The bond of cyclists
Spans borders, languages, age,
Just help and be helped.
This morning we awoke, refreshed, in our pension/hostel in Alicante. Three were about to become two. But we had to make some arrangements: Venus needed a place to stay in Madrid, a way to get there, and a place to mail her bike. We rooted around, asking directions eventually from taxi drivers since passers-by seemed to have no idea where to find a bicycle shop. We found one which was, mercifully, just down the street from a Correos (Spanish post) office. The owner happened to be around and said that he'd even be receiving a bike box later that afternoon, and that he'd be happy to help Venus pack her bike and lug it down the street.
She poked around the web and found some cheap accommodation in Spain's capital, and we wandered Alicante until we found a cheap hostel for her to put herself up in for the night there. Things were working out! We handed her the map we'd acquired of Alicante and said our goodbyes.
A few days ago, we had a discussion about what we had all learned from the month that she spent with us. She had not expected a lot of the things that we had sort of taken for granted about the trip: we're effectively hobos. We don't do the sort of comfortable travelling that people do on their first trip abroad (we sleep in a tent, we bike hard every day, we spend most of our time in small towns rather than large cities). We work hard for what we think is a grand payoff: getting to see the real character of a country through real people who aren't groomed to deal with tourists. We don't go out on the town many evenings, simply because it's expensive and it makes cycling harder the next morning, not to mention that bars are really the same everywhere. We're having our own kind of trip, I guess, and she mentioned that she had learned something new from that sort of travel.
Evan and I learned what it means to really, really have to compromise on things sometimes. We think very similarly, and we tend to enjoy the same sorts of activities. We share a lot of opinions and interests and beliefs, and so we have a lot to chat about while riding. We are in love with our trip and its scenery and people and pueblos, and trying to teach someone who goes to school in Los Angeles about that was a difficult task, indeed.
Anyway, we managed to make it through the month, and now she's headed back off to whatever her next adventure is. Good luck, hermanita!
After leaving Alicante, we followed the coast up towards a town called Carpe. It was situated near a point just south of a large nature park that abutted on Valencia. That route promised a much more pleasant and verdant ride than the N-road, so we chose it.
Anyway, this led us to a town called Benidorm for siesta. It was a tourist town, full of high-rises brimming with old, overweight, English-or-German-or-generally-European-white tourists. The beach was nice, and I guess the redeeming feature of the town was the Leche Meringada we had at a beachside café. That stuff is tasty, folks.
Around dinnertime we found ourselves at last in Carpe. Incredibly, we found a shop which carried both ice and champagne (strange, yes, but it's been hard for us to find the two in a single place), so we got some of that and some persimmons. Persimmons are a bright orange fruit that are native to Indiana (and the surrounding area) and super delicious. You should probably go find one to try if you're not familiar.
Tonight we camp along the beach in a tiny sliver of park/picnic area/hiking trail smashed between million-dollar houses. For all that, though, it's rather peaceful. The sound of the sea...