20 years ago today – Day 60

View Larger Map

Thursday, May 2 - Figueres to Cerbere, France – 2904 km – a fierce windstorm

I have an uneasy feeling about today. All night the wind was blowing, whistling around the windows like a predatory spirit. This morning we see that it has blown most of the clouds away but I doubt anyone could say that the weather has improved. A powerful wind is tearing across the flat valley where Figueres lies in violent gusts, worse than I think it was last night. Mike’s plan is to cycle right into it.

It strikes us as we step out to get some morning air and makes our walk quite unpleasant. We retreat back indoors to finish letters. Mike says he wants to wait until 11am when the Salvador Dali Museum opens, but we are both biding time in the hopes that the wind will die down.

The news says the wind storm is affecting much of Europe today. It is racing from the north down the valley of the Rhone and from the north-west, and from the Atlantic Coast channeled to the Mediterranean by the Pyrenees that form the French-Spanish border. There they collide and merge, amplifying as they round the eastern end of the Pyrenees. Travelers are advised to avoid the Costa Brava today with severe wind warnings in effect.

While the winds howl outside, I suggest that we hover in Figueres one more day, to let the brunt of the storm pass, but Mike says we have seen worse. Where, I ask, but he ignores my response. He had planned to be in France by the start of May and says we are already almost two days late. We are only 41 km from the border and he says we can do at least that much. He thinks the weather reports are exaggerating the danger. I am not so sure.

11 o’clock rolls around and we load up our bikes and ride to the museum. It has just opened but we agree that we don’t have time to tour it as it will be a long, hard struggle to get to the border. I take a couple shots of the outlandish art in the courtyard: seated statues perched high on stacks of rubber tires and giant eggs crowning the edges of the roof. Just our luck if the winds blow one off, I think to myself.

There’s no point to my objections. Mike will go even if I don’t, leaving me moneyless. I am anxious to get to France too, and I am not afraid of hard work. I have proven myself so far. Didn’t I cycle nine hours against the strong headwind to get to Valencia? Mike says we can at least make it closer to the border and if it’s too unsafe we can stop. That would make tomorrow’s trip shorter and maybe we can catch a train to Provence the same day.

Like soldiers charging into battle, we set off. Charging, that is, if the battlefield was a steep mountainside that they had to scale to reach the enemy. The flat plain feels like that, as though it is uphill. The wind is moderate for several seconds and I pick up speed, but then a powerful blast of air slows me to walking speed again, blowing with it leaves and bits of debris. Thankfully, yesterday’s rain has kept the dust down.

The road we set out on is in poor condition and obviously too small to lead to an international border crossing but Mike, in his cocky way, insists it will be fine. It isn’t, of course. At one point a shovel has severed the road to drain a lake. There seems to be no way to cross the torrent until the shovel operator places his bucket on the ground in front of us. Another workman rushes over to help us put our bikes into the bucket. We climb in and the shovel operator lifts us over the water and deposits us on the far side. The Spanish are so helpful.

But the road ends anyway a kilometre further along when it reaches a small village. We are forced to take another side road south-east to join the main highway, N260, that leads to the border. The road surface is much better from this point onward, but the gusty cross winds kept blowing me off the road. We can only manage 15 km per hour.

When we reach the edge of the Pyrenees, they buffer us from the wind for a short while. What a relief! But there is nowhere for the road to go but out to the coast to get past the mountains. We cross over a low pass between foothills and five kilometres further we reach the Mediterranean near the town of Llanca. As we turn north the wind becomes wilder than before, even worse than in Figueres. Mike pulls in front of me and disappears in the curves ahead.

There is now less than 20 km to the border, normally an hour’s ride, but I can tell it will become an ordeal. The storm is unreal, unlike anything I have ever cycled in. The wind must be over 100 km/hr. There are whitecaps on the small, sheltered bays below me and each powerful blast of air moves the forest on the side of the mountain above me like an invisible hand passing over dog’s fur. I feel fortunate that I haven’t yet been hit by flying branches, but it’s far too early to count my blessings.

This coast, I was once told, is called the Costa Brava (Brave Coast) because of these winds. That is why there are very few condos here. I have been in this area once before, in late September of 1985, with a group of eight other cyclists on a trip that I had organized, my first cycling trip in Europe. We noticed the danger signs warning of high winds in the area then, but on that day it was so calm that there wasn’t enough of a breeze to cool us down after climbing through the pass. The last town on the Spanish side is Portbou, the farthest southern extent of our ride in ’85. I remember that the two greatest hills to cross are on either side of the town, each over 200m high.

I struggle north from Llanca on the snaky mountain road, past two rocky headlands. This is insane, I tell myself, each time I turn into the impossible wind, but there is no place to rest before Portbou. I begin to climb the big hill before the town. It’s a steep climb but at least it shields me from the worse of the wind. When I get to the top I am met by the full force of the wind again, striking me from one side and then the other. I ease myself beyond the crest where the wind is not quite so severe.

From this height the whitecaps on the sea are countless. They blur in the distance from the sea spray, so that the horizon is hard to distinguish. I know it is Portbou below, because I see the train yards where passengers crossing the border either way must change trains. The two countries use different gage rails. The town is only a kilometer away or slightly more. The drop seems easy at first, but the road hairpins at the end of the bluff and the wind here is as powerful and steady as a torrent of water. It is so strong that I cannot make the turn. I straddle my bike waiting for a pause in the blast that doesn’t come. It pushes me closer and closer to the guardrail and I am losing strength. This is too scary. A motorcycle comes down the hill and attempts to make the turn, but he is blown over, right off the bike. He is not injured but he stays low in order to drag his bike away from the hairpin before he can get on it again.

