Ponferrada

I figured that somewhere outside of Pamplona, once my calf muscles that were so locked up I thought my Achilles tendons might tear apart finally loosened up, that the most painful days were behind me. Nope. My ass is beyond sore and just standing up out of bed has my things screaming. Once Arandaño Joe found out that you can take a bike on the bus you couldn’t buy that kid a ticket fast enough. So, it is just Nick and I up again this morning, some unintelligible mumbling coming from under the covers as we shut the hotel room door behind us.

The goal today is Ponferrada, roughly 30 miles away and on the other side of a pretty meaty hill. We’ve made a couple of pretty critical adjustments to avoid a repeat of yesterday. First, I have a t-shirt wadded up and stuffed down the back of my shorts. It looks like I’m wearing a diaper but it’s the only way I can bear sitting down (along with 400mg of ibuprofen to dull the pain receptors). And equally important, we’ve agreed to stick to the road where the going is far smoother. It’s no pleasure cruise but, with a few breaks, we manage to grind up and over the summit.

Near the top is an iron cross where many pilgrims stop and place a rock that they have brought with them from home. It is a little less conspicuous than we imagined and by the time we learned about it we were already well into our journey so no rocks from home for us. Maybe next time.

The fun isn’t quite over as even though the back half of the ride is all downhill, it is a steep descent and the cliffs make the cost of missing a corner is pretty significant. We ride the brakes almost the entire way down, the burning smell a reminder to stop from time to time to let them cool.

Near the bottom is the village of Molinaseca. It’s tiny, just one long street it seems, but right on the river at the end of big, old bridge. We pull here for a rest and a few pictures before the final push into Ponferrada.

Ponferrada doesn’t seem to get much ink in the guide books so I don’t have particularly high hopes for this stop, but it turns out to have something for everyone. There aren’t a lot of cities in Spain that have Marriotts but, lo and behold, this is one of them. Then there is the thousand year old Templar castle, built as an outpost to protect pilgrims like us on their way to Santiago de Compostela. There is some debate in our small group as to which building holds more significance.

My positive experience with the butt shirt has convinced Joey to mount back up tomorrow. It is a two climb day so a bold decision on his part, but misery loves company so we’re glad to have him rejoining the squad.