Wide open Castile
Today’s stage doesn’t look very interesting. Over a hundred dead-flat kilometres separate me from Granja de Moreruela, the planned finish for the day. Before leaving Salamanca I meet David, a very friendly guy from Seville. He’s been riding the Ruta de la Plata from Seville, aiming to reach Granja de Moreruela and turn off there onto the Camino Sanabrés towards Santiago de Compostela. Since we’re heading for the same place today, we decide to ride together.
The route isn’t very interesting. A string of tracks with a good surface lets us move fast and, although there’s no climbing to speak of, the new line, laid out as a service road for the A-66 motorway, is harder than it looks. We run alongside the motorway in a sequence of tunnel – bridge – tunnel… that seems never-ending. From a tunnel under the motorway we climb up to a bridge over it, only to drop down to another tunnel and climb back up to another bridge… while the motorway runs completely flat. Utterly absurd. Still, we can take comfort in thinking what would become of us if we were on foot. Or worse, on our own.
Chatting away, we reach Zamora almost without noticing, just in time for lunch. After a quick look around the city we stop in the Plaza Mayor for a bite to eat. And that bite turns into a two-course set menu that makes us sleepy and takes away any wish to pedal. But there are still kilometres to go, so we can’t nod off.
The heat is on. The huge straights seem endless on a bike, and whenever we pass a walker we think how hard this part must be at such a slow pace. Some of these straights must take hours. One of them brings us to Montamarta, a small village where we stop for a cold drink and a short rest.
After Montamarta, the new line and the poor upkeep of the route play a dirty trick on us. The waymarks send us along a path that no longer exists, the GPS shows the same, and we have to fend for ourselves. After pushing the bikes for a while and making the most of the low water in the reservoir, we get round the problem and back onto the route. A string of very long straights, broken only by the odd stop and the odd cold drink, took us to Granja de Moreruela, the end of today’s stage. A good dinner and the comfortable (if neglected) municipal hostel were all that was left to enjoy of the day.