09/15/2023 Bikepacking Spain Day 38 : Picos

We are happy to be entering the Picos de Europa. There is Janet that little dot! --

Speaking of Janet, she has been getting noticeably stronger the last couple days. Just like Sepp Kuss riding 10k days back to back to back, the repeated training has made Janet zippier the last couple days. Even though this is just a fun sightseeing tour, I can't help but smile seeing the positive adaptations from hard work going up all those hills. By the way, this is her doing the tent drying dance. --

Two coffee stops today?! We justified two because this first bar served us instant coffee! The instant did the caffeine buzz job just fine, but we stopped again for better taste and in return got a little entertainment. The man making our coffee decided that we didn't speak Spanish well enough after we didn't understand his initial greeting. His adopted a strategy to converse with us using single nouns. In place of verbs, he would just use hand motions. Instead of speaking Spanish, this became a game of charades for us. We of course responded in complete Spanish sentences (after all we can have hour long conversations with other people on a range of deep topics nearly fluently)... but he held his ground on the charades. For example, he ambled about the room pantomiming an old person while saying "trick!" "Trick!!" This was in response to us saying we were Americans from California ... and We eventually figured it out correctly! "Trump!" He nodded eagerly - pleased that we understood him (and we explained it was "Trump" not "Trick"). Next he doubled down on the oldness factor - walking and crouching lower. "Presidente" he said. This was easy now. "Joe Biden" we quickly figured out. We did learn from him that he had been to a list of cities in the US (mostly along the Mississippi River) delivering coal on ships a long time ago. It was a pretty goofy "conversation". --

Aw, what the heck. I'll tell you a little about my "fracasos" (screwups) cuz they are a little funny (to you the reader, not as much to me). The other day, Janet and I were looking all over for the key so we could leave it on the table of the apartment we were leaving. We finally found it: still in the front door from the previous night. This might not be funny except for the fact that the same scenario had played out in one of our hotels a couple weeks prior. I was reminded to tell you of this because Janet and I were wandering around camp this morning looking for my Buff (that bandana thing I wear to keep ears warm/protect from sun wind)... Janet cleverly thought to check her photos when I lamented that I may have left it at a water stop... her photos pleasantly revealed that the buff had made it to camp. But where was it?? After digging through all the bags and unpacking everything I finally announced to Janet who was searching on top of a rock: " I found it..." it was on my head! --

Today was fun with not 1 but 2 coffee stops. I do feel like I’m getting a bit stronger. Thanks for the encouragement - and the tow up the last 5 miles!

Ann L.