Digital Wanderer

We live as long as we fly

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Valencia — 17, a northern night bike promenade from Olot to Girona

2023-03-19

Volcanoes, labyrinths and weight-loss injections: a desperate cyclist and his struggle with excess weight!

The next day, Sunday arrived. Inspired by a successful trip, I hastily cobbled together another rough route. And while on Saturday I rode mostly south of Olot, this time I decided to push north. The track wasn't as ready-made and convenient. Part of it was also a via verde (greenway), but some sections I had to draw blindly along roads and trails.

This time I arrived early, afraid of missing the bike bus (there are no alternatives, after all), and so I even managed to grab a coffee at the bus station cafeteria. I took a pic for you of the loft vibe there, and the huge departure boards, still with segment displays rather than monitors. So vintage!

I was riding solo this time; apparently, Sunday is a sacred day, nobody wants to pedal. But I decided to check out the volcanoes of Olot this time, since it was too cold to hit the road right away anyway. A volcano is a volcano alright: the sand around isn't sand, but volcanic grit, and the shape is suspicious too. Up top there's a crater, obviously, all overgrown with grass. Also a chapel and a couple of towers, to keep watch. Climbing the 20% gradient wasn't easy; I walked, otherwise my knees would have fallen off. After the volcano, I plunged into some labyrinths of roads and stairs, so much so that I barely made it out of the city.

Panorama of a rocky landscape with dark screes and layered cliffs under a blue sky. Several people are climbing steep slopes amidst sparse vegetation.

A digression on the topic of knees. Yesterday I actually did an official Zwift workout for beginners, and I understood one of the reasons why my knees ache a bit. It's insufficient cadence, meaning the number of pedal revolutions per minute. It's considered that it should be at least 80, unless we're talking about a very steep incline. I realized two things are stopping me from hitting 80: lack of fitness and the fact that my knees keep hitting my belly. And while the first can be fixed, the second is trickier: I got fat again. I'm so sick of it that I even started looking into whether they prescribe semaglutide (Ozempic) in Latvia. It's a drug that lets many people lose weight without major side effects, although not everyone. It costs a hell of a lot (150+ a month in Europe, 1200+ in the US), but what can you do. Yesterday on a TikTok stream, I asked the famous Estonian pharmacist Alexey Morgunov if semaglutide is used in Estonia for weight loss. He replied that the drug is so popular that there are now shortages for its primary diagnosis — diabetes. And that's how we live.

A rocky stream with clear water flows through thickets of trees, mostly with bare branches and autumn foliage. On the right, a winding path, a stone wall covered in ivy, and a small bridge in the background are visible.A view through metal bars of an old factory with a tall chimney and solar panels, located in a valley surrounded by wooded mountains. In the foreground, a pink platform cluttered with rusty metal and a purple bicycle is visible.Stone houses with red tiled roofs stand by a river with a small waterfall, against the backdrop of a mountain densely covered with an autumn forest. Several dark wires stretch across the upper part of the landscape.

An old stone arch bridge over a calm river with residential houses at the foot of a wooded hill in the background. Green shrubs and a tree with yellowed autumn foliage are visible on the left side of the foreground.A stone church made of rough stone and brick with a round stained-glass rose window, a bell tower and a clock on the facade, shot from the bottom up against a blue sky. In the foreground on the left grows a tree with yellowing foliage, and down below a stone parapet with a blue parking sign is visible.Brown horses stand on a grassy pasture behind a stretched wire against a backdrop of trees and a wooded hill. The horse closest to the viewer has a wide white marking on its muzzle.

A man and a woman stand at the base of a wooden cabin on stilts built into a wooded rocky slope. The man is taking a picture with his mobile phone against a backdrop of whimsical stone turrets and support structures made of branches.A calm river flows between forested banks and a wooded hill with rocky sections on the left. A bright overcast sky and autumn vegetation are reflected in the water.An old stone fortress wall with residential houses at the top of a steep slope heavily overgrown with trees and shrubs. Reeds grow near the water at the foot of the hill, and the silhouettes of mountains under a bright sky are visible in the background.

