The Rain In Spain . . .

Puebla de Don Fabrique – Jumilla, Spain

We are, I guess, adapting to a European schedule. Sleep in. Ride into the early evening hours. Stay up late. Repeat.

But yesterday was ridiculous. We actually tried to start at a reasonable time – or, at least, reasonable by our new European standards. I think we headed out at 9. 

When we started pedaling we were at something like 4,000’. Not that high in the grand scheme of things – but pretty high for this part of Spain.

That meant two things . . . 

First, it was cold. See-your-breath type weather. I think mid-40s and damp. 

Not that bad – as long as it’s not actually raining. 

But, of course, starting at 4,000’ meant two things – not just that it was cold. 

The second? Isn’t it obvious? Up that high the clouds are all caught up. So pretty much exactly as we pedaled away from the hotel, what happened? 

It started raining. 

Not a lot of rain, mind you. No. That would have been too convenient. With serious rain we would have just turned right around, gone back into the hotel, ordered more coffee and tea, and sat there admiring the wild boar taxidermy. 

No. The mist was light enough that we thought it would only last a minute. And it probably wasn’t even worth finding the rain gear . . .

Mind you, this was the morning after the Spanish Inquisition – when the Spanish police kicked us off the highway. So, while the fast-moving autovia was right there – we were stuck on the adjacent dirt/gravel path – with it’s up-and-downs and twists and turns. 

Alright, now remember how we were confident that it would stop misting in a minute? We were right; it didn’t stop misting. Or, wait, I guess it did. Yes, it definitely did. Stop misting, that is . . . because it started full-on raining.

At this point we’ve biked about 500 meters. I think it’s fair to say that the obvious solution for most couples in this situation would be to turn around, head back to the hotel, and order the aforementioned coffee and tea. 

But, as you have probably learned by now, we are not “most couples.” After all, we have Diana on our team. Lounging around hotels during prime riding time is not high on her list of approved activities. 

So now our rain gear comes out in earnest. Rain jackets. Rain pants – which, by the way, require taking off our shoes to put on. The full gambit. Quite a thing.

All good though.

For about another 500 meters. And then the rain turns up several more notches. 

Now, it’s not pouring or anything. But, it turns out that when you’re riding your bike, the volume of rain is amplified according to some formula that, I think, Einstein discovered.

Remember – Einstein was a bike rider. In fact, I think he thought up relativity while cycling along. But you don’t just come up with relativity like that. You need to think of some practice equations first. I think this was one of those . . .

This is an Einsteinian equation – so it is complex math – but remember, I’m a math teacher at heart – so I think you’ll be able to follow along . . .

F = The volume of rain hitting you in the face

R = The amount of rain actually falling

V = The velocity of the bike

What Einstein discovered is that F = R*V^2. (I don’t know how to do the proper “squared” symbol. Very frustrating, actually.)

Now, in our case it was raining moderately hard – so like 100 drops hitting your face per minute. And we were biking at about 10 miles per hour. 

So F (the amount of rain hitting us in the face) = 100*10*10 =10,000 raindrops per minute in each of our faces. 

(Did you follow that? There will be a quiz at the end . . .)

Ten thousand drops per minute in the face is not very pleasant. Even worse if you are biking at the speed of light. But that’s okay, because in that case you can just bike around the earth a few times, turn back time, get ready earlier, and not have to deal with the rain at all. 

We’re in a town called Jumila tonight. Seems like a nice place. Some kind of castle thing up on the hill – probably where the feudal lord lived back in the day. Pretty cool. 

But we can’t bike that fast, particularly not with our loaded bikes, so kind of a moot point I guess . . .

Where were we? 

Oh yes. We’re biking along getting pelted with 10,000 drops of rain per minute. Only it’s actually worse because mud is spraying up from the gravel path as well. Einstein never covered this equation as he tended to bike on cobblestones. Plus, this equation would have been too complex. 

Bottom line: 10,000 drops plus mud spatter in the face was too much – at least for me. 

You see, just the day before I had decided that I no longer needed the super-spiffy, super-warm mittens that we bought in Chile for the Patagonia cold. After all, we’re in Spain now. And heading to warmer months and warmer places. That the mittens were also waterproof never quite entered my mind. 

Until it was raining and mid-40s and my one remaining pair of gloves was rapidly becoming soaking wet . . .

“I think we need to get out of this rain,” I say.

”And go where?” Diana looks around at a barren landscape of dirt and gravel.

”Well, there’s a culvert-tunnel thing under the highway back there,” I offer. “And there’s that other restaurant that we passed.”

“But that restaurant was on the other side of the autovia. How do we get there?”

Which is how we ended up – like so many other unhoused people (this is, I think, the politically correct new version of homeless) – making our way through a culvert, under a highway, and along a dirt path back to a truck stop restaurant for the morning. About a kilometer from where we started the day.

