We left the house on a Thursday morning and made it as far north as the lake just past El Tiemblo, where we’d stopped a couple of years ago. I took a lovely photo of the lake near sunset, and when looking back at the last time we were here I seem to have taken an almost identical photo – I guess when I like something I like it!
After a nice quiet night we got going north again fairly early, avoiding toll-roads and arriving at our favourite campground Rio Luna.
We spent a few days just chilling out, going for a couple of nice walks, and watching the Vuelta on the tv in the campground’s bar – while sipping some nice Rioja.
On our second day here I had a fight with a folding lawn chair…
…I lost.
Two days before the stage we came to see we took a little re-con drive to the general area, and decided to go to the second-to-last climb rather than the last one.
There are a couple of places along the way where the fires had swept down one mountain, across the road and up the other side.
Luckily there aren’t any bad ones around the area at the moment, although it was a horrible summer in some places.
Back at the campground one of the local ranchers was moving his herd of sheep, taking some time for them to graze in the field just outside the campground’s fence before moving them along.
We got up quite early the next morning to head to the mountain we’d chosen for Saturday’s race, leaving just as it was getting light.
It was still misty when we got to the top of the San Lorenzo, and we found a wonderful wide spot that only had two other campervans parked.
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We had a couple of nice walks – there are lots of horses and cows on the hills and they’re not all fenced in.
By evening there were many more campervans both behind and in front of us, and during the next morning we couldn’t believe how many more managed to squish in.
An enterprising fellow brought an ice-cream truck up – he also had chips and beer – looked like he was doing a good business.
Our ‘Belgian friends’ arrived in their huge bus, this time with Tudor on it rather than Quickstep. They stopped and said a quick hello to me (I was out walking Max) before heading back down the climb to park. Later in the day they walked up and we had a really nice chat – we first met them several years ago and have seen them regularly at many different races in several different countries. They are Alaphilippe supporters thus the sponsor name change on their bus. It was really nice to see them again.
At one point one of the black horses and her little foal started walking down the road and a car was coming up from below us – I made the ‘slow down’ motion to him. When he stopped I realized he was the horses’ owner and he got them back up the track where they would be safe.
The Palestinian protesters had been busy – there were slogans painted on the road, and stickers on all of the signs denouncing Israel, etc. Colin and I, and also one of our neighbouring campervaners scratched off as many as we could. Then later Colin noticed that many of the signposts up and down the road had cardboard painted with Palestinian flags tied to them. I walked down about ½ km and tore them all off the posts – almost every single person parked along the road either gave me the ‘thumbs up’, said ‘good job’ or ‘thank you’!
There was one woman sitting on the road almost across from our campervan who actually said ‘don’t you support other people’s right to their opinion?’ and I countered with ‘I do, but this is a cycling race, not a political forum’. Our neighbour also told her to shut up.
We did get, of course, a marker for ‘top of the climb’, along with a bit of barrier – also several well-armed policemen. I had a nice chat with one of them and they’re not going to tolerate any guff from any protestors.
There have been a couple of issues with protestors intefering with racers, and there’s talk of changing the final day into Madrid. Not to mention that the Israel Premium Tech team is under pressure to withdraw – they’ve already removed ‘Israel’ from their jerseys and I’m sure some of the riders are more than a little anxious. Again – it’s a sporting event!
As usual we knew when the riders were getting close because of the helicopters and motos, then we could see them snaking up the hairpins below us.
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It took a while for everyone to pass, then we walked up to where a group of folks were gathered outside a campervan. The fellow had swivelled his tv out the door and we all got to watch the final climb up past Saliencia with Soler – a spanish rider – triumphant at the finish. A really, really good and fun couple of days on the side of a mountain.
Sally McKenzie's European Adventures 