Bonjour la France !

Welcome to France, the home of Baguette, Pain au Chocolat, Pernod, green fields, lovely blonde girls, Bordeux, the Loire River, hundreds of Chateuxs, Fromage, Crepes, Mont St Michel, Cidre and a couple of Velos.

Shortly after leaving Irun I finally cross into France with high expectations and looking forward to discover country number three on my way around the world and so I cycle along the coast through the area known as Les Landes de Gascone, unfortunately the school holidays have started recently and the roads and campsites fill with cars and campervans, people eager to reach the pre-booked campsites along the coast.

To my surprise, the roads are not very wide (especially in the villages) and the cars often have to que behind me and wait to overtake.

There is lots of cycling tracks criss-crossing the french south-west but I get soon bored of the straight routes and the pine-tree forests to my left and right - all day long. A couple of times I nearly fall asleep because the ride along this seemingly neverchanging landscape has become quite monotonous.

I stay in a couple of pilgrims hostals and private accomodations (thank you to Famille Lamothe!), do some wild camping and spend the night of the 14th of july (the french national holiday) in a small village campsite, enjoy the fireworks and try to speak french to the locals.

Bordeaux seems to be a nice and rich city with its stone buildings, bars and brasseries and intense student (night)life. A single night in the local youth hostal sets me back 20 € (incl. breakfast) , so I ride on through the winecountry of the Girdonde, along vineyards and past impressive Chateauxs, towards LaRochelle (where I am expected by Warmshowers host ean-Jacques) always tempted by the signs offering winetastings and good food.

Jean-Jaques and his wife welcome me like an old friend, feed me like a king and take me on a ride to La Rochelle harbour on their recumbent bikes. In the beginning I am really tense and can´t find my equilibrium on the strange machine but after 10 minutes I relax my shoulders and roll easily dow the street. It feels like cycling while sitting on a sofa. And you are the centre of attention wherever you go, people turning their heads, making comments, laughing. I am quite sure I will change to a recumbent bicycle soon...

Once in Tours I stay in the pilgrims hostel of St Martins basilica, chat with the nuns, visit the saints tomb and roam the historic city centre with its ancient little houses and small alleys right besides the Loire river. Leaing the city to cycle along the Loire to Nantes I have my first (altough harmless) accident. Somehow I fall sideways off my bike and the plastic hose of my front break rips. For the next 300 kms I cycle with one brake only, fortunately the Loire cycle paths are mostly flat and I do not have to use my break much.

Towards Irun

In Oviedos pilgrims hostel I met several interesting people, one of them Horst, a goodhearted bavarian guy from in his fifties. He traveled all the way from Malaga to Oviedo, mostly walking or hitchhiking (including a solo walk across the Sierra Nevada in early spring!).
Altough he is equipped with good boots, a new backpack and all the other quality gear, he likes to travel the cheap way, sleep in parks (he was attacked three times while in Spain) and saving money where ever he can, but he loves to sit in cafés and spend his money on coffee and the occasional beer.
When he runs out of money, he returns to Germany, gets a job and work for half a year or so before getting fed up with german weather and nine-to-five job and taking off again.
Together we spend the night of San Juan watching the huge bonfire on the cathedral square, having a couple of Sidras and exchanging stories of our travels and our respective plans for the future. For my benefit Horst tells me about a couple of things how to save money on the road, like having lunch for 50 Cents, and so on. Good luck Horst!

After leaving lovely Oviedo I cycle towards Ariondas to rent a Kayak and cruising down the famous river Sella along spectacular scenery towards Ribadesella.

Back on my bike (crossing into Cantabria my cycle computer shows now over the 4.000 kms ) I take the costal route towards Bilbao where I am expected to meet with Leire, an old friend from my times as trainee at BOSCH, and her family and friends. They give me a hearty welcome, take me along to Barbecues and dinner parties and treat me just great.
I feel at home and once again it is hard to leave my friends and head for Irun. Gracias Leire and Jenny ! And I definitely have to come back to northern Spain to explore Galicia and Asturias and cycle the Picos de Europa, which I had seen from far away only.

From Astorga to Oviedo

After two weeks in Astorga I was ready to go on and took public transport to Lugo (Ok, this is cheating, but I REALLY did not feel to climb the Cruz de Ferro and O Cebreiro AGAIN -it would have been the second time in three weeks- so I invested the money in a bus ticket, packed my bike and hopped on the bus) and started cycling the Camino Primitivo that runs from Palas del Rey in Galicia to Asturias capital city, Oviedo.
Soon I found out that cycling in Asturias is great but tough on your legs, entering Asturias from the west it is a steady up and down along steep mountain ranges and the most direct way between remote villages is often a short downhill followed by a long uphill, or so it seemed. After two week sitting at a desk in Astorga my legs felt like jelly, furthermore I had a slight cold and could hardly breathe. So I suffered my way trough to lovely Oviedo and most of the days ended in a tiny pilgrims hostel with only 30-40 kms cycled (which felt like I did 120 kms).