By the time we finally headed out for real – after the rain finally abated – it was about 11. Not good.

And the really maddening part . . . About three miles down the road (and when I say “down” I mean down – like 500’ down) it was dry as a bone. Looked like it hadn’t rained at all there. Probably only rained at the higher elevations . . .

I guess if we had just powered through we would have been fine. (But don’t tell Diana this – because then the next time I want to stop because of rain she will point to this occasion: “Like last time, it’s probably not even raining a mile down the road” she’ll say . . .)

Five miles later we reach a town – Baza – and now it’s lunch time – at least for me . . . 

Next task: Find a grocery store. 

Next rant: Where are all the grocery stores in Spain?

I mean, we just don’t get it. The streets are empty. The shutters are down pretty much all the time. The stores are all closed. Yes, there are pretty frequent towns around here. But what good is a town when there are no people and no services? It’s like we’re biking through some dystopian Steven King novel where all the people disappeared in the night – leaving a world that seems stuck at 3:30 a.m. 

Okay, but Baza was slightly better; we did manage to find two stores. 

The first – a weird Chinese goods store. There is no unifying principle to the selection except that everything is, apparently, made in China. So there are some odd sodas and stuff, and I manage to find a highlighter pen that I need – but it’s not really a store that helps when you’re trying to cobble together a lunch. The woman at the counter is jabbering away in Mandarin on a speakerphone call – probably assuming that none of her customers can understand what she’s saying. Little does she know that Diana is not your ordinary gringo . . .

The second store turns out to be a grocery run by Moroccans. We know right away because we’re greeted by that exotic spice smell as soon as we walk in the door. Not exactly what we were thinking – but after two weeks in Morocco we feel at home here and manage to buy everything we need. 

I guess the moral of the story is that if you want to buy something in Spain, you probably need to go to a town that is big enough to have immigrants. Because they don’t seem to be on permanent siesta status.

Oh, the other point is that it’s after 1:30 pm by the time we’re done with lunch. Total mileage gained for the day at this point: I think maybe six miles – and probably a mile of that going back and forth to the truck stop restaurant – so, really, not even positive yardage . . .

And, by the way, it’s still spitting rain on us occasionally – like during our lunch in the local gas station parking lot . . .

Sounds like a dud of a day, huh? 

Miraculously, it turned out great.

Good things happen when the wind is at your back.

The remainder of the afternoon is spent cruising past a huge variety of cave houses. No people. But lots of caves – or Cuevas – as they call them around here.

I did find myself wondering about these caves, though. For a few reasons . . . Growing up my Mom was always asking if I was born in a barn. Which I thought was kind of odd because, well, wouldn’t she know? And then Diana is always implying that I’m like a caveman – particularly if she is harping on my beard – which she hates . . .

So I started thinking about these people who originally lived in these caves like 30,000 years ago. It seems to me that I could easily be related to one of these guys. Barney Rubble’s great-great-great . . . great grandson. And if that’s the case then I think it stands to reason that I own this cave – or at least a small share of it. It seems to me that with advanced science they ought to be able to find Barney’s DNA on the wall, and then with 23-and-me I could prove my relationship – and then I’m-in-like-Flynn. 

We’ll probably be moving here after we get this all figured out. 

Of course, as it turns out it’s not that big of a thing to own one of these Cuevas. Spain has a super-low birth rate, it overbuilt houses in the 2000s, and everyone is moving to the cities. So the rural areas are left with a few old people here and there and a lot of abandoned houses. Which might explain why we never see anyone . . . The few folks left really are taking their afternoon naps because they’re 96 . . .

Today? Another good day – again with the wind at our backs. Bonus: We started the day at 4,000’ or so and finished at 1,700’ – meaning we enjoyed some coasting, and we didn’t have a lot of climbing or anything. 

Corollary to the no people thing . . . There is not much of anything for miles and miles. Just fruit trees. And they’re not quite ripe – so you can’t even eat the stuff. Upshot – we ended up biking about 80 miles because there was basically nothing from 55 miles on . . . and we couldn’t camp because we didn’t have food supplies because, well, . . . there are no grocery stores . . .

More on fruit trees in another edition . . . For now, suffice to say that Spain must be to Europe what California is to the U.S. 

We’re impressed.

Should be two more days to Valencia, and we’re excited to get back to the coast. But, really, everything in Spain has been pretty impressive so far . . . We just hope we don’t have to experience much more rain in Spain – even if it is falling gently on the plain.

P.S. – I’ve been corresponding with Abdo from the gas station where we camped in Morocco. He really wants to get a visa to work in the US. Anyone have any wisdom to offer him? I can put you in touch with him. Great young man.