Day 6

Day 6, originally uploaded by raoul_dewinne.

This morning my sweetheart was still wondering why the heck she was doing this - but doubts were also creeping into my own mind. Indeed, there are much easier and more comfortable ways of traveling to Santiago. But once again the weather forecast was announcing improvements and once again it gave us hope, and yes, we saw patches of blue sky that seemed to be spreading the good news.



The dream of every skier is to stay at a ski-in-ski-out hotel - similar goes for the biker. We enjoyed the luxury having our hotels for the next three nights really ON the bike trial.



When preparing our bicycle in the morning for another 72 km ride we had an enthusiastic supporter to wave us out. Uli, a nice German guy who stayed at the same hotel was full of admiration of our bike and of our plan to cover such a long distance to Santiago - he thought I was a younger brother of Eddy Merckx. I love German people :-)



The magnificent bike trail - our first of this kind in a lifetime - that we commenced on last night would continue for another 120 kms. Accompanied by the relaxing sound of the ocean waves this lovely trail meandered through the dunes, along beaches and through pine tree forests...



A seaside resort bathing in the sunlight seduced us successfully to make a stop and enjoy the scenery while having a hearty café chantilly. Watching the smooth rolling ocean from the shadow of a colorful umbrella ma chérie commented with a broad smile: "La vie est belle..." and like a fully-qualified Don Juan I perfected "...avec toi" :-)



With our bike always in sight we could watch how numerous people would stop and marvel at our tandem. If we had received only half a Euro from every person gazing at our bike during this trip so far, our entire journey would already be completely paid for... and if this would continue till Santiago, I might retire by then ;-)



But the best was still to come. A group walked up to our bike and one of them started singing on the tunes of a famous French tango: "Le plus beau, c'est le plus beau vélo du monde..." Fabulous :-))



"Isn't it delightful having friends coming from distant quarters" Confucius said. Today, about 2500 years later we were able to comprehend to the full extent what he might have meant... Good friends of ours traveling to the eastern part of Spain drove via the western part of France (i.e. way out of their way) to come and visit us - and encourage us. We lubricated this special get together with plenty of 'pastis', a French aperitif with aniseed. That night we double checked our luggage for all unnecessary items (e.g. like a tripod - who takes a tripod on a trip like this anyway???) so that our visitors could take all those burdensome kilograms with them by car. And so we finally realized another eternal law of biking that "less is more" - indeed, we've never been that happy for having less than we had before :-)