Day 20 - 1,000 mile cycling pilgrimage across France 🇫🇷 + Spain 🇪🇸

Wow what a day. I started off with coffee at the campsite bar whilst taking in the conversations and interactions around me in the new sounds of Spanish. Two policeman sat to my right at a table whilst a couple were seated at stools at the same bar I was sitting.

After coffee I went outside and re-organised my kitchen pannier Bag. I used the trick I learned from an English cyclist I met earlier in the trip and added a frozen bottle of water into the bottom of the pannier to keep the surrounding food items cool.

Before I departed the campsite I said goodbye to The German cycling motorcyclist buddies I met and shared beers with last night. Boris and Georg are two off-road motorcycles who have just traverdeversed the Pyrenees mountains off road on trails.

Last night I also spoke with a Swedish couple who have a car and bike body workshop in Switzerland. And they were taking the first four weeks vacation since starting the business. They were in an epic VW campervan and had a trailer with 2KTM motorcycles.

Today pretty much consisted of cycling uphill for multiple hours until I had had enough and decided to stop in the small village Mountain village of Bientza Lababien.

Here I found food and a warm welcome from Stella the owner. I ate vast amounts of chicken and potatoes. I’ve never had this happened to me before but half a bottle of wine was placed on the table with an empty glass and so I proceeded to partake in the drinking of wine.

By the end of the meal I was so tired I decided to pay for a room upstairs as the restaurant was also inn and slept off the alcohol and large meal.

When I woke I asked the son of Stella if my laundry could be washed and then took a walk around the village. The village consisted of stone buildings and gardens full of various vegetables including melons, tomatoes, figs, spring onions and other goods.

I noticed two other cyclists turned up as I was returning from my walk and I was told another cyclist would be turning up later today who is from Italy.

I sat downstairs at the bar and drank a beer with the son Miguel. He practices English whilst I practice my Spanish. Then I was asked by a large man with a round belly what time I would like to eat. He suggested 8 pm.

I went upstairs lounged around for a little bit and then went downstairs and joined a table of the two cyclist from Germany. Later the Italian cyclist joined us and we stayed up for many hours whilst drinking and talking about cycling.

I learnt many things from the cycling world including all these European routes which lasted many thousands of kilometres. I am now inspired as the Italian and German couple were in the 60s but pushing way more kilometres than I had been pushing.

I’ve learnt tonight that age does not need to restrict your ability to do big days on the bike or live a life full of adventure.