Background information
With the fixie to Morocco #3: Skidden, Vermuth and melancholy
by Jonathan Perraudin und Christoph Zuidema
With Single Speed to Marrocco #4: wild bulls and even wilder elders
12.9.2018
Translation: machine translated
After the last exam, Jonathan and Christoph decide to go out and discover the world. Not all-encompassing on the Canary Islands, but no-nonsense to Morocco: only with their Single Speed and light luggage. Here they recount their adventure. In this episode: damn bulls!
All roads lead to Rome, some even to Morocco. We find a particularly beautiful one from Barcelona heading south: fast exits and steep climbs make us forget our tiredness, after an eventful evening and some difficult stages. Arriving at Jonathan's relatives', we enjoy a well-deserved day off. But even here, we try to plan something for our next stages. Nevertheless, we find ourselves the next day on a route that is not really suited to our equipment.
The spokes are broken, the will not yet
There are also punctured wheels and Christoph's spokes which regularly break after certain distances. All this is a test of our will to endure and keep going. By chance we meet a group of French people who had moved to Spain a couple of years earlier. They are having a picnic and enjoying the good life between tapas and Cava (a kind of Spanish sparkling wine). They invite us along as we make one of the many repair pit stops.
Lilly and her family do not make it easy to continue the journey. What to do? Sleep with sleeping bags on the beach? - By the way: we have some unused sleeping bags. Interested? Contact us! - Or sell our bikes and open a beach bar? Since at least Christoph's back wheel won't get us much money and we want to stick to the goal despite numerous temptations, we move on towards Valencia. However, before we arrive, we come across more unexpected Spanish culture.
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Cava in the blood, bulls in the streets
Having arrived in a small village, we follow our route well, until we find ourselves in front of a two-metre high wooden barrier. Anxious to get to Valencia and with a bit of Cava still in his blood, Jonathan quickly finds a solution: somehow we have to cross. Suddenly: people are running on both sides, some climb over the barrier and the road continues behind them. Jonathan is determined to tackle the obstacle before the locals convince him to give up. And rightly so. Because a short time later people on the other side jump over the barrier. Next time we know that sentences containing the word 'Torro' are not necessarily an invitation to dinner.
Valencia proves to be much more relaxed. There are 'Torros', but not as present. However, the next morning we are glad we planned wrong, in a good way. True to the motto 'sewn twice lasts longer', Valencia appears twice as the starting point of our journey. So we take advantage of one day and halve our next stop. Due to the lack of alternatives (couchsurfing, hostels, remote beach) we find ourselves in a place where, for once, we are the least dancing and the first to go to sleep.
What has happened so far:
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