Cell Phone Towers Are a Great Invention

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As we cycled up yet another “gentle hill” today, Bill noted that cell phone towers, while not aesthetically pleasing, are a blessed sight to cyclists who know that they are at the top of the hill when a tower rises nearby. As for me, I was just glad that the ride was a bit less than 60 kilometers today and that the hills were gentle. My left knee is a bit “tired.” I must note, however, that the road today was FANTASTIC!!!! Evidently, the road we were on was recently replaced by freeway. There were few people on the freeway and NO ONE on our road. What a lovely ride through the countryside of Spain.

We arrived here in Trujillo about 12:30 today and soon found a cama (room) in the local pension. The room is quite nice with a private bath that has a small bathtub where I was able to wash all our laundry, which is now hanging in front of the balcony from a makeshift clothesline. That balcony window opens right onto the Plaza Mayor, a medieval plaza sporting a large statue of Pizarro, el conquistador de Peru. Surrounding the Plaza must be at least a square mile of palaces, castles, and churches that date back as much as a thousand years. Though there is a television in the room that gets the BBC news, we are enjoying watching the town below us.

Several items of interest here. One, we’ve met only one person who speaks English. No one else, even the woman in the tourist office, speaks even a smattering. This is the first town in which that has been the case. My high school Spanish is coming in handy. Secondly, the town has done little to exploit this medieval treasure. Few tourists, a number of restaurants, but no one hawking their wares or selling miniature castles as ticky, tacky tourist souvenirs. Thirdly, people live in these old houses. I wonder whether living in a thousand year old stone home is a sign of wealth or a sign of poverty.

Remembering that the Spanish tend to eat dinner at 10 p.m. or later, we opted to eat dinner at lunchtime, found a little place and had a decent meal with a glass of wine included. A waiter directed us to a super Mercado that had quite a selection of food at quite good prices, which is great because the food pannier was just about empty. We are not quite sure where tomorrow will be taking us. Unfortunately, the road we were supposed to head to Oropesa on is now an Autovia, meaning no bicycles allowed, so Bill is mapping an alternate route, which will not be any farther distance-wise but will be taking us into the sparsely occupied mountainous region of the country.

One other thing of interest is that we are not sure what time it is. The clock in this room says 6:13 (actually 18:13); however, the place we were in last night had us set our clocks ahead an hour, so they read 19:13. Oh well, time does not matter.

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