Dad - Update 21 May 2007

I am on a real high: Can you believe I have just been chatting with Miguel Indurain, 5 times Tour de France winner: At his house. I cannot believe it. Javier organised it. Any hastle associated with the filming of this trip has been cancelled out in full. The man is a sporting giant. It is like chatting with Jack Nicholas or Mohammad Alli. He was absolutely relaxed and happy to chat for about 20 minutes. I cannot believe it. I had so many things to say when I got an Internet cafe but they are all forgotten now. He gave me an autograph and said if I send him a copy of the photo Jave took he will sign it and return it to me. Jave also filmed a fair bit of it.

A quick update: I am in Pamplona, but definitely not running with the bulls! My hotel is about 30 Km south of the city but Javier and I came back to see Miguel and I took the opportunity to send this Email.

The last 2 days have been wonderful. I am really glad to be in Spain. It is much more lively than France. Yesterday I climbed a mountain pass 25 km long. Non stop up. Hair pin bends up and up. Thighs burning, ham strings stretched but I made it with reasonable comfort. In fact I passed quite a few cyclists, like me fully loaded. They were just beginning the Camino de Santiago and still had very few miles in their legs. I am ashamed to say I passed one guy who was clearly struggling. He was wobbling about all over the road. As I came alongside of him I chatted away while eating a banana and was inwardly pleased to see that he could hardly get the breath to respond:
Me: "Hola, que tal, hace buen tiempo, ha ha (It was pouring rain), buen camino" at this point I smoothly accelerated away, "Adios, hasta luego". After I got around the next hairpin and out of his sight, I gasped in lungfuls of air, replaced my eyeballs in their sockets, rolled my tongue back into my mouth and slowed back down to my walking pace. Shocking is it not? I probably shattered the poor guy's confidence so much that he'll pack in the Camino.

But listen to this: At the top of the pass (over 1000m) there is a modern church. You will probably remember it Michael. Anyway, after taking some photos at the top with an Italian cyclist I decided to go into the church to say a wee prayer. I was soaked to the skin and getting really cold too. Can you believe the church was closed: Remember, this is Sunday, it is on probably the most famous pilgrim route in the world. There must have been about 15 pilgrims huddled in the doorway trying to shelter from the icy rain. "They probably keep it closed in case people sleep in it" someone said. SO BLOODY WHAT! Can you believe Christ saying: "You are not sheltering in my church. You can all stay out there in the rain: My local Priest, FR Bogan in St Ninian's in Hillhouse keeps the church open all day, every day. You can go in to say a prayer, heaven forbid, you can even go in just to get out of the rain for a peaceful few minutes. Well done Fr Bogan. Incidentally, if the Pope should, by chance read this maybe he'll kick a few backsides. On the way down the other side of the pass I had to shelter from the rain and I was chatting to a Belgian cyclist, also sheltering. He told me that only 6 weeks ago a hiker had been caught in a snow storm and had died here. Maybe if that Church had been open he would have survived.

Anyway, that is my moan out of the way. I am aiming to be in Denia on Saturday, 2 June. So I can have nice lazy days from now on.

Poetry: I worked away at my Lavender poem but couldn't really improve it. But here is a Haiku influenced lavender poem:
"Roses are Red
Violets are blue
Lavender
Is blue
Too"
What do you think of that, Matthew and Tom? Heavily influenced by the old Haiku master, McGonagal, eh!

I'll need to wind up now. When I get to Denia I hope to spend a day Reading the Blog. Martin told me that it has had more than 900 hits (as we say in computing circles). I also hope to be able to send Martin, at least the photo of me and Miguel then too. I am having a great time but I am also missing everyone and I am looking forward to seeing you all.

Adios desde Epana,

Michael XX