Day 19 Duenas to Lerma

Day 19 Duenas to Lerma. 90.70 kms cycled. 5.11 hours cycling. 50.58 km/h max speed. 17.46 km/h average speed. Weather – fine, sunny and cold in the morning with a westerly wind in the afternoon.

What a difference a day can make. After what was basically a downer of a day for me the previous day, it was a totally different story today.
After a great meal the previous night, a good sleep and waking to sunshine for the first time in about 10 days, I instantly felt my spirits rise.
So much so, that I knew that it was going to be a good day – and it was. With the terrain changing over the course of the day from flat open acreage planted with wheat to valleys and gorges, the kilometres just seemed to fly by.
And with a solid westerly at my back for the final 40kms, I was pretty pleased with the 90kms I clocked up for the day.
I constantly find myself immersed in the history of the country that I am travelling through and find it amazing that every town – no matter how big or small – has a HUGE church as its central point.
Some towns I have cycled through so far would struggle to have 30 or 40 houses, but always boast a huge church that would have been built in the middle ages – some in better repair than others.
On two occasions today I came across shepherds herding their sheep along the road. And on both occasions I stopped to have a chat with them. No-one understood what was being said, but it was fun talking with them anyway.
The second shepherd was carrying a small radio that he used to listen to while watching over his sheep. I pointed it out and it was clear that it wasn’t working properly.
So next thing I knew we were both sitting by the side of the road surrounded by sheep, trying to work out why his radio wasn’t working. I think it was flat batteries, but he seemed appreciative of my efforts anyway.
That encounter gave me an extra boost, and a ‘how good is this feeling’. As I said earlier, what a difference a day can make!!!!!
Anyway, after criss-crossing the countryside to avoid a series of major highways, I finally got onto the road heading west that I will be on for a couple of days.
And right on cue, the wind picked up from the west and I had a great armchair ride for the final 40 kilometres into Lerma, an extremely historic and important town for the Spanish.
It is one of the few towns that I have come across that has literature for tourists in English, so I will read up tonight and do a bit of sightseeing in the morning before hitting the road again.

captions. Pic 1: Another town with a huge church as its central point. Pic 2: Wide open plains. Pic 3: The first shepherd. Pic 4: The second shepherd that I tried to help fix his radio. Pics 5&6 Lerma