Today is Sunday. The day starts with a swim at the sea, before 8 o’clock. The Canadian family leaves before us and go in the opposite direction. The road the monotonous. We follow a good cycle path next to the highway for 40 kilometres. Unscenic to say the least. The end of it has two 17% climbs where we have to push the bicycles. At Pobla Tornesa we ask for a shade. “No shade in town” and they sent us to the other side of the highway, next to a sanctuary there is a very nice picnic stop. There are some benches 10 meters from the cars and trucks passing by. We do picnic anyway with the noise before leaving for smaller roads. Not much to see apart from fields. The next village is els Ibarsos, where we stop at the café. There is fiesta, with some contest of cows and bulls starting later. We would like to see it but there is no place to sleep in the village. Few kilometres later we find a place between some pine trees to put the tent. The pine needles make and excellent mattress. We cook some pasta before going to sleep. Life is boring.

Today is Saturday. Despite being close to the highway, the night was ok. For breakfast for a change we eat a pre-made tortilla de patata. It is fulfilling. We need to buy contact lenses liquid. In Valencia cars drive fast and do not respect much the red lights. Fortunately, there are good bicycle lanes. I’m not in the mood of looking for shops which Eva does not agree. We argue but eventually we find the liquid and stop for a coffee to calm things down. The cross of Valencia continues. It seems a nice town to study, with good young vibe going on. The cycling path is now a large lane. There are a lot of other cyclists. For lunch, we stop at a stony beach and go for a swim. The Mediterranean is warm but still refreshes the body. We continue our way as close as possible of the beach but there are always some buildings in the middle. In Nulles we arrive to a small camping just by the sea. There is a Canadian couple with three daughters cycling one year around Europe. After a small chat with them we go for another swim. We get two San Miguel from a machine to go with the salmon in a curry sauce we bought just before. Life is a world of possibilities.

Today is Friday. It was a completely silent night. No cars, no birds. The tent is completely humid. Sometime I will have to understand when does the tent gets condensation inside or outside and when it doesn’t. The mountain road slowly gets us lower. The forest transforms into orange trees. We are in the middle of the known valencian orange fields. The path is quiet and nice until we approach the suburbs of Valencia and the traffic gets very dense. We get bread in Torrent and decide that we are not yet prepared for crossing a big city. So we change our plan and choose a camp site west of Valencia. Before we go to a huge Carrefour to buy some dinner and land at this camping just next to the highway. It is quite big but still off-season and we get 30% discount. We buy one litre of beer to go with our falafel dinner. Life is to question.

[This is a serie of seven posts, relating last week events. Just one of the thousand ideas that come when you cycle all day long.]

Today is Thursday. We are in Alcalá del Jucar. The room was stuffy without the air conditioned. My ankle is much better and almost not swollen. Eva is relieved. The breakfast is the most industrial possible. We get a full load of glucose-fructose syrup in the mix of cakes provided. The day starts with a steep climb to get out of the canyon. Once outside it seems a different world. We would never imagine that canyon exists in the middle of the flat countryside. We are happy to have discovered it. The road is mostly flat until we arrive to the next larger canyon. At the bottom a desolate village, Casas del Rio, where we picnic next to a river. The clouds are arriving and certainly the rain will get soon to us. The climb has panels every kilometre saying the average and maximum steepness of the following 1000 meters. Still before the second panel we stop to quickly dress up and protect ourselves from the storm under a tree. The rain always arrives on the longest climb of the day. When it starts to calm down we get into the bicycles and continue cycling up. The kilometre panels pass one after another. One hundred meters before the top the rain stops and the sun appears. We are back to shorts and t-shirt for the next few kilometres. In Yatová, after a coffee in a terrace, as soon as we put our hands back to the bicycles it restarts to rain. Back to waterproof clothes. Back to a climb. The road winds up to another mountain. We look for a place to camp. After some effort, we find a place next to a small path. There is no traffic. Life is silence.