Stacks!

Santiponce – Castiblanco de los Arroyos 32km

Mum had already packed the bikes with loaded panniers, so I was able to enjoy an extra 30 minutes in bed before brushing my teeth and getting ready to ride. We rode downhill to the hotel Penny and Taylor were staying at for our first breakfast stop. The café was ready for pilgrims, tourists, and locals, with saucers lined up for coffee.

After breakfast, we set off on our bikes from Italica.

Only 5km down the road, I earned the first bike crash award for the day. I had been slowly crossing a busy road when I lost my balance trying to straighten my bike to see both ways. I fell into the table drain, with my legs in the air and my bike on top of me. Taylor helped dust off the dirt and pebbles, and although it hurt, there were only a few tears shed. Penny is known for her graceful falls, but I was the first to fall today.

We lost Kymmy and Greg just outside of town, but they eventually caught up with us.

We continued on a dirt camino path, which started off well but quickly became more challenging, more like a mountain bike track.

I remember mum saying one of her peddles looked bent, then next minute the peddle fell off on the track. Mum said keep going, whilst she stopped to fix her bike. Mum spent some time trying to fix it but couldn’t. Taylor told us the story that twelve pushbike riders had stopped to help mum, bringing out random number of tools from their panniers to fix it! The riders could not speak English and mum could only pick up a couple of Spanish words they were saying. Gosh knows what they were saying about mum & the broken peddle! lol

Penny fell off her bike, followed by Kymmy who hurt her knee badly and had some skin scraped off her arm. It was super hot day at 37oC!

We made it to Castiblanco de los arroyos Albergue after riding 34km. We were greeted by a friendly hospitalia. He booked Kymmy a ride with the local popo to the hospital. Fortunately, nothing was broken, but Kymmy was now out of action for riding for a few days.

School work today; more Spanish talking (ordering food, hello, morning & night, asking for the bill, and where the toilet were). I also made Awards for each in the group including; 1. Most friendly pilgrim, 2. Best Navigator, 3. Are we there yet?, 4. Humpty Dumpty fell off the wall, 5. Ray of sunshine and 6. Lost one.

By Grace