The kindness of strangers

Today was a relatively short 60km, but a lot of it was uphill. We mostly passed through nondescript but interesting towns and cities, including one small town that appeared to be a ghost town, La Colonia de Santa Eulalia. We ended in the hip and bustling town of Villena, with a striking castle, gastro pubs, at least three bike shops, and lots of bike lanes and cyclists.

When we rode with the group of Spanish touring cyclists a few days ago, one of the people we met was César. He spoke just a little English, better than my limited Spanish for sure, but we were lucky to have his friend with us to help translate. He asked us to show him our planned route to Valencia because he lives in the area and could make some suggestions.

When he saw that our route went through the town of Villena, he immediately offered for us to stay at his place, there, since he will be gone cycle touring all week. We were taken aback at this offer from someone we’d known for only a few hours, but this kind of generosity is something we’ve become enamored with in the cycle touring community, and is why we became a part of the WarmShowers network, to give back as hosts in San Diego, and is why we will always offer help and space to other travellers whenever we can. Why should it be any other way, though?

Today we reached Villena and had a wonderful lunch, the menu del día at a gastropub, and then took a short siesta in the park (Spain is starting to take ahold of us, I think…), and then visited a local bike shop to get me a new jersey (mine has holes!), Steve some new gloves, and some other miscellaneous supplies. We then met up with Cesar’s mother-in-law, who showed us up 1500 steps (not really, but it seemed like it, carrying our bikes!) to his place, a cave apartment with upstairs bedroom overlooking the castle! It’s super adorable, and we can’t thank him and his wife enough for their hospitality.

I know some of you like to see our food porn. So here are some of our favorite local dishes that we’ve sampled the past few days. This area of Spain is known for its rice dishes, though we have yet to try a true paella. I understand there’s a website where you can find true paellas, and we mean to find one of these places and have one. Perhaps tomorrow when we pass through Gandia.

Veal roulade in Villena. Amazing!

Lobster paella, the waitress said the lobster was flown in live from northern Spain. It was good, but I’m holding out on my opinion until we try a place from wikipaella.

Nougat ice cream (a local specialty due to the almond production here) and caramel cake. Heavenly!

This rich meatball dish is a local specialty of Villena, and may be reason enough to visit. Muy rico!