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18-07-2013 Jaca – Pamplona 155 km
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On the road again (to Santiago)
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Nice quiet roads
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Nice, nice
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Lonely break
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Alarm at 6:50, breakfast at 7. Breakfast is .... Spanish .... minimal: small cakes and cookies in plastic, cheap orange juice. The coffee is good, though, and my cup is refilled (at least once). The friendly manager's forecast regarding the temperature comes out correct: it is (feels like) 15-20 degrees. Jaca is quiet still, it's also rather small, so even for me it's easy to find the right exit (I do already fear Pamplona, which I suppose will be today's destination, and which will be much trickier to escape from). First I follow the N-240 westwards, which is rather quiet too, owing to the early time (is the new - according to my map - motor way that runs parallel to it already in use?). The road is part of the Camino de Javier (or one of the alternatives), which amazes me: it must be very boring to follow on foot a track along an N-road. The cars that do pass by do so at a high speed, a circumstance I'm not particularly happy about. This road would take me to Pamplona in 100 km. However, when after 13 km the turn to the south onto a very tiny road arrives, the greater pleasure starts. A very curvy up-and-down going road (more up than down), VERY quiet - apart from bird sounds -, through Alastuey, through Bailo, where the road is so not-through-going I get mixed up which route to take, to Larués. I ride through an open, hilly landscape, with a lot of agriculture on the slopes. On the map Larués looks like one of the bigger villages I'll come across, and indeed there is a bar, open, but not with much food (more chocolate cakes in plastic!). I'm warned that for miles and miles I won't find any shops.
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Stupid new road
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+ remnants of old one
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Sos del Rey Católico
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Unexpected nice intermezzo:
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Through a tunnel to:
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Hoz de Lumbier
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After this coffee break I enter the map 'Pyrénées Occidentales'
and don't understand the new large road that seems to be constructed here (in this area where there's hardly any car!).
Someone has liked to dump a large amount of asphalt, much straighter than the original road, but why??
After Pintano I'm forced onto this road - with loose gravel on it, and going up quite a bit, my rear wheel frequently slips, and for quite a long while I'm gaining altitude. Every now and then the curvy road bumps onto this new monster, but these sections are brutally made unreachable. The last few kms with the slope up at my left are a bit easier.
Though the gravel is certainly still quite loose it seems that there hasn't been worked upon this senseless road for quite a while; there seems to be winter damage even before the road is officially opened. (E.g. there are still no linings on the surface.) What a waste of manpower and money (and asphalt). The junction with the A-1601 is at the highest point of the day, I guess, looking backward. Indeed it starts with quite a descent, during which I leave the map. The first village I meet is NOT Sos, as I had expected (from the peek at the map yesterday evening).
And even from the second village it's still 10 km. Will there be shops in Sos? Will at least one be open? A slightly awkward surprise: Sos (del Rey Católico) is situated on a hill. I have not much energy left after this long solitary morning, but I arrive in the Medieval-like center of Sos well before the "hunger knock". No more fear of such a knock after a long break and a replenishment of my food reserves: there is an open supermercado in Sos. I consume half of my purchases on the staircase to a church/museum. I put on a layer of sun oil and descend from Sos, back onto the map. It's quite a distance still if I don't want to follow the main route to Pamplona. There's an 'interesting' small road on the map, possibly partly unpaved, from Liédena to Lumbier. First it's a bit tricky to get to Liédena since a bridge over the Río Irati seems closed - but luckily not for cyclists, then the first man (car driver) I ask about this road doesn't know about it,
the second local (walking his dog) does, however 500 m after the village the by then indeed unpaved road forks, and somewhere I do
have to cross the new motor way (no sign of it on my map - ed. 2011). My second guess leads me to a tunnel below this road, and a little later another tunnel leading to an unexpectedly nice gorge - 'Hoz de Lumbier' (where I had expected I would have had to climb a hilly range). In Lumbier I get onto the 'white' NA-2400 which leads sort of straight to Pamplona (40 km to go still). I make a sidestep to Induráin where I find a bench in the shade of a farm, fresh water 'from the mountains' and no bar. No people either, only the barking of a dog. I put on another protective layer against the sun, and descend onto the NA-2400. I miss a tiny shortcut and ride through the well-named village of Ardanaz de Izogaondoa instead. The last 10 km to Pamplona, meanwhile I ride on the NA-150, are busy and boring, and I'm tired too. I have a not very detailed map of Pamplona and a vague notion of where the youth hostel should be situated. When I think I'm getting close I phone to the said hostel and manage to reserve an habitación. With a lot of asking, especially when I'm really close!, I finally find the Calle Goroabe and with that the youth hostel. It's quite a modern building, with a swimming pool (but that's not included in the price - and it's quite late too). The garage in the basement causes quite an adventure. I park my bike in a corner but find no way out. No button to push, no camera to send through my enclosure, and no car coming from outside to help me out. It takes quite some time till I find a door that isn't closed and that leads me through a laundry room back into the youth hostel. Ouch!
I have not much energy left to go out for a meal (and at what time will that be possible here?) so I buy a voucher for dinner in the canteen. I'm advised to go early, before a group of mentally disabled will take possession of the dining room, but hey, I don't mind them! Dinner is cheap and horrible, and I look for other travellers in vain. From my room I try to contact the youth hostel in Bernedo but that seems to have knocked off (pity, because there used to be a swimming pool over there too).
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Between Soulor and Aubisque
Yesterday's road to the Soulor
Guirguillano 
