En Bicicleta por el mundo - Cycling the World

In Oviedos pilgrims hostel I met several interesting people, one of them Horst, a goodhearted bavarian guy in his fifties. He traveled all the way from Malaga to Oviedo, mostly walking or hitchhiking (including a solo walk across the Sierra Nevada in early spring!).
Altough he is equipped with good boots, a new backpack and all the other quality gear, he likes to travel the cheap way, sleep in parks (he was attacked three times while in Spain) and saving money where ever he can, but he loves to sit in cafés and spend his money on coffee and the occasional beer.
When he runs out of money, he returns to Germany, gets a job and work for half a year or so before getting fed up with german weather and nine-to-five job and taking off again.
Together we spend the night of San Juan watching the huge bonfire on the cathedral square, having a couple of Sidras and exchanging stories of our travels and our respective plans for the future. For my benefit Horst tells me about a couple of things how to save money on the road, like having lunch for 50 Cents, and so on. Good luck Horst!

After leaving lovely Oviedo I cycle towards Ariondas to rent a Kayak and cruising down the famous river Sella along spectacular scenery towards Ribadesella.

Back on my bike (crossing into Cantabria my cycle computer shows now over the 4.000 kms ) I take the costal route towards Bilbao where I am expected to meet with Leire, an old friend from my times as trainee at BOSCH, and her family and friends. They give me a hearty welcome, take me along to Barbecues and dinner parties and treat me just great.
I feel at home and once again it is hard to leave my friends and head for Irun. Gracias Leire and Jenny ! And I definitely have to come back to northern Spain to explore Galicia and Asturias and cycle the Picos de Europa, which I had seen from far away only.

After two weeks in Astorga I was ready to go on and took public transport to Lugo (Ok, this is cheating, but I REALLY did not feel to climb the Cruz de Ferro and O Cebreiro AGAIN -it would have been the second time in three weeks- so I invested the money in a bus ticket, packed my bike and hopped on the bus) and started cycling the Camino Primitivo that runs from Palas del Rey in Galicia to Asturias capital city, Oviedo.

Soon I found out that cycling in Asturias is great but tough on your legs, entering Asturias from the west it is a steady up and down along steep mountain ranges and the most direct way between remote villages is often a short downhill followed by a long uphill, or so it seemed. After two week sitting at a desk in Astorga my legs felt like jelly, furthermore I had a slight cold and could hardly breathe. So I suffered my way trough to lovely Oviedo and most of the days ended in a tiny pilgrims hostel with only 30-40 kms cycled (which felt like I did 120 kms).

Sorry for not updating my Blog until now. I haven' t been busy these days , but I just did not feel inspired to write... its just that some many things happend to me en route through Morroco.
I cross the plains to south-east Morroco, walked the Palmeries of Figuig with its 200.000 palm trees, enjoyed being invited to tea and couscous by strangers I asked for the way, took some tough off-road track ("pistes"), saw amazing sunsets, met the tourist hordes in their 4x4 drive vehicles near the Dunes of Erg Chebi, got sick with diarrehea and lost about 7 kilos in 5 days, cycled the beautiful Todra Gorge, camped in the High Atlas, got out of breath cycling the spectacular Tizi N Tichka pass, took a 40 kms long downhill towards Marrakech at 50 kms/hour,, shared my lunch with strangers in a road-side ramshackle restaurant, rode through the aparant madness of the Marrakech souk enjoying to ride alongside mule carts, street vendors and tourists.

Once in Marrakech it somehow seemed unreal. Did I really ride my bike up to the Koutoubia mosque right from my doorstep in Madrid ? After lots and lots of couscous and tajine dishes I enjoyed a nice Hamburger, watched lovely Marrakeshi girls walk by, got a room in a cheap but clean hotel next to the station and bought a ticket for the overnight-train to Tanger.

Back in Spain, I rode from Algeciras to Seville, visited Merida and returned to Madrid for a couple of days to fly to Germany for my cousins wedding. Then I left Madrid towards the north following the Camino de Santiago (St. James way) to Santiago de Compostela.
While writing these lines,I am in the small town of Astorga to help out as a Hospitalero at the local pilgrims hostal for a couple of weeks.

So I sit at the reception all day long stamping pilgrim credencials, receiving and registering the people staying in the albergue. I show them to their rooms, hand out blankets, run washing machine and
dryers, cook tea, take out the rubbish and offer assistance and some advice in case the people need help or have doubts about the camino.
The albergue may offer space to 160 pilgrims and these days of mid-june there is always between 80 and 120 people coming and going each day. The majority is well over 50 years old and most of them from Europe.

From time to time I share my "job" with amazing people from Finland, Holland and even Corea. Some of them volunteer to help out for a couple of days while others decided to stick around due to some minor injury or fatigue.
Being Hospitalero - Definitely a good and recommendable experience for every pilgrim as it helps to see the camino in a different light.