Editor’s note: Sedgwick native Levi Bridges and friend Ellery Althaus of North Truro, Mass., have finished their 10,000-mile cycling trip across Asia and Europe. Bridges has returned to Maine and will be filing a few final installments for the BDN about his trip’s completion.
Over the mountainous terrain of northern Spain, a 500- mile dirt road resembling a four-wheeler track or logging road in rural Maine snakes westward. This is the Camino de Santiago, a path developed during the Middle Ages by Christian pilgrims walking to the Spanish holy city of Santiago de Compostela.
Each year thousands still traverse this historically famous road on foot and bicycle for religious or recreational purposes. Old buildings along the Camino, once serving as pilgrim hospitals helping those making the dangerous voyage, have today been converted into volunteer-run hostels where modern-day pilgrims can sleep for just several dollars a night.
For three weeks, we have slowly ridden the Camino on bicycles. The well-marked trail and affordable accommodations are perfect for weary travelers nearing the end of an arduous journey.
From one road to another
More than eight months ago, my friend Ellery and I embarked on a bicycle trip from the Sea of Japan. Our goal was to ride an estimated 10,000 miles across Asia and Europe, from the Pacific to Atlantic Oceans, transporting ourselves by only using clean energy. On specially designed touring bicycles, we attached small solar panels to power our electronic equipment.
Our journey began by riding on unpaved roads through remote parts of Siberia. Small villages in the region rarely even had running water. Traveling there felt like stepping back in time centuries ago.
From the Pacific Ocean, we have ridden 9,400 miles. Yet the dirt pathways of the Camino create the illusion that we have gone nowhere; the Camino greatly resembles the rough Siberian roads where our adventure began.
On bicycles, we have slowly traveled from the undeveloped to developed world. Western Europe seems like modern civilization’s forefront and Siberia its tail end. The Camino is a vestige of mankind’s past, of a time without paved roads and automobiles. My experiences in Siberia allow me to imagine what the world looked like when pilgrims once walked through here.
After traveling from one side of the earth to another, I find myself on a dirt road again. The Camino may resemble Siberian roads, but it frequently meets small towns with Internet cafes, large grocery stores and comfy hotels. Far away, unpaved roads in Siberia pass through rural villages whose residents seldom even have access to indoor plumbing.
The different ways of life present on a dirt road in Siberia, and another in Spain, make me realize the word modernity means something very different throughout our planet.
Possible impossibilities
Four days ago, a rare winter snowstorm covered northern Spain in heavy ice and snow. Unlike Maine, winter infrastructure, such as large snowplows, does not exist here. The storm has made the Camino and most roads impassable.
For months we’ve pushed through rain, hail, and billowing headwinds, changed more than 80 flat tires, solved innumerable bike problems, become lost countless times, and daily pushed our fatigued bodies onwards. On dirt roads in Siberia, we often rode 10 hours just to cover 50 miles. Finally we are close to finishing the long-est most northerly bicycle trip on earth.
Now the ultimate obstacle confronts us: snowy weather that has rendered our bikes useless and stranded us in a small town called San Miguel.
On a cold morning, I push my bike out of San Miguel to discover if the main roads are passable yet. An old man soon runs up behind me.
“Riding your bike here is too dangerous,” he says pulling me back, “I won’t let you continue.”
“I’ll push my bike and walk then,” I think stubbornly while returning to the cafe where my friends await my report about the road conditions. Snow soon works its way under the Gore-Tex booties covering my bike shoes. They are soaking wet when I reach the cafe, evidence that I don’t have the gear to continue this trip on foot through the snow.
Waiting days for the roads to clear is not an option either because I now have a plane ticket home in several weeks. It becomes brutally obvious we must seek an alternative form of transportation.
That afternoon we board a bus with several other dejected pilgrims forced to cut out part of their walk. Hoary snow-covered landscape speeds by through the bus window. Spain commonly evokes visions of palm trees, sun and warm temperatures. Gazing out the window after this rare storm, it feels like I’m on the bus from Ban-gor to Portland.
I feel defeated. Sitting on the bus, I recall admonitions of those who were skeptical we could complete this trip entirely by bicycle. I embarked on this adventure wanting to prove that impossible-sounding things are possible, to inspire others to take risks. It seems there is nothing to do now save accept my limitations.
We spend several days traveling 120 miles west on a series of buses, stopping to check out road conditions. Deep within the mountains, we reach Ponferrada, a Camino town where the snow fell days earlier. The Camino is impassable, but several inches of the main road’s shoulder are visible next to icy drifts of snow. There is just barely enough space to safely ride a bicycle.
Accepting the obvious dangers of riding these mountain roads, we decide to continue the following morning.
The end is the beginning
I awake in a pilgrim hostel at dawn. It is only 20 degrees outside and not much warmer inside this building. It’s going to be a rough day.
Cycling in below-freezing temperatures, you don’t move your entire body enough to keep your extremities from going numb. On the bike, I futilely wiggle my toes and fingers to stop them from losing feeling. The cold winter wind is irascible, belligerent; like a wildfire racing over the earth, I cannot stop it.
In these conditions, you can only ride around eight miles without stopping in small cafes to warm up. Soon as you return outside, you find yourself already anticipating the next stop.
This morning, every cafe we pass is closed. My feet are so cold it is painful. We have to get inside quick. To my right, I spot a stray dog that died in the cold last night; another dog lies curled around its frozen body.
Finally, we arrive at an open cafe. We warm up and then ride 10 miles to the next one in the small town of Villafranca.
“My feet are so cold it hurts,” Ellery says as we walk inside, “I’m not sure I can go on.”
In Villafranca the mighty mountain of O Cebreiro, one of the longest climbs of the Camino, looms before us. The road leads up nearly 2,000 feet above sea level then down a steep descent. For more than an hour, we sit in a cafe waiting for midday temperatures to rise before setting off.
We spend that afternoon climbing the mountain then descend 12 miles down the other side. Nothing is more enjoyable on a bicycle than the freedom of gliding down a mountain. But doing so in winter weather, your body quickly becomes so cold, the experience is more torturous than thrilling.
Coming down O Cebreiro, the snows recede behind us as we enter the Spanish province of Galicia, gateway to a new climatic zone of green hills and eucalyptus trees. Rainy weather systems racing across the nearby Atlantic warm the region and inundate it with precipitation. Galicians frequently remind visitors of the saying that, “There are only 60 sunny days here each year.”
For three days, we ride through Galicia over the summits of tall mountains where higher altitudes cause the incessant rain to freeze and become slush. I descend them slowly, constantly braking to avoid slipping on black ice while the wind whips sheets of rain against my face.
Late in the third day, the rain stops. Dark clouds recede into the distance and the sun appears. We all cheer at our good fortune and stop for lunch in a grove of eucalyptus.
Three years ago, my friend Ellery and I left college for a semester to walk the Camino de Santiago. The trip took us 32 days on foot. Upon reaching Galicia, we had walked almost 500 miles. Suddenly, a 10,000- mile bicycle trip seemed feasible.
That afternoon, we arrive in Santiago de Compostela under sunny skies. We enter the city on a muddy dirt road, just as we began this adventure eight months ago in Siberia. Riding into the city’s central square, the dramatic heights of the cathedral housing the remains of the apostle St. James, which so many pilgrims over time have journeyed to, rises before us.
Reaching Santiago again is surreal; sitting in a cafe here three years ago, Ellery and I vowed to do a bike trip across Eurasia from the Pacific to Atlantic coasts. For me, Santiago will always seem like both the end and beginning of this bike trip.
But we have still not finished yet. Next stop: the Atlantic Ocean.