Home again

Last Day....at least in Spain. I woke up in my Hostal room hoping that there had been a thaw or at least no more snow and was disappointed on the first and glad that the second hadn't happened. Took the obligatory pic out the bathroom window to remind myself that riding in Spain in December is a little bit silly. The roads looked clear enough but the route out of the hostal carpark was a skating rink. The car drivers were giving me strange looks.

Spain is covered with these huge Bull sillhouettes. You cant drive more than 20 miles without seeing one. Several bulls later I reached Burgos and the sign said Santander 130km and I thought great, nearly done. I had been trying to stick to roads with a lot of traffic on them to sweep the snow off. Somehow the direct road to Santander is not favoured by trucks. I seemed to be on my own and soon the snow started to settle. Then I couldnt see any tarmac and the cars coming the other way were covered with inches of the stuff so I decided to backtrack 30km and try find a motorway with traffic. Sometimes trucks are your friend. You wont hear me say that often.

Got to the ferry and met up with Gerard and George, two very interesting characters who had been doing a similar trip to me but who started 7 days behind. Their experience of Moroccan weather was very different. They reported snow/ice/rain/wind on 19 out of 23 days. I started to realise how lucky I had been. George is I believe 72 years young and impressed me by riding one of the biggest heaviest bikes (FJR1300) you can buy up these moroccan passes in the snow. He has even taken the 'mighty yamaha' to Moscow and back. Nuts and lovely with it.


Next time, I'll go in spring. Who knows, if this recession bites as deep as it people think it will, might be the right time to bugger off and do another trip ;-)