smaller towns and villages takes you back in time...
We headed out onto the highway that runs northeast to Valladolid, dodging long convoys of trucks that service the northern part of Spain from its southern ports. The road runs through rolling hills, and across a vast plateau that encompasses most of central and northern Spain. From Valladolid, we took the N-122 which runs right across the plateau to Soria and Tharagotha…er, Zaragoza…beyond… This is one of the best roads I have ridden on… It is fairly new, well marked and signposted, and the surface is so smooth that the tyres made hardly any noise as we flew across North Central Spain…
Eastward and onward, to Pamplona, but I'd missed the running of the bulls, so skirted the city and carried on to Zaragoza...
The fields of wheat along the road were an interesting contrast of colour, with the green patches of trees and the blue sky...
This area reminded me of the drier parts of South Africa, the wheat fields had been harvested, leaving large blond patches of land, where tractors were gathering up the leftover stalks and baling them for cattle fodder…
The bales they make here are a lot bigger than those we are used to… Two of the Spanish bales will get the wheels on a pickup van buckling for sure…!! They are the full width of a large truck, and at least a metre high and a metre wide…
By staying off the toll roads, I managed to get a glimpse of rural Spain, and much of it reminded me of home… Except here, the main road runs right through the villages, rather than bending around them as ours do… At the little town of Matelebreras, I stopped to refuel and bought a sandwich to eat. The guy behind the counter was very friendly, and came out to count the flags on the panniers and get the low-down on my journey… He invited me to stay at his house for the night, but I explained that I still had a long way to go, and couldn’t take him up on his kind offer…
I stopped at this tongue twister to have a bite to eat...
Have a break... Have a....large ham and cheese sandwich...!!
After the long day yesterday, and more than 400 km behind me today, I was still feeling fresh... Then she left and I had to get back on the road...
While I stood eating, I asked about the huge “billboards” of big black bulls that were dotted across the hills surrounding many of the villages I had ridden through…
“Ah, these are our famous fighting bulls which are bred to the south and also up here…”
At the running of the bulls this year, Miguel became only the third person after John the Baptist and Jesus, to accomplish "walking on water"...
Across the fertile fields of Central Spain...
We discussed bull-fighting in general, and I told him that although I wanted to attend a bullfight, I did not want to see the animal suffer… He then confirmed something that John and Pepe in Gibraltar had told me…
“But sometimes the bull is pardoned, Senhor…!”
“Yes, but what are the chances of all six bulls being pardoned on the day I go to watch…?”
“Eh… No, that is impossible…! It only happens now and again…”
He explained that after the bull has been killed by the Matador, the “fight” is judged by a panel of dignitaries, and if the Matador fought well, and with style and elegance, he would receive the ear or ears of the bull, and if he was extremely entertaining, he would get the tail as well…
We discussed the recent fight where the bull had come off best, by thrusting its horn through the throat of the Matador and back out through his mouth… Bullfighter Julio Aparicio slipped as he was running backwards, and the rest as they say is a matter of dental history… The fight took place on the 21st of May this year, in the bullring in Madrid… I had seen photos of this horrific injury and asked what had become of the Matador…
“He is fighting this weekend…!! Many people will go to watch and honour his bravery…!!”
I have included the photos that have been sent around the world recently, and marvel at the fact that by the time you read this, Julio Aparicio, will have made a return to the ring this past weekend, in Jerez… Amazing…!! If you are even a little bit squeamish, then scroll down to avoid looking at these gruesome photos…
"Ah, Julio, you have fallen... Let me help you up...!"
"I'll just use my horn to get you back onto your feet, shall I...?"
"Hang on, I can't see with your bloody cape hanging over my eyes...!! Are you up yet...?"
I’m willing to take a bet that this has done nothing to improve Julio’s lisp…
"Careful...!! It's that bloody bull again...!!"
Spanish deer do not just walk across the road, they apparently leap across it with gay abandon...
On the road down to Barcelona, the first sign for Andorra...
