Art of Travel: Paris to Madrid

Day Six

I planned to leave Lourdes at 9am but didn’t manage to exit the campsite until 11 because before I set off I decided to tighten the spokes again and while doing so the spanner slipped a couple of times, rounding the square base of those spokes making them impossible to tighten and leaving the wheel buckled. Wondering what to do next I remembered a cheap pair of fold away pliers I had packed art the last minute (just in case) and with them I was able to gain enough grip to remove the buckling, but the affair left the ends of some of the spokes knackered.

It was an exhausting day’s ride to a large degree through quiet, narrow roads with steep climbs and corresponding decents. A lot of the roads still had the paint markings from last year’s Tour de France, but navigational markings for the riders warning them of oncoming hazards or turns, and riders names painted in adoration by fans.

Today was cloudless and 30° C. Whilst stopping to catch my breath halfway up a hill climb all I could hear was the call of crickets combining with the clamour of the resonating ring of bells alerting me to an unseen heard of grazing cattle in the valley below. I thought how it might be more interesting if the farmer used bells with a range of tones, perhaps spanning an octave. This way you would have a continuous random melody composed in the meadow by a collective of composers unaware of there creativity. I hope they are unaware of their creativity, I mean that they grow to ignore the bell’s presence otherwise it could drive them to insanity and acts of a devient nature out of character for your common everyday domestic bovine. Maybe it acts as a comfort, comfort in familiarity? I mean, perhaps they don’t remember a time without the sound from the bell around their necks causing its presence to become noticable only by its absence? Its surprising how you can get use to some noises to the point of no longer noticing them when they are still clearly audible to those unfamiliar to it.

A case in point occurred a few weeks before leaving Dublin on the bus into town to work one morning. Sitting on the double seats across from me on the upper deck lounged a guy about my age with his feet up on the little shelf at the base of the front window reading a book and breathing heavily through his nose so loudly it was causing visible signs of aggitation on the faces of those around. It was as if he had been running for half an hour. To be honest it didn’t bother me because I knew I’d be getting off the bus in fifteen minutes or so, but can you imagine having to live with someone like him. I speculated that he had probably developed an immunity to the sound of his heavy breathing to the point of no longer noticing it, but his poor flatmate or partner!

So, from Lourdes to Montrejeau the roads were fairly secluded from heavy traffic, and the towns and villages small and sedate. La Barthe was no exception on first entering the village, so I was a little surprised to see a campsite open, and even more so to see how busy it was, with teenagers. Just around the bend from the campsite a barrier blocked the road to traffic but I could see a hub of activity a little further beyond the road block from where I could hear the sound of music. Rather bizarrely I had stumbled upon a music festival that was, for some reason, staged in a small Pyrenean village. A seven piece thrash/funk band were giving it beans in the marque and playing quite a tight set in their sequenced dayglo shorts, but they weren’t attracting much of a crowd. Neither were the ubiquitous mix of “alternative” market stalls. Most of the kids seemed to be doing their own thing under the sun back at the campsite. It was only about two in the afternoon, perhaps they were saving themselves for the main acts. It was rather a surreal interlude.

He told me that last year he cycled from Land’s end to John ‘O Groats in 18 days, which is when he decided to take it easy when travelling from points A to B. He said that on the first couple of days on that trip he nearly killed himself due to the amount of miles he was trying to eat up, but slowed his pace down when he remembered that he was suppose to be enjoying the journey. For my liking he had gone to the opposite extreme. So I said I’d probably meet him cycling past me at the next hill, and shot off. We didn’t meet again, but that night I dreamt I saw him cycling past my campsite chatting happily with his two friends.

I rolled into St. Gaudens at about 16:00 feeling fairly zapped of energy. The blazing sun really drains it from you. On reaching the far side of the town I had to consult the map and compass to try to work out which road to take to St. Girons. A quick scan of the map informed me that I had another 40km or so to go. The revelation left me feeling momentarily deflated- I didn’t think I had the reserve of energy to make it. In need of a boost I remembered the Snickers bar I had bought a couple of days previously still lying on stand-by in the pannier bag.

While munching away by the roadside and both thinking about the distance I had covered that day (about 80km) and the 40km I had left to get me to St. Gaudens I registered a road sign for a campsite the far side of town which I had passed on the way through so I knew it existed, and better still, had seen that it was open. Taking a cue from the mentality of the English mountain biker I thought that if I’m exhausted why try to cover another torturous 40km, particularly when the present town had an open campsite waiting for me.

When I spoke to the Dutch couple in Lourdes they told me that they were talking a day of rest so, although it may sound a bit stupid, I thought “hey, I could take a day off too”! After all, I was doing well for time and it was suppose to be a holiday. So I took the Sunday in St. Gaudens off as my day of rest. A great deal of time was spent writing up this journal, which was a shame because days after the the journeys the finer details of thoughts and memories tend to fall out of focus and become lost.

 

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