The comedy of hunger, anchovies and crappy coffee: the crazy adventures of a bike tourist in the castles of Spain

On the way back from Olot I rode through several cute little towns with castles, where there were no shops, but plenty of tourists. Towards the evening I got hungry and was looking for a place to grab a bite, or at least drink some coffee. I spotted a huge parking lot with buses, albeit a bit off the greenway. I turned in there and found myself in an incredibly beautiful castle with a bridge. The place is called Besalú, in the comarca (region) of Garrotxa. The Romanesque bridge over the river Fluvià dates all the way back to the 12th century; it's very delicate-looking, and with an arch in the middle. Inside the castle there are narrow streets, little stairs, small shops, and just an unbelievable amount of tourists. It's not very convenient to walk through a dense crowd with a bike, but I tried to be careful, and no one complained. I locked up the bike and dashed into a small shop to buy some souvenirs. The girl behind the counter turned out to be Russian-speaking (a Ukrainian, I think), and she even hooked me up with a discount, hallelujah. Then again, I bought a whole mountain of stuff, since I was always too lazy to do it before, and here it just fell right into my lap.

An old stone town with high fortress walls is located on the bank of a calm river reflecting the coastal trees and buildings. In the background, forested mountains rise under a hazy sky with bright sun.A man with a graying beard in a black jacket holds a crepe with red filling, taking a selfie on a narrow cobbled street of an old town with stone buildings.On an old stone wall of a city building there are grates with bright metal decorations in the shape of butterflies, lizards, and stars. Below on the pavement, woven baskets and other souvenirs are visible.

A cozy old European square with stone buildings and a pavement, in the center of which stands a large plane tree with pruned branches. Next to the tree is a street cafe under umbrellas, and in the foreground on the right, sound equipment is set up on a stage.A bustling square of an old European town, surrounded by stone buildings with balconies. There are many people in the square, tables of a street cafe under white umbrellas, and vendor stalls under red awnings, with garlands stretched between the houses.

A light-colored building wall is decorated with wooden lattices on which metal models of bicycles, scooters, and a motorcycle in various colors are hung. In the foreground by the wall, large metal bird figures, a decorative tree with butterflies, and other garden ornaments are visible.A winding forest trail, covered with a layer of fallen leaves, leads through a dense forest; a large puddle is visible in the center, and a blue sky peeks through the tree canopy.

I managed to get a snack too — a crepe with anchovies and crappy coffee. I didn't finish the crepe, it turned out to be completely not my thing. I probably leave food uneaten only once a year, so you really have to try hard to displease me that much. Nevertheless, it didn't ruin my mood. I still had a very long way to go, but I had intentionally decided from the very morning not to rush, but to savor my last bike ride in Spain before flying out. In the end, I arrived at the next town, a bigger one, right at sunset. Before that, I crossed over some hills with almost no vegetation, where it was brutally windy. I realized that without another refuel of calories and coffee, I wasn't going to make it anywhere. In the town, I found an open bakery with a high rating — cal flequer. That in itself was a little quest, since the schedule in Spain is quite peculiar, especially on a Sunday. At the pastry-bakery, pies were being handed out by a pretty black girl, very young. From Algeria, I think, or something like that. She gave me a bright smile — I think it's because after all those kilometers, I looked pretty grubby.

A curved concrete path with puddles and fallen leaves runs along a body of water reflecting a dense green forest on a hill.An agricultural field with a strip of green shoots and plowed brown earth against a backdrop of forest and a mountain range under a cloudy sky.A small pink building with a large mural of a dark, textured face on the wall and a STOP sign. Bare tree branches grow straight up from the building's roof, and fields and a dirt road spread out around it under a cloudy sky.

A colorful drawing on a light-colored building wall depicting a cartoon kingfisher on a branch, an otter in the water, a dragonfly, and two fish. Below the drawing on a blue concrete ledge, the inscription "ESCOLA de NATURA" is visible.A close-up on a white marble cafe table shows an open-faced sandwich with cheese and ham, a cup of coffee with foam, and a dessert with nuts; in the distance, other coffee cups on a tray are visible.

After refueling properly one more time, I saddled up again. It was dark, and I was seriously exhausted, but where are you gonna go from a submarine! I fired up my mega-flashlight, put on some upbeat tunes, and headed home.

Rode 79km, with 750m of elevation gain in 8 hours.

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