A Aldea to Xinzo de Limia - 48 miles

It was been a dispiriting day, one of exhausting climbing and more sapping rain, a rain that has dominated my reality for a large part of today's journey. But it has also been a day bookended by moments of kindness.

Looking from my room first thing, a few Portuguese village lights across the valley twinkled in the gloom while cloud clung ominously to the higher slopes. Heading to the main house to check my bike, Rosa, the guest house owner, insisted on cooking me a breakfast. Not part of the deal but highly welcoming. We spoke of Caminos, of her small vineyard of albariño grapes by the house and of her father's time when smuggling from across the border was commonplace and supported the economy of the local villages. Afterwards I cycled off into the half-light during a break in the weather, a small lane through other small vineyards belonging to the clutch of houses here and the next hamlet beyond. And within a few minutes it was raining again.

Setting Off

My route initially took me along the same road as yesterday, a few quiet and undulating miles in the rain passing small villages and towns and more vineyards, before turning off down into the valley and onto smaller roads and bigger inclines. Crossing the Miño - here no longer the border - I began my climb amid the woodland on the opposite bank to the sound of thunder rumbling across the hills somewhere behind me.

Across the Miño

For over three hours I climbed. It felt far longer. My world was the trees enclosing me, the road, the hill and the corner ahead. And the continuous rain. Occasionally I passed a tiny village of half a dozen houses, lost in this landscape and shut and silent against the weather. It amused me - if amused is the right word given the somewhat negative mindset now absorbing my thoughts - that the signs announcing your arrival and departure from these places were some way beyond the clusters of buildings; a sign of intent, or could there be a 'small village syndrome'?

Occasionally a gap in the woodland afforded a view: of clouds, of misty, distant hills and of snow-dusted peaks. Those gaps also allowed a fearsome wind through, icy from those peaks and driving the rain hard at me from a different direction. Apart from the very occasional bus shelter near a hamlet there was nowhere to hide from the weather; even under trees the wind, loud and noisy in the upper branches, drove down the rain from the leaves in large drops. I felt a slight sense of isolation and of being at the mercy of the elements, a sense intensified by my seemingly inescapable surroundings.

The water dripped from my helmet, my exposed clothing clung to my skin and the rain seeped into my waterproofs. Normally I think that once you are wet when cycling you are wet and the distance you cycle makes little difference as long as you are moving and keeping warm. But today - now - I was in a very different space. I just wanted it all to end. If somebody had passed at that point and offered me a lift I do believe I might have taken it. 

I avoided looking at the speedometer, it often registered a depressing four miles an hour. And the odometer, like the road and the weather, hardly seemed to change despite what seemed like an eternity of cycling. As a youngster I remember reading a short science fiction story about an astronaut trapped on an empty planet of continual rain and his resulting slow decline to madness. Now I think the author may have experienced a ride like this.

I know my difficulties were in part due to bad timing. Today was the Easter weekend and even if I had seen anywhere to stop it would most likely have been shut; not the best time for this journey in this weather. And on Friday I had been unable to stock up on food to carry for the same reason. Last night's accommodation had been in the middle of nowhere with no opportunity of a hot meal so then and now I was managing on the food I did have. I was not going to starve but neither was I eating enough to fuel myself properly in these circumstances nor to hold at bay that sense of mind and body sapping exhaustion that was overtaking me.

But things of course did improve. I left the trees and left the road for one through open moorland. Narrow and smooth, it mainly followed the contours of the ground rather than fighting them. The very openness of the route lifted my defeatism and opened my mind to a more positive attitude as I cycled at the faster pace that this road allowed. There were even a few minutes where the rain stopped and the sky brightened, although it soon started again with the same intensity as before making me realise how it was the rain, rather than tiredness, that was largely contributing to my state of mind. 

A few miles on and I was sure I would make it to Xinza de Limia (although the truth was that I had no realistic alternative). But I was wet, tired and cold and so far none of the few places I had passed through had had anywhere to give me warmth and respite from the weather. Then, on the main road to Xinza de Limia and only four miles out from the town, I saw a large shed of a cafe that had lights on. I walked in, feet like ice and hands numb while the act of stopping cycling had my body shaking uncontrollably. Through chattering teeth I ordered coffee and asked about food. I was the only person there but the owner cooked up a feast of pork, chips and salad, lit the log burner and positioned a table by it while all the time talking of Galician hospitality. Wine, espresso and a 'herbias' digestif all followed. It was just what I needed.

Half a pig..?

It was another twenty minutes in the rain to Xinza and my hotel and I was still shivering badly when I checked in, my sole focus a shower and sleep. I spread rain-soaked clothing on the hot radiator in my room and fell into bed to eventually drift off and dream of bad water leaks while trying to install a central heating system.