The Big Fella chewed through the miles in the afternoon, running hard to Zaragoza and then on to Lleida, before turning north into the province of Cataluña. All along my route, fields of maize, wheat, sunflower and other cereals were planted. Vineyards and fruit orchards were in abundance as well… The soil is almost white, and does not look very fertile, but obviously carries enough to support the huge agricultural industry that Spain is famous for…
The Pyranees Mountains rise up to meet us on the way into Andorra...
Far ahead of me, I could see the Pyrenees Mountains rising up off the valley floor. Here they are known as the Pirineos, and form the border between Spain and France, and tucked in between them is Andorra. A country that very few people know anything about, and caused many a “Where the hell is that..?” when I told people I was going to ride through it…
The road climbed steeply up to the border, hugging the edges of sheer mountainsides, plunging into steep valleys, and blasting through tunnels where the best way forward was “through” a mountain, instead of around it… With the sun going down more than a thousand kilometres to the west and directly behind us, the soft lighting made for some beautiful scenes… I reined the Big Fella in and we rode sedately through the last few villages of La Seu D’Urgell and Les Vals de Valira in Spain, before climbing up another steep section of road and entering Andorra. A long queue of cars were being checked at the customs point leaving the country, because Andorra is a “tax-free” zone, and many people cross the border just to buy duty-free goods and then bring them back into Spain to sell at a profit… I slowed down expecting to produce my passport, but was waved through by a smiling policeman, who raised his eyebrows at the sight of the heavily loaded bike…
The road winds along the gorge cut by the Grand Vila River in Andorra...
Small country... Small welcome sign...!!
There is only two entry and exit points to and from the country, the one on the Spanish border, and the other high up in the mountains, on the French border. The main road runs straight through the heart of the country, linking Spain to France. At Sant Julia de Loria, I stopped to take a look around this pretty little village, and then realised that the houses and shops that lined the route were all linked to the capital, Andorra la Vella… This is a tiny country, less than 500 km2 in size, with a population of less than 90 000 people, and all of them are concentrated in the long valley which the road runs through… The road is just 44 kms long, and is draped across the slopes of mountains as steep as anything you will see in the Alps of Central Europe…
My hotel in Andorra, the Barcelona...
The people of Andorra have the second highest life expectancy in the world, and Andorrans live to an average of 82 years of age…!! Gotta be the clean mountain air…!! That, and the crystal waters of the many mountain streams that run into the Gran Valira River… The road loops back and forth across this river, which flows into Spain…
I got back on the bike and rode to the northern edge of the capital, and settled on the first hotel I came across, The Barcelona… It was built right next to the river, and on the main road out to France, which I would be tackling first thing the next morning…
How not to load your bike for a long trip...
I walked down into the city centre, enjoying the sights and sounds of this “little village” country… Houses have been built on the steepest slopes imaginable, and getting to them must be a headache, because the roads twist and turn in a series of hairpin bends, just to travel a few hundred metres… I stopped at a little restaurant and ordered a cold beer and plate of seafood paella, and then sat watching as the many sidewalk cafes filled with people, as the evening wore on… My waiter told me that there are over 4000 shops in Andorra, and during the tourist season, more than 10 million visitors come here to ski in the winter, or hike in the mountains in summer…
Andorra seems to be a “hip” place to visit, judging by the young and affluent people seated around me… Across the road from where I sat, was a Ferrari and a Porsche dealership, and the Big Fella was not the only big BMW cruising the streets of Andorra… Many bikers rode into Andorra from France, spent the night, and then went on to Spain.
When I got back to the hotel, a black Suzuki was parked next to the Big Fella… It was loaded so high, that I burst out laughing at the sight of it…!
“I hope you’ll stop complaining about your load after seeing this!” I told him…
With darkness all around, and the rushing water of the river in the background, sleep came easily…
©GBWT 2010
Sounds like a great place to be. Watch out for the Bull.
Judging by those photographs of Julio the bullfighter, we are pleased that YOU missed the running of the bulls by a few days……you and Big Fella are certainly chewing up the km’s and having a great time. Thanks for sharing Andorra with us.