Nomadic Cycling

Spending a week in Morocco, starting with Tangier, a vibrant seaside city with really good food, ornate doors and a LOT of cats!

After Barcelona I was happy to have a few days to visit a friend I met last year while bike touring through Spain. Thank you again, Manual, for sharing some amazing bike rides, hiking and swimming around La Rapita, and introducing me to more amazing local seafood! I feel spoiled, and I look forward to returning the hospitality one day when you visit me in Rhode Island!

I have been feeling conflicted about posting photos from my travels here since war broke out in Israel/Palestine, and I don't want to be insensitive to what is happening there (and in other places around the world). But I also don't want my space on here to be political, as I feel we get enough of that everywhere. I want to share the beauty that I find in the world, and hopefully offer a little visual escape from the horrors that are happening. At the same time I am thinking of my Arab and Jewish friends, and I want to support them. Nobody wants this war, except maybe the government and the terrorists. And the people are suffering on both sides. Let's stand together in love and peace and not let the government and terrorism divide and set us against each other.

After 16 days of cycling with one rest day in Burgos, we have arrived in Santiago de Compostela! We followed signs for the 3 during the last few days, which helped keep us mostly on pavement and avoid the crowds of pilgrims on foot. In the beginning,, we cycled lin stretches without seeing anyone, but as we neared Santiago, there were more and more people walking, to the point that if we were on the same path as them there was hardly ever any space from one pilgrim to the next. The bike route helped in that regard!

We made it to Galicia!! Today was a short day of cycling, but not easy! Our breath was thickly visible in the crisp morning air as we packed everything onto our bikes for the day. One of the longest and steepest climbs of the camino greeted us just a few km from where we left this morning, and I warmed up quickly as we pedaled up out of the shadows of the mountains. The road was mainly very quiet once we separated from where people were walking, and we passed only a few other cyclists during the climb. We met up with the pilgrims on foot again near the top, in a tiny medieval Galician village called O Cereibro, where we were greeted by the bells of a 9th century church and bagpipe music playing in the streets. We even saw a couple that we had talked to while eating breakfast, hiking with their 5-month-old baby! Here, we ate a slice of chestnut cake and had another coffee before continuing down the other side of the mountain pass. We eventually stopped for the day in Triacastela, the junction where we must decide between two alternate routes that diverge. Will let you know what we chose tomorrow!

I didn't take make photos between Nájera and Belorado, it was relatively flat through wide open fields, and we passed many pilgrims on foot. The first photo is the only one I'm posting from the ride. It's hard to see, but there is a long parade of people hiking in front of me towards the next climb.

We decided to stay in Belorado, a cute town with many old buildings and a lot of murals. The first thing I noticed when we pulled up was the rocks looming above us. There was a trail leading up to the ruins of a castle, so after a shower and some food I went on a little exploration hike before dinner. None of the restaurants in Spain open before 7:30, so it has been tough when we finish early to wait for dinner and then try to sleep on a full stomach! Last night was the first night I got more than 6 hours of sleep (finally!).

We left this morning from Los Arcos and made good time to Viana, where we stopped for a coffee and juice while chatting with another pilgrim from Germany. Back on the road about two hours later, we had passed through Logroño and were on our way to Navarette when my dad realized he left his backpack at the Cafe in Viana! Panicking, his first thought was to ride back (about 20km) to get it. My thought was that there's no way it would still be there hours later, and it would be a waste of time and energy to cycle all the way back there, so I started searching online for a phone number for the cafe, which I could not find anywhere. There are hundreds of people walking the camino every day, surely someone would pick it up. After several stressful minutes, we decided that I would take a taxi back to the cafe while my dad waited at a restaurant nearby. What took us nearly 2 hours to ride ended up being a 15 minute taxi ride. To my astonishment, the backpack was exactly where my dad had left it, on his chair outside the cafe! I ran over from the cab to grab it and triumphantly returned to the restaurant where my dad was waiting. After this setback, we were able to make it another 20km or so to Nájera, where we're spending the night. We had dinner with Phillipa and Mark, a lovely couple Kiwi couple who live in England. In spite of passing most people too quickly to have any meaningful interaction on the trail while cycling, we have met amazing people along the way wherever we end up stopping. The spirit of the camino is charming and contagious.

We're finally here!! Tomorrow my dad and I commence the Camino de Santiago de Compostela by bicycle. We began our day in San Sebastián, Spain, jet-lagged and exhausted from traveling from Boston the previous day. After walking around the old town and climbing to the vistas overlooking the Bahia de la Concho and the Bay of Biscay, we took a bus to Bayonne and another bus to Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, France, where we will pick up our bicycles and head off on the camino as soon as it stops raining!
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Thanks for having me, Florida - it's been nice escaping the winter this year and being able to ride in shorts year-round! I wish it wasn't so difficult to find unpaved surfaces though. Cars run rampant down here, and I am ready for a change of scenery!

Next stop, Savannah, GA, before sailing on up to Newport for the summer.

BTW, I've changed the link in my profile to the fundraising page for the Tri-State Trek, where I'll be riding 100 miles a day over a weekend in June to raise money for my friend , who is living with ALS. Any donation amount is greatly appreciated - half goes to the ALS Therapy Development Institute and the other half goes to Bobby himself to support the cost of living with this disease.

Catching up on the last few days of photos from São Paulo...

I was finally able to see my friend and stay with her family during the second half of my time in Brazil. Among other things, we hiked up to Pedra Grande, where we had the whole place to ourselves and could enjoy an amazing view of the largest city in South America. We also biked to with and experienced Lebanese ice cream for the first time. Thanks so much for having me - I wish I could have visited sooner (and by bicycle)!

I am extremely grateful to have been given time off from my (awesome) job to visit one of my best friends in Brazil! Unfortunately, timing was such that my friend and her family tested positive for COVID as I was on my way there, so we started scrambling to find a place where I could stay last minute. Their amazing friends stepped up to host me at their home until everyone was no longer COVID-positive. I had an amazing time meeting new people, exploring a new city, and celebrating my birthday with a bunch of new friends and strangers during the final Carnaval festival!

Happy Halloween!

Well, we made it back to Providence from Montreal! It was a pretty intense 7 days of cycling through fields of Quebec, Green Mountains in Vermont, Berkshires in Massachusetts. Total distance was over 445 miles with 18,625 feet of climbing. I probably won't ride more than 5 miles at a time for the next week while my body recovers.

Thank you so much to all the lovely friends who hosted us along the way in Montreal, Charlotte, Poultney, North Adams, Northampton and Worcester! It would not have been the same without your support!! .oss.d .wilson