Days 56 to 68
19 August, 2024 – 31 August, 2024
Statistics:
- Distance: 245km
- Ride time: 18h
- Ascent: 1800m
- Descent: 1900m
- Duration: 13 days
- On bikes: 8 days
- Average: 30 km/day
We were excited to enter Spain, the final European country for a while. Crossing the border was easy with bikes because we could easily pass the line of cars. But in the first 10 kilometers, our excitement for Spain faded away. We saw multiple women, dressed only in bikinis, just sitting on the chairs by the road, waiting for something. It didn’t take us long to figure out what they were waiting for when we saw a car pulling up to one of them, exchanging some words, and getting her in the car. This clear display of prostitution shocked us, but it seemed as if nobody else cared, apparently not even the police. Luckily, this didn’t continue into the rest of Spain; it was contained in this region, and we have learned that it was present here mostly because of the truck drivers who would pick these women up. But it still makes you question whether they do it voluntarily or were forced into this kind of work. The beginning of Spain made a bad impression on us, but after the initial shock, we didn’t have any more unpleasant surprises.
It’s important to note that we didn’t ride far into Spain; we’ve only experienced the Catalonia region, which is the richest and most developed part of Spain. This region is struggling to become an independent country; they had a referendum where around 90% of people voted for independence, but they got turned down by Madrid by making the referendum invalid. So whatever we saw of Catalonia might not be true for the rest of the country.
The first thing we checked about Spain was their view on wild or stealth camping, but sadly, they don’t allow it and are especially strict with coastal areas and sleeping on the beaches. We’ve heard that they might sometimes even check some remote beaches by helicopter. Because of all this, we were more cautious with camping spots, but we still slept in our tent, out in the nature. To avoid any problems, we changed our original route to go more inlands instead of riding by the coast, and it worked well for us.
Beside that, the bicycle roads in larger cities seemed well marked and easy to follow, especially in Barcelona. Between the cities we had to share the roads with cars, but in general we didn’t have any problems. We liked that most roads had a wide paved shoulder when they were uphill (usually over 1 meter wide), so we didn’t slow down the traffic and there wasn’t any dangerous overtaking. This shoulder usually narrowed when the road went downhill, but it was still enough to allow cars to safely pass us.
The drinking fountain situation improved over the one in France. It was easier to find water so we could again reduce the amount we carried with us. But unfortunately, the water wasn’t very cold. We got spoiled in the Alps.
Sadly, we didn’t spend enough time in Spain to get a proper feel of it. All together, we were cycling for only 8 days, barely exploring the Catalonia region. So it’s hard for us to draw any conclusions about the country, and if we did, it wouldn’t be fair. All in all, we hope that we will have more opportunities to come back and spend more time there. And it would be nice if we’d learn enough Spanish to be able to talk with locals and explore their culture. We have a feeling that we’ll learn basic Spanish in the year that is about to come.