With five days to wait in Pamplona - we must await the arrival of Valkyrie's sister, Venus, who wants to see the start of San Fermín and the Encierro on 7.7 - our legs itch to ride. We pull out a regional map that we picked up on our way into town two days ago from the Oficina de Turismo, inspect it briefly, and point to the small town of Javiér.
Of course, this is Sunday, which in Spain is taken even more seriously than in France; nothing is open, especially in the small towns that dot our route through the valleys adjoining Pamplona. We are forced to subsist upon a fantastically sugary chocolate-filled cereal called Tresor and this salty nut mix that we picked up yesterday in the supermarket - we have to learn to stock up for these so-called days of rest, since we don't often have the luxury of actually resting for them.
As we start down the valley to Javiér, we are treated to an interesting sight: part of an old Roman aqueduct (or possibly a bridge?) preserved in close to original condition. The countryside here is full of such relics, which serve as reminders that these lands have been fought over for millenia. Our path is lined with sunflower fields, where the flowers bloom in cascades of yellow petals and green stalks. The day is hot, but we need not fear dehydration; public fountains have no days of rest, and these seem to be available in even the smallest towns!
The ride out is somewhat longer than planned - 30, 40, 50 kilometres pass with no sign of Javiér, and then the valley drops out down a 250 metre-high hill into a lower valley. We check the signs, only to discover that the way to Javiér is under construction! Disheartened, we head off to the side and stop for lunch at the one open café that we can find. The pizza squares we have there are tasty but not quite filling, so we buy some bread and cheese from the adjoining shop and sit down outside. As we fill up on food, a kind old woman informs us that there is a small shaded plaza just up the road with a fountain, so we retire there to wait out the midday heat.
Since we can't make it to Javiér, we instead decide to head up another valley - the last downhill was rather steep, so we hope to avoid it by going around; there are also more points of interest, such as old Roman castles and towers, indicated on our regional map that way. A headwind picks up, making for slow travel as we laboriously pedal uphill; finally, exhausted after riding some 120 km over hilly terrain in the heat on relatively little sleep, we roll into Pamplona around 2000.
Venus calls on our way into town to inform us that bikes are apparently not allowed on the trains from Madrid; after some research into the matter, we determine that buses are the more sensible mode of travel around these parts - but we do not receive a call back until later, at which time the last buses have already left. Such is the nature of travel...things can sometimes go spectacularly wrong, so that it is important to roll with the situation and attempt to get it back on track! As for our part, we're tired enough after the least relaxing day off in history that, having made sure that everything is at least somewhat alright on her end, we head over to the psuedo-campground at Ezcala for another night of heavily punctuated sleep - a group of rowdy Australians and their festival tourism group have taken over the site with a concert stage that blasts mostly terrible music into the late hours of the night, thereby obliterating any chance for peace or rest.
We do have one piece of bounty from our extended day trip - a bottle of wine local to the town we took siesta in, which we expect to thoroughly enjoy once Venus arrives. Salud!