The 60km onto Puigcerda (French Border) that day would have taken me 5 hours at my slow heavily luggage burdened pace and I didn’t fancy getting there at midnight so I decided to lay over at Planoles.
The lovely elderly couple (who’s son ran the campsite) opened the bar just for me to sit in comfort on the computer. And the showers were hot and the campsite was immaculate. They charged me less than I’d been charged anywhere in spite of me being the only guest they had apparently.
Both spoke the clearest Spanish in spite of claiming to speak Catalan, unlike the people in the villages below whose accents were so strong I wondered if they were indeed speaking Spanish at all.
It was only later that evening I realised I’d seen no other cycle tourists kitted out for long hauls like me. But then I suppose Nic Crane. Michael Palin, Griff Rhys Jones, .A.J. Mackinnon etc, did what they did not expecting to meet others doing the same thing coming the other way. But they probably all remembered to take the odd novel or Daily Telegraph crosswords with them to pass their wi-fi free evenings.
