The judge speaks!

One of the most exciting things about taking part in SALOMON WOMEN WILL is getting the experience to work with - and hear from - other women adventurers who dedicate their lives to exploring the world. For Spanish climbers, Araceli Segarra needs no introduction: She was the first Spanish woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest, and is known as one of the world's foremost mountaineers. Back in May, she did an interview with SALOMON about the challenges and joys of women in the world of active tourism:

You've spent many years being one of the best Spanish alpinists. Do mountains now signify devotion or obligation for you?
AS: My aim's always been to work as little as possible, in order to climb as much as possible. It's an authentic calling for me: climbing and travelling.

When did you first know that you were made for mountaineering?
AS- Truth is, I don't know that I even know that now. I never had a revelation; day by day, I got here in a fairly organic way. Living, for me, is doing what you really love, even though that means that you've got to be brave.

Do your upcoming projects demand bravery?
AS- Within a month [June 2007] I'm going to return to Everest to do another film for IMAX. The first was in 1996, during that expedition which will always be a special for me, although the goal that time wasn't to reach the summit.

[Gratuitous comment from Patricia: Whatever you do, DON'T miss Jon Krakauer's classic retelling of that fateful May in 1996, "Into Thin Air". She was too modest to say it during this interview, but the members of the IMAX team - including Ed Viesturs, David Brashears and Araceli - put their own summit attempt in jeopardy to help bring the injured climbers down off the mountain. ]

What words do you have for young women who have fallen in love with mountains?
AS- Enjoy it, and to enjoy it, remember that you don't have to go to Lapland or Madagascar. There are an infinite number of adventures to be had in the Pyrenees and the Alps. You can be a good mountaineer right near your own home; it simply consists of enjoying outdoor sports. .

Has being a woman been a help or a handicap during your career?
AS- It's never posed a problem for me. I climb with a lot of guys, and they see me as a fellow climber and a friend who likes to go up rock. But I always try to be realistic and I don't make things difficult for myself by going beyond my limits. That's what keeps you out of trouble - for both men and women.

Finally, what did being the first woman to summit Everest give to you personally?
AS- Some good things and some bad things. Among the good things is that I've always been clear that, in terms of mountaineering, my feat didn't break any barriers, given that I did it with bottled oxygen. It's just that, at that moment, our objective was to bring an IMAX camera to the top of the world. We accomplished that, and the 1996 film is proof of that. That was good, as is being the first woman to do something to help more people get inspired - and when we're talking about women, that is something very positive. I also put a lot of value on how communication works, and that I put in my two cents when it comes to demystifying the danger that the media always sticks to mountaineering. It's not really as dangerous as they say - I'm just saying!

The downside is that I've been labelled "Everest Girl" and my life in sport is a lot more wide-ranging than that. I do a lot of different things with different levels of ability. I don't want anyone to put me on a pedestal, just so that I can fall down later. I'm not trying to sell anything and I believe that words are worth their weight in gold - that's why I always try to put the truth first.

(Big thanks to Toti Rosselló for letting us re-print his interview with Araceli.)

We have beds! (Part I)

Good news on the accommodation front. I just heard from María at Camping Aralar, located in Lekunberri, Navarra (where we'll be staying the night of Wednesday, March 26th). The campsite is not typically open during the work week out of season, but María has confirmed that they'll be happy to open up the campsite for us so that we have a place to stay. They're going to put us up in the refuge (cost: €9.83) that night - it's just as expensive as the campsite itself, and will probably be a lot warmer.

The only catch is that we have to confirm ONE MONTH BEFORE (which means letting them know by February 26th, 2008.) I will make a reservation for six people (the minimum amount) but if you want to stay there, please let me know as soon as possible, so that we can have beds for everyone.

TRANS-IBERIAN, now on FACEBOOK.COM

A piece of news for those of you who use the FACEBOOK (http://www.facebook.com) website: I've now created an English-language FACEBOOK group, so that people who are interested in the trip can keep up to date on the latest developments.

All you need to do is search for Trans-Iberian Express under "Groups" and send me a message, and I'll put you in the group. Be sure to let me know if you'll be able to take part, or if you're just curious to see how things are going along!

