When the hills are too big !
Off to Ourense at a 120 Km/h. Yes, that seems a tad fast even for e-bikes and even though they are with us we obviously aren’t sitting on them.
Time and some big hills have forced us to skip ahead 130 km to meet our 7th June timetable to have the bikes back. We came across and add for a company that moves bikes at an albergue about 10 days ago and just in case I took a photo. We’ll time to get the photo out and make contact. The first response to the email predictably came back in Spanish. After some back and forth it was agreed that for 500 euros he would take us from Puebla de Sanabria to Ourense. The train was going to cost 70 euros and we decided that the extra 30 Euros extra was going be outweighed by connivence.
Bright and early, which for Spain is about 10 o’clock the fellow arrives with a Mercedes sprinter van (just like work really) with a lift ramp on the back. I suspect he moves people in wheelchair as well.
Deigo is his name which is fitting as we going to SanDeigo. Not a lot of English however we are able to understand somethings he is saying.
Up onto the freeway and the blue dot on my mapping app has never moved so fast. The kilometres on the freeway are wizzing past as we go over huge viaducts and thru tunnels that navigate the mountains we would of ridden.
Before long we are taking the off ramp into Ourense. It’s a large densely packed city nestled amongst many valleys that run down to the Dera river. In our view we can see five bridges crossing the river ranging from an ultramodern millennium bridge to a Roman bridge built 2000 years earlier.
With heavy traffic and no real regard for blocking a lane Deigo pulls up two blocks from our apartment. Dodging traffic we get out then proceed to get the bikes and panniers out the back door.
Job done, money exchanged we look for coffee. It’s been a hard slog over those mountains.
