Somewhere Near Sadabo

From nowhere:

I awoke tonight to the sound of my tent being assaulted by wind. I´ve never camped during such high winds before- this land is flat with occasional interruptions by slight mounds of dirt- it´s a sunburned yellow-brown and I can see the distant mountains through the dusty beam of my headlamp. There is an array of stars above, but yellow-orange cloud-to-cloud lightening is pulsating in the distance. The mountains prevent the storm from passing in our direction.

Today we rode 100 km from Estella to Sadabo, after a late night of watching Spain win the Euro Cup. The landscape appears much like a desert, and we rode much more than we should have. By the end I was deliriously exhausted and had a heat rash on my arms and legs.

We are camped in the side of an access road to an irrigation canal which serves a sparsely-populated farming region; I can only assume that the canal is served from the distant Pyrenees, because it is so dry here that a spark could set the whole landscape aflame. As we crossed the bridge over the canal, the blue water appeared as a mirage. We had twice considered jumping into public pools, but we decided that we needed to keep moving towards tomorrow´s destination, Zaragoza. To get to the canal, we followed the edge of a wheat field to a mysterious ladder that dipped into the clean, frigid, swiftly-moving water. Dropping down the ladder will last in my memory in as one of the more euphoric sensations I have ever experienced. Afterward, we set up our tents and ate the frozen pizza that the sun had cooked on the rear rack of my bike. We drank rede wine out of a box, which cost .8 Euros at the supermarket.

As I try to sleep, the wind keeps tearing out the stakes that hold the fly taut over my tent. if I weren´t in the tent, I believe it might fly away, me chasing after.

The tent, which I have grown to see as my refuge, is a noisy and undulating nylon compartment- a home that keeps me awake. It makes me appreciate permanent shelters. There is nowhere else for us to go here, even if we wanted to leave. I just hope that I stay dry and the tent doesn´t tear.