We knew today was going to be one of our longer days in the saddle and wondered how we would manage – a combination of increasing age, Bernie’s habit of not cycling regularly between trips and my heart condition meant there was a bit of a question mark in our minds about how we would fare.  But the fact that I am typing this whilst sitting in an apartment in Merida gives you the smallest hint that our worst worries did not materialise. 

There is always something special about the first hour’s cycling.  Merida, like the rest of Spain, is on Central European Summer Time at the moment, so the sun rises at 7.14am and sets at 9.28pm.  In contrast, Warsaw (which is also on CEST but a little further north) sees the sun rise at 4.41am and set at 20.23pm.  So leaving soon after 8am meant leaving not long after dawn.  The air was crisp, the light was low and the traffic was light as we left the town.

Out first 30km was away from our friend, the N630, and was totally brilliant cycling.  The roads were tiny, empty and had good surfaces.  The birdlife was abundant – every tree and bush alive with tweeting even when you could not hear the birds. In one village we cyced through there were more house martins than I have ever seen – their small udnests dripping from the eaves of every house. We coasted along going gently up and down (slightly more down than up).  We got glimpses across farmland to the hills to the north (a challenge for a few days time) but it was idyllic riding. 

Then we swept down an escarpment and came to the town of Ribera del Fresno.  The town had a busy coffee and desayuno cafe – where we had delicious coffee and tostada with ham and cheese.  The locals were all there – debating politics, legal disputes and the state of the nation.  Not speaking the language is unfortunate but it does mean we listen carefully to how people speak as opposed to understanding what they are saying.  I recall our daughter, who is fluent in Spanish, saying she could not understand anything anyone said in this part of Spain – and perhaps that is not surprising.  Firstly, they talk alot – often all at the same time.  There appears no separation between words – with one word flowing into the next – and not a great deal of intonation.  It is monochrome, flat delivery of words without the speaker taking a breath between sentences (or someone would interrupt and take over).  The result is a submachine gun form of delivery which takes no prisoners – often with more than one gun firing at the same time.  Then there are pauses, lots of laughter and on to the next topic.  I could spend hours in cafes just listening to the chat even though I understood nothing at all.

After Ribero, it was 8km to re-join the N630 at Villafranca de los Barros.  We skirted the town and started on a busy section of the main road, adjacent to a motorway.  Not quite the quiet and unoccupied minor roads we had had since starting.  And the wind was against us – and seriously against us.  Although this ride fell 400m over the day and had no major climbs, riding into a headwind on the Spanish plain was a pain.  I mainly took the lead and Bernie tucked in behind, but it was tough and a bit boring for us both.  We had the memory of a glorious first couple of hours but that faded as another truck passed slightly too close. 

We struggled on to another town I cannot pronounce – Almendralejo.  WhatsApp voicenotes with the right way to say the town name are (sort of) welcome.  But was about as interesting as it was pronounceable, but by now it was late morning we dived into a cafe for a snack and a welcome break from the relentless wind.  When we emerged we headed North again but for some reason the wind had mostly relented.  This was a mystery as there were no hills and nothing appeared to affect the prevailing winds, but we were not complaining.  We pressed on gently and got to another one-horse town, Torremejia, which we could pronounce.  Sitting at the side of the road munching a sandwich brought back so many memories of doing the same in many parts of the world – but at least the sun was shining and we only had 16km to go.

The last bit was more of the same – not much headwind and more down than up but fairly monotonous scenery.  I suspect you could say “seen one field of low cultivated vine, seen them all” but they are still pretty.  In a few months they will be heaving with grapes but we were too early in the season.  Interestingly, they are still planting vines here whilst they are ploughing up vineyards in France due to changes in drinking habits.  The younger generation, it seems, are just not drinking enough wine to keep many of the vineyards solvent and so there is a glut of wine.  I seem to remember this happening before and the EEC (as it then was) paying farmers for more wine than was needed (? A wine lake).  That does not seem to happen anymore (possibly due to CAP reform) but here there are new vineyards being planted all along our route.  It may well be that they are selling grapes as a product as well as using them for wine.

We reached the outskirts of Merida about 2.30pm – tired but not absolutely exhausted.  It had been tough but not as tough as our worst fears.  We have a day off the bikes tomorrow and so can sample the local wine this evening.