Straight Shot

Eighty kilometres seems like a very long distance to do in one day, but when most of the trip is downhill, it's a lot better. We left Brihuega going down a sweet series of hairpin turns to join the valley of the Tajuña River, which is going to take us all the way back down to Madrid.

It's a gorgeous day - the sky an incredibly deep royal blue which looks even more blue when juxtaposed with the bright yellows of the poplar tres which line the Tajuña. The day starts off cool, but warms up enough that, by the end of the day, we all end up with sunburns on our noses. The route takes us past two dozen attractive, historical villages; it's a shame that we don't have time to visit them all, because it doesn't seem fair that we should have to choose one over the other.

The further south we go, the more the valley opens up, and by the time we reach the N320 highway, the Tajuna lies at the bottom of a low canyon, bounded by wheat fields on each side. We stop for lunch at a small town close to the Madrid-Guadalajara border; the afternoon's riding was totally seamless, one of those days when you could go on riding and pedalling forever if the sunlight let you. And then we hit the first big problem: finding a place to sleep.

The Spanish greenways guidebook says that there are four places to sleep: two in the town of Ambite, one in Orusco de Tajuña, as well as a youth hostel in Carabaña. Turns out that the Carabaña youth hostel is just that - no one over 30 - and the hostales in Orusco and Ambite closed years ago. Which leaves us with a hotel in Tielmes whose name I won't mention.

The hotel itself is not bad if you've got money, but it's very surprising to find out that there are so few options along the way. The hotel is NOT cheap; they do have cabins for rent, but they're not good value for the money, and the three of us are woken up several times during the night by drunken wedding guests trying to find their way into bed. I was hoping that the existence of the Vía Verde would motivate more tourism initiatives in the area, but this doesn't seem to be the case....

Lovely Alternatives

Friday, 12 October 2007: Guadalajara to Brihuega, 45 km
Sometimes, when your nightmares come true, it seems to make them go away for the future. I know that missing a train hardly qualifies as a nightmare, but when I was standing on Platform 15 of Chamartín Station, watching the train to the town to Arcos de Jalón pull away, I couldn't think of anything else. Announcements had told us that the train was leaving from Platform 5. My Spanish is good enough that I would NOT confuse those two numbers. And even though we ran like a pair of maniacs, we missed the train.

The first exploration trip to check out the Trans-Iberian route was not getting off to a good start!

In the end, it worked out well. Not only because we missed having to do a lot of highway riding, but because we found a great way of getting around the Alcarria region. The idea behind the Trans-Iberian is to find quiet roads that allow cyclists to travel around Spain, and we found a number of good options that would make a fun cycling weekend around Madrid.

After filling ourselves with coffee, we rode off and followed the CM101 highway up to the turnoff to Tórtola de Henares, a small bedroom community northeast of Guadalajara city. It seems to have a charming centre, but it's hard to tell, what with all the new construction creeping up the sides of the hills around town. We then headed north on the CM1003 regional road - and did well for the first 500 metres - until the highway ran out! The regional government was a third of the way through rebuilding the road, which left us with five or six kilometres of rough gravel riding. Nothing unusual, for having grown up in Eastern Ontario, but it still wasn't pleasant. Gonzalo, our resident public works expert, didn't think much of the road.

The next, best option was to head through the towns of Ciruelas and Cañizar, where we stopped for lunch. It seems like most small towns in Guadalajara province that have more than a couple of hundred residents have, at least, two important monuments: a bar and a church. That's how we came up with our first rule: When in doubt, we'll meet at the first bar or the church, whichever one we come across first. After a quick lunch (including a delicious salad of tomatoes, garlic, cumin seeds and thyme), we set off, did a quick climb up out of the Henares Valley, and set off towards Brihuega.

Brihuega itself is a cute little town, very green and historic, but one thing became very clear very quickly: They're definitely not used to cycle tourists in this part of the country. The clerk at the hostal where we stayed gladly took our money and booked us in - and two minutes later, the owner of the place came out and started whining that no one had told him that we would be bringing bicycles.