I am really freaked out now and I know I have to do something or I’ll be blown over the guardrail into the sea. With all the strength I can muster, I make one great thrust and turn the bike around facing into the wind. I walk it step by step until I am out of the strongest part of the blast and able to coast downhill into the town.

I am certain I will find Mike waiting for me below in Portbou but I am wrong. He’s nowhere to be found. I can’t believe he continued on to the pass, which will be just as bad if not worse. I am shocked too that he didn’t wait for me, to see if I had made it safely. If I had been injured he wouldn’t be able to come back to find me. There is no way we should be cycling apart under these conditions. Every shred of common sense tells me to stay here in town for the night but he is still carrying all my money. I am so ready to kill him, but first I am going to have to catch him.

I rest for a few minutes, all the while telling myself that I can do anything if I set my mind to it. I am not quite enough of a fool to believe this but I set off up the big hill to the pass anyway, knowing I have no other choice if I want to see Mike again.

There are six switchbacks as the road climbs above Portbou, each one longer than the previous one. Twice gusts of wind throw me against the guardrails but I am able to climb back on my bike to continue upward. I am most anxious about the last and highest switchback. I see it at the end of the headland almost 200m directly above the sea. The road climbs to it like a climax. If I am going to die, it will be here. But when I get there it is not what I expect. It is very windy but instead of a hurricane blowing me over the edge, there is an updraft. Just as I round the corner I am splashed with sea water, at the height of a sixty floor office building!

From the switchback, the road climbs for .7 km in a steady course to the pass, with a wall of rock on the north side, my side of the road. I am able to cycle most of the way, but for the last couple hundred metres I straddle my bike and use my hands to pull me along by gripping the rock face beside me. The rock face disappears at the pass and reappears of the opposite of the road on the French side of the border, just past the manned border station. I have reached my goal but there is suddenly nothing to hang onto. I inch my way out into road, bracing myself against the screaming wind. Traffic waits in both directions and the border guards in their kiosk watch with open mouths as it takes me several minutes to cross the road.

I am shaking when I get to the other side. I rest against the rock face to regain my strength. I have lived to see France once more. From here it is all downhill to the French town of Cerbere. I know Mike will be waiting there, as we discussed the possibility catching a train from here tomorrow, to take us to Provence.

I mount my bike and coast carefully downhill. The wind is negligible to what I have just been through, but the road switchbacks and returns to a point ten metres below the pass. I brace myself for more gusts but I am caught off guard by an especially violent blast that flips my bike into the ditch against the mountainside. I land painfully on a sharp rock that meets me below my lower rib cage, my feet and wheels sticking out of the shallow ditch.

A small Renault pulls up beside me. There are three adults in the car staring at me. I struggle to get up without success. I am in shock and pain, not to mention exhausted. They just sit there for a good minute watching me like I’m some kind of freak show. I feel my anger rising.

Finally, the man gets out of the driver’s seat on the far side of the car, climbs down and lifts me out of the ditch and sets me on my feet. He asks in French if I am all right. I hope so, I reply. He’s a big-framed brute in his mid-30s, solid muscle. He lifts my bike, bags and all, out of the ditch and deposits it in his trunk. His mother, I presume, is in the front passenger seat so I climb into the back seat with his wife while her husband ties down the lid of the trunk. The women try to question me in French but I only catch a piece of what they are saying. “Gracias,” I respond to their kindness, having forgotten for the moment how to say thank you in French.

The man climbs back into the driver’s seat and apologizes for not getting out of the car sooner. The wind was too strong, I couldn’t open the door, he explains. He drives me the last kilometre to Cerbere at the bottom of the hill. The wind is hardly blowing down here. A couple hundred metres after the road flattens out, I see Mike sitting on a bench overlooking the beach, his bike leaning on the bench beside him. He is reading a novel.

“Voila mon ami!” I tell the driver and he pulls over to let me out. He unties the trunk, lifts out my bike and deposits it in front of me. I thank him several times while shaking his hand and he beams. Well it looks like you made it, Mike says as the Renault drives away. I look around for a blunt object to beat in his head with, but I am too tired to do it anyway. I don’t know where to begin, what to say first.

What were you thinking, riding on without me in such dangerous wind, I ask. He hears the indignation in my voice and tries to trivialize it. I knew you would make it, he says. I am so choked I can’t speak. I was blown into a ditch at the pass and I think I’ve broken a rib, I say casually, holding up my right hand which is scraped and bleeding. It’s not broken, he snaps irritably, as if I am just a melodramatic hypochondriac. Give me my share of the money right now of I’ll make sure you leave here with more injuries than I do, I growl. He gets up to ride his bike away but I block his path. Alright, he says, and opens his money belt.

We walk down to Cerbere’s chamber of commerce together, without talking, to get maps and a list of hotels. We find a moderately priced one and I stay in the rest of the evening to rest my wounds. I think I should visit a hospital, I tell him. He acts as though he doesn’t hear me. I declare that I am in no condition to be riding in this wind, that I intend to take the train to Provence tomorrow with or without him. There’s not much to see between here and there anyway, he shrugs.

Later in the evening he ventures out to the train station and returns with the news that the first train to Avignon leaves at 8am. I guess I’ll put off my visit to the hospital until we are there, I say. He has no response. His lack of support today is worse than when I had food poisoning in Sagres. I lay awake half the night listening to the wind howling through the trees and knocking at our window, wondering if I will ever trust Mike again.

PHOTO 1: entrance to Dali Museum
PHOTO 2: statue in courtyard of museum
PHOTO 3: giant eggs on rooftop of museum
PHOTO 4: statue on rubber tires in courtyard
PHOTO 5: more rooftop decorations at museum
PHOTO 6: the coast south of Portbou
PHOTO 7: descending into Portbou