bay of biscay and galicia ::: part IV

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the last leg of our northern spain trip seemed pretty quick, nonetheless, it was not short of sights i´d like to spend more time at.  galicia is extremely famous in spain for several reasons, one being its amazing and rugged coastline and its top class seafood which is not expensive at all.  however, as we were on a sort of tight schedule, we could not dedicate the time needed to ride all  the way along the coast down to vigo.  instead we took the shortcut riding inland.

2010 is "año santo xacobeo", which happens every year on the 25th of july (patron saint of james, son of zebedee) falls on a sunday.  for this reason it is a very popular and significant time to walk the st. james´way, the pilgrimage to the cathedral in santiago de compostela.  it was quite a common thing to see these pilgrims walking by the road towards santiago, some in search of pardon, others to achieve the goal as a personal challenge with no spiritual significance.

not a bad plto have lunch, somewhere on the way...

another significant place was padron, where the famous capsicums and the saying "coma os pementos de padrón: uns pican e outros non" come from.  these have to be one of my favourite finger foods ever!!!  watch out for the eventual spicy one if you are not used to spicy food.  the surprise factor has turned this delicacy into a fun and social culinary experience :)

once we hit pontevedra we had the ocean back in sight... this time the atlantic.  the "rias baixas" offers a very particular way to see the sea, similar, in a way, to that of the scandinavian fjords at a much, much smaller scale, but indeed beautiful as few places i can think of on earth (this is me being biassed i guess).  the way the sea hits the land in this region is what makes the conditions ideal for a great variety of sea food to be found here.  this trip is not for someone on a diet or people with anisakis.

the 4 heroes

as we felt the end of our trip was getting closer exhaustion was getting to us, and watching some of the greatest sunsets i´ve seen, over an ice cold beer, made the arrival in vigo just perfect.  now all we had to worry about was the absolutely fantastic bollywood themed party i really hope starts happening every single year!

playa de américa, nigran

nigran and baiona are full of places to have a nice quiet drink by the sea, i´d like to recommend playa de américa or patos.

sunset over nigran

make sure you put this destination in your bucket list and you wont regret it.

madrid - nigran

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it all started at 8.30 am in madrid, fairly near the centre, where i met up with jose before we headed to tres cantos, where we were supposed to meet up with javi. the trip was supposed to last for about 7 to 10 hours... little did we know...

the whole trip to nigran was avoiding highways. our first of many anecgdotes to come was riding through through guadarrama in the mountains in madrid, where we were sort of stuck in a traffic jam. the news said they had predicted 6 million people travelling around spain during this weekend as part of the summer campaign. so driving through the center of the town, we saw there was "guardia civil" car, which made jose and javi wait with plenty of patience in the qeue of cars, while i laughed, looked at them and decide to skip the jam by riding on the right shoulder, thinking my buddies only concern was the cops´possible reaction to loud pipes and an "unusually small" number plate. my surprise was the cops blocked my way and told me i was not supposed to ride on the shoulder... they could have written a love letter (fine) but they were nice enough to let me go with a warning :)



stopped for fuel at a little town called cantalapiedra, where i had the chance to take a few shots. a horse and a couple of old locals hanging out at the petrol station who were impressed to see the bikes. an unusual sight for them.

after a beer stop in zamora, we continued into portugal, riding through some of the most beautiful landscapes i have seen, specially between bragança, vinhais and chaves. great curves, virtually no traffic and incredible weather accompained us for most of the trip which made it such an enjoyable experience. just before arriving in chaves, a guy told us while refueling, that there was a motorcycle rally in chaves, filled with bikers who had made their way up from the famous rally in faro the week before. we joined the rally for a couple of drinks, and even though i have to say, we saw nothin special regarding bikes, it was a lot of fun, and the fact that it was improvised added to the excitement.



we were leaving javi in verin, and jose and me had another 200km left to reach nigran. we had stopped plenty of times and took a couple of wrong turns, so it was getting late. once we reached verin, we took the expressway, we encountered the first signs that showed us we were in the north of spain (rain) and it started getting dark. from then on, we only stopped for refueling and smoke.

we arrived in nigran half past midnight, 16 hours after we left madrid, having seen beautiful sights and having had one of the smoothest rides. the only real problem i feel i should mention... after 2pm having lunch in portugal is really difficult, so we ended up having pretty shitty food in mid afternoon. luckyly we had some nice friends waiting for us in nigran with a big plate of pasta!!!

the return to madrid was done on sunday, this time we had to rush to make it on time to be presentable for work on monday.

we did not meet javi, he had a problem with his drive-belt sprocket and had to send his bike to madrid on a tow truck. me and jose woke up late after a mad night and started our journey at around 15:30, so we took the highway back.


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a little rain at first, but after we passed vigo it all started to look much better. all went smooth and we stopped only every 150 or 160 km since thats how much i can do before my tank goes in reserve.

once riding by zamora, some old fart in a 7 series bmw and no driving skills whatsoever decided instead of waiting for me to finnish overtaking, it was better to just get as close to my ass as possible so i would just move out of the way. i saw the guardia civil on the side of the road and while driving by them i lifted my hand (was tempted to show him my finger too) telling the old man what i thought of his mother. it all went alright considering the dangerous driving exercised by this lunatic, and it was soon forgotten.

around 15 minutes later we saw the same cops driving past us like they were racing for 100 million euros, all very funky with the lights on, and we soon lost them in the horizon. miuntes after, we saw them on the shoulder one more time. i started to get really confused, i was trying to figure out what the hell these guys were up to, but this was only the begining since a couple of km later... there they went again, this time changing lanes like rich kids with daddys sports car doing as they please in a road they took as their own.

after a while of wondering and looking at jose almost scratchin our heads... if it wasnt for the helmets... we saw the cops one last time. they were back on the shoulder, although this time they signaled us to stop and they guided us right behind this very familiar bmw with a now humble looking old man, almost worried about what could happen to his license in a very near future.

the officers asked us if this was the right guy, to which we confirmed with plenty of confidence. fuck him if you ask me, i am a little tired of assholes of this sort who dont seem to realise i have 2 wheels and no metal around me to protect myself from their ultimate stupidity.

the rest of the trip was full of laughing, i saw this poor little bird which smashed into joses side bag and rolled on the floor after that, i do not know about the outcome of the crash, but it did look funny in a twisted way.



we thought coming back to madrid would take us much less than the going to nigran, but all expectations failed when joses rear tyre went flat right after we crossed into madrid (we were 60km from the city). waited for the tow truck, took joses bike to the garage and then took jose home. arrived at arround 2.30 or 3. 11 hours on the bike to come back. tiring but if i could go back in time i would definitely do it all over again.