I calmly pointed out that, when I'd booked the room the night before, I had told the clerk on duty that we would be arriving by bicycle, so it wasn't like they weren't informed. He grudgingly accepted the bicycles and told us to put them in the salon, but not before he complained that the other guests would have to look at the bicycles. (Later, I took a look at the cubby holes where the keys were kept - only four of the thirty rooms were occupied!)

We didn't last very long that night. We had a couple of glasses of wine, some platos combinados of fried eggs, chips and grilled red peppers, and were in bed before ten o'clock - a good thing, considering that Saturday promised to be a very long day, indeed.

Great stuff!! (Now get back to work.)

Oh, NO. Like I needed another way of wasting time and not getting stuff done:

http://sigpac.mapa.es/fega/visor/

This is a great combination of three different kinds of maps - road map, Army map and Google Earth-style map all in one website. It's totally free to use; you can't save the maps, unfortunately, but there are no restrictions to printing individual pages.

Enjoy!

And be warned - you don't get kicked off the website after a set period of time.

Yes, it's nice. No, you can't have it.

I'm a map freak. I have no problems admitting it. I can do a fair amount of damage in any bookshop, given enough free time and money; but put a selection of maps in there, and you can't get my butt out of there, even if there were a five-alarm fire burning the joint down.

I have most of the maps for the Trans-Iberian Express, but the one thing I don't have is the map for the Ruta Natural de los Dos Bahias, which links the Bay of Cádiz with the Bay of Algeciras, just to the west of Gibraltar. Or, better said, I did have it - but after two years and moving house once, I don't even remember if I still have it or if it was one of the many things that I chucked when I moved.

A quick Google search revealed that the Diputación de Cádiz (the regional authority) had published a book about the trail, but the first printing was sold out. I fired off an e-mail, asking if a second edition was coming out. And then I got the phone call.

For some reason, the automatic answering machine on my phone hasn't been activated, so I ended up playing phone tag with the representative of InfoCádiz. When I finally got ahold of him, the conversation went something like this:

Me: "Hi there. I'm calling about your guide to the Ruta de los Dos Bahías."

Mr. InfoCádiz: "Ah, yes. It's a shame about that book."

"A shame?"

"It's sold out."

"I understand that. Will there be a second edition of the book?"

"No, and it's a shame, because it's a really nice book. The guy who wrote the book got a grant from the Diputación de Cádiz to write it, but they wouldn't pay for a second edition, and he didn't want to pay for it, so... no more book."

"I see."

"And it's a real shame, because it was a great book. It had great information for people who wanted to do the route by car, on foot, riding a horse. And yes, I guess on bikes, as well."

"But I can't buy it."

"No one wants to pay for a second printing."

"Do you have any idea of where I could get another copy?"

"You may want to call the central switchboard of the Diputación de Cádiz and ask to speak to someone there. There's probably someone there who can tell you what you need to know."

And he rang off.

True, it was very generous of him to call to let me know. But I'm kind of confused as to why he went to so much trouble to try to sell a book that can't be purchased.....!

First of many sleepless nights

I'm not particularly fond of doing work on Sundays, but this weekend, I couldn't help it. What with the excitement checking out routes, alternatives and everything that had to be done, my brain just kept going and going and going and going.... which made for a very sleepless night last night.

I don't know why I couldn't stop thinking about the route. Too much caffeine, maybe. But I literally sat awake last night and sweated about what I should do about the section that goes through the Sierra de la Demanda.

The problem is that I don't know when exactly I'm leaving. I don't know if I'm going to do the Trans-Iberian in two parts (one section right after Christmas, the other during and the week after Semana Santa) or all in one go (leave on Palm Sunday and then return to Madrid on May 5th.) In either case, it's going to mean doing the trip during the late winter - early spring, when the snow is still thick up in the Sierra de la Demanda. It is possible to get around the Sierra, but it'd mean a 200-kilometre detour to get around the Sierra, which adds another three or four days to the route, which is already a month long.

And I kept lying awake, thinking, heavens - at the end of the day, it's ONLY a bike ride........!