Ahh the seat position...

We pushed through and kicked out a few 100+ km days en route to the east coast of Espanha into Valencia. The last 3 days we started out in Puertollano up through the Cuidad Real on to Manzanares, Villarobledo, San Clemente, Villanueva de la Jara, Castilla de Iniesta, Utiel, San Antonio, Requena, Buñol and finally to the 3rd largest city in Espanha beautiful Valencia.

We had some killer winds from the north keeping it really cold and frosty at night. This brought in a wicked tail wind on the first day of riding. The last two days of riding we had a side/tail wind just enough to push us a little but deter us from really pushing about 40km/hr. When it was behind us we were grinding it in our largest front cog... so much fun!

We camped every night finding some interesting places to duck down around night fall like stealthy blood ninja´s. We took nothing but pictures, left nothing but footprints and killed nothing but time. The one night we stayed at an old broken down restaurant in a pool to get out of the wind. There are sooo many old abandoned places to duck behind when the time is right.

We probably passed through the windiest region in Espanha. There were 3 major wind farms we spotted from the road. They were probably larger than any one wind farm in Canada. If we shifted subsidies from oil to wind energy the benefits would be seen almost immediately. The wind farms would pay themselves off within a few years and the excess energy could be stored in a different form i.e. hydrogen fuel or another alternative. The true cost of oil and coal is so high that from a financial, social and environmental it just makes plain sense. This is one man made site that is a beacon of hope to me, I would smile everyday on the train into Toronto when I saw the windmill chugging along. Human ingenuity has provided us with energy that is renewable. This technology is being utilized heavily in Europe and Germany is the leading user of this power in the world, Spain #2, the US is #3 and Denmark #4 with India at #5. In Paul Martin´s platform for Prime Minister said that Canada will one day be #1 in wind power, let´s hope he puts his money where his mouth is. You think Canada would start to get on to this seeing that we have the largest coast line (33000 Km´s).

The other day we went through a provincial crossing where a huge mountain range divided the provinces. My jaw dropped as the turqoise lakes and majestic mountainside left a feeling of awe in me. It helped me push some extra km´s out for sure with all the extra oxygen in the air. Luckily for us a new autovia (super highway) was built and the roads we cycled on were free of cars. There was a trail of closed down gas stations and other places of business that were left in the dust on the side of the road. We all know that the more highways we build the more "parking lots" are created as demand for more cars goes up. Look at the QEW and the 400 series of highways in Toronto for instance. On a daily basis, how fast is traffic moving on average... 5 to 10 Km an hour... whoa... that´s progress. We saw many other signs of true progress as bullet trains would show up for a few seconds as they flew by at 300 km/hr. That was pretty cool.

There was a huge motorcycle race in south western Spain in Jerez. A tonne of motorcycle enthuisist´s were flocking the roads as they passed us by. We had so many waves from them, a very friendly excited bunch. The one guy had a video camera out and taped me and my rudimentary spanglish. I told him about our trip and we got the same reaction we get from most people... are you loco?? It was neat to see them flying along, as much as I´m opposed to burning fossil fuel, I have a soft spot for sport bikes. They do make some diesel models, so I could always try and convert one to burn some bio diesel... hrmm.

We are headed to Barcelona in the next few days and we´ll be breaking out the French/English dictionary again. I´m looking forward to the coastline, the Pyreness and the Alps... but not the financial burden that France will offer us. We´ve been getting used to the cheap produce and inexpensive living in Espanha. We were just starting to learn more Spanish, Kevin wishes he would have paid attention at Plan B Organic Farm. He knows how to command the stray dogs here in Espanha, not quite the same with people. Oh yeah, anyone looking for some good organic food, Plan B provides the largest Community Shared Agriculture in southern Ontario. Check out www.planborganicfarms.ca, the season is upon us.

I´d like to give thanks to a gracious host in Valencia Teresa, we really enjoyed the stay in this truly beautiful city. I think Valencia has some of the most gorgeous parkland I´ve ever seen running through a city. There´s lots of money in this city and many poor areas where people are doing squats for there rights. The city is alive and well with activism. We had a good interview with Teresa to outline some of the activism going on here.

One last note, I´m putting this out to anyone who feels like buying me a $5 Canadian pint of beer for my birthday. I´m turning 31 tomorrow, April 13th. I never thought I´d be here doing what I´m doing, if you would have told me this a couple years ago I would hae said, "Yeah right...". I´d like to transfer the funds over to buy a digital camera to take some better still shots as my camcorder is limited. Any excess funds will be used to spend on a hosted website where I can post the pictures for a nominal fee. E-mail me at two_hammers@yahoo.ca and I´ll give you my account information.

Time to sign off, Ciao for now.

Thanks for reading and I hope everyone is enjoying our posts. Please send us your comments we love reading them.

Steve