The early days of our cycle to Boom, when time felt unblurred, days were long and full of energy of the body and energy of the mind, we were still just cycling, purely and simply, every corner unique as we hurtled meter by meter towards Portugal, it felt like we could cycle forever. Energy bursting out of us, carrying us forward as if pysical capabilities or chemical reactions going on within our bodies didnt matter. The rides were beautiful, constantly passing new scenery that the sprawling urban demi-paridise of Granada just couldnt offer.
We had anticipated finding food would be quite hard, we didnt know where any good recycling spots were and we couldnt afford to put too much time in to looking (we were already a bit late for the festival, we had left on the first day of the Boom and now we only had 7 days before it was over). But we quickly had the idea to ask in restraunts for food they had to throw away. As it turns out most spanish people (or at least restraunt owners) love cyclists and so are happy to give you food, even the stuff they arent going to throw away. We were overjoyed at this discovery and we ate well for the whole of our journey.
We woke on that first morning to a cold mountianious day, we packed quickly - probably aided into action by the sight of a man standing on a slope 50 meters away with a shotgun cocked over his arm - and headed towards Cordoba. We had planned to become nocturnal creatures. Cycling throughout the night when few cars littered the streets and then sleep through the 40 degree heat of the day. However our preprogrammed natural insticts that are passed down to all humans by their survivalist anscestors got the better of us, and as we set out from Granada after siesta we made it about 40 kilometers into the mountians before cooking food and collapsing. That second day was beautiful, we glided as if we were flying through beautiful spanish mountians and reached a little town for siesta, we got alot of free food and found a little chemical-coloured river to wash in and slept in the penetrated shade of the trees on the banks. We were woken at dusk by 100 goats trampling their way over our beds to go for a drink, along with a confused looking sheppard. That night at about 2am we made Cordoba, it was beautiful but a brief visit. We slept on a comfy bed of pine needles next to a little canal just outside of Cordoba.
The Camino de Santiago pleasingly intertwinned our route of the next day, we delved deeper into mountians and by siesta time we found an abandoned hotel/hostel to sleep in. The whole place had a bad energy about it and it reminded me a little of the shinning but we survived siesta and set off to a beautiful sunset, we decided to try and cycle all night and arrived by morning in a little town where everyone was just really weird, always shouting and nothing seemed quite right. Although by that point we were deathly tired so it may of been us who were the weird ones, my merories are hazy. We found a nice lake to sleep by and again woke to a beautiful sunset. That night was to mark our transistion into nocturnal action. We cycled by night, to baronly beautiful landscapes, we were cycling deeper and deper into Extremadura, the desert region of Spain.
Although it was (technically im not sure but definatly in our eyes) a desert we still found an abundance of water and slept by a body of water almost everytime we had to rest. One canal did threatened to prematurely end our trip, on a hot, hot day we were settling down for a siesta by the canal in question, we went for a pre sleep swim, I jumped in first and was almost instantly swept down stream by the waters, the current was so strong. I got to the side and was clinging on, then Jack jumped in and was swept down current as well. Neither of us were in a state to try and fight the currents and we were just left clinging untill Jack managed to pull himself out and then helped me out.
About 3oclock one morning cycling past an animal sanctuary, just as we were nearing the border with Portugal we were heading down one of the many, many hills of Extremadura, I didnt really have much in the way of brakes at this point through neglagence to my bike and as we were riding we heard a scuffle to our left in the bushes, all of a sudden a badger came running towards our bikes, it ran behind jacks bike and me and the badger collide at about 20km/h hitting it with my front wheel, it desaddled me and I exploded in pain as I connected with the cross bar. It then ran off with a squeal onto the other side of the road apparently unharmed.
We eventually, after many hard days of cycling, arrived at a little border town called Alcantara. The town was filled with boomers, we talked to some and they told us the Boom festival was over. Our hearts sank, our mission over. We made our way down to the rio Tajo to sleep, and as I was descending the big hill down to the river banks I realised this was exactly the same way I had entered Portugal 3 months earlier, I was crossing the same bridge I had crossed with Felix. I was happy with the familiarity and it helped to lift my spirits a little for that evening. We decided the next day to still head for the after party, Utopia and still get in a little partying. We set off again our high spirits renewed with the gift of a new mission. The landscape seemingly fresh in my mind as we sweated our way through the same mountains and same old little towns.
Portugal is much more beautiful than Spain, the moment we crossed the border we were surrounded by green trees, mountains and water everywhere. After 3 days of slow cycling, our bodies feeling the wear of the intense cycling of the past 5 or 6 days and similtaniously adjusting to the vicious, unrelenting Portugese mountians, we arrived in the closest town to Utopia, Penamacor and we met some people from Devon camping in the little park. They told us that the music at Utopia was ending that night, they were shutting it off at 1am. It was now 8pm and we still had 25km to do. We started cycling frantically our muscles feeling better than new as we raced for the sound of psy-trance. We made it to Utopia in under an hour, found our way in and went mad on the dance floor. The happiness in our hearts was almost too much to bear at having finally made it to a good party. We condensed 9 days, 700 km of cycling, into 4 hours of partying, it was a chaotic night, it was definatly worth it.