Morroco to Astorga

Sorry for not updating my Blog until now. I haven' t been busy these days , but I just did not feel inspired to write... its just that some many things happend to me en route through Morroco.

I cross the plains to south-east Morroco, walked the Palmeries of Figuig with its 200.000 palm trees, enjoyed being invited to tea and couscous by strangers I asked for the way, took some tough off-road track ("pistes"), saw amazing sunsets, met the tourist hordes in their 4x4 drive vehicles near the Dunes of Erg Chebi, got sick with diarrehea and lost about 7 kilos in 5 days, cycled the beautiful Todra Gorge, camped in the High Atlas, got out of breath cycling the spectacular Tizi N Tichka pass, took a 40 kms long downhill towards Marrakech at 50 kms/hour,, shared my lunch with strangers in a road-side ramshackle restaurant, rode through the aparant madness of the Marrakech souk enjoying to ride alongside mule carts, street vendors and tourists. Once in Marrakech it somehow seemed unreal. Did I really ride my bike up to the Koutoubia mosque right from my doorstep in Madrid ? After lots and lots of couscous and tajine dishes I enjoyed a nice Hamburger, watched lovely Marrakeshi girls walk by, got a room in a cheap but clean hotel next to the station and bought a ticket for the overnight-train to Tanger.

Bak in Spain, I rode from Algeciras to Seville, visited Merida and returned to Madrid for a couple of days to fly to Germany for my cousins wedding. Then I left Madrid towards the north following the Camino de Santiago (St. James way) to Santiago de Compostela.
While writing these lines,I am in the small town of Astorga to help out as a Hospitalero at the local pilgrims hostal for a couple of weeks.

So I sit at the reception all day long stamping pilgrim credencials, receiving and registering the people staying in the albergue. I show them to their rooms, hand out blankets, run washing machine and dryers, cook tea, take out the rubbish and offer assistance and some advice in case the people need help or have doubts about the camino.
The albergue may offer space to 160 pilgrims and these days of mid-june there is always between 80 and 120 people coming and going each day. The majority is well over 50 years old and most of them from Europe.

From time to time I share my "job" with amazing people from Finland, Holland and even Corea. Some of them volunteer to help out for a couple of days while others decided to stick around due to some minor injury or fatigue.
Being Hospitalero - Definitely a good and recommendable experience for every pilgrim as it helps to see the camino in a different light.

En route to Tendrara

Its "only" about 115 kms to the next town, Tendrara. The map shows no hills whatsoever so it should be rather easy to cover this distance cycling the whole day I think rather happily as I stock up on oranges, dates and water the next morning. Ibrahims mother gives me hoobz (home-made bread), still warm from the oven. I say goodbye to the family and roll out of the little village in company of Ibrahim who insists to come along for the first kms. As we say our goodbye he tells me I am always welcome in his home and invites me for his brothers marriage.

I thank him many times for the hospitality and out of the blue start crying.

After a couple of kms of flat road there is a little detour due to road construction and I hear someone calling my name ?! It s Ibrahims brother whos is working at the site and also wished me farewell and Bon Voyage.

From now on I am surrounded by flat mostly arid land without any trees in sight and nothing around for miles and miles. Only the odd bus, Grand Taxi or truck overtake me honking happily.

I stop at a couple of small houses to have a light lunch of oranges, hoobz with cheese and honey and some biscuits, there is a bunch of kids around which yell at me but keep their distance. Only three brave boys venture out to go see the stranger that arrived on a velo and is having a feast in the middle of their village. I share some of my bread with them and again they are off to fetch an adult to talk to me. A guy in dirty mecanics clothes and an old man approach me and wish me Salaam, inquire friendly about my trip and offer me some water. After a couple of nods and handshakes I leave. They must think me crazy cycling in Morroco.

As it prooves, I was wrong about the distance to be covered this day. After nearly 8 hours and only 85 kms cycling against a bloody steady headwind, I give in and decide to set up my tent for the first time during my trip in Morroco. I am rather nervous about this because there is nowhere to hide my tent behind and I will be seen from miles away.

I decide to approach some shepperds and ask them for permission (should they speak some french...). It prooves to be a good decision, "my" shepperds are a couple of funny guys, laughing at me they soon understand I want to set up my tent around here. They make gestures to come with them and making jokes we start walking towards their tents. As I start putting up my tent, they watch in wander and offer me fresh goat-milk for strong legs (actually they fill up my whole bottle !! The milk will last me a couple of days...) and call their mother and sister to come see and meet the foreigner. After having tea with me, they round up the herd of goats and sheep and lock them in the fence nearby their tent.

It is time for dinner and they ask me to join them for some couscous. I happily agree. The ladies are preparing a couscous with milk, onions and terfez. It has a sweet taste and is just delicious.

The running gag of the evening is that later I will encounter a donkey sleeping in my tent (On the way we saw a donkey and I asked wheter its theirs...).

But no donkey is around as I marvel at the million stars in the night sky, so I get into my tent and fall fast asleep only to wake occasionaly from the sound of coughing sheep and hoping goats hooves.