Salamanca-Avila.

Trip dist: 101 kms. Trip time: 6 hrs, 19 mins. Tot dist: 1379 kms.

Today it was very hot, which made for a very tiring ride, even though it was rather flat, I think, or at any rate, a bit on the boring side. On these occasions when you cannot simply glance over your shoulder to start a conversation with your riding partner, the nearest (and it is not that close) substitute is a portable radio (and I was beginning to wonder why the heck I had brought it along, since I hadn't really had a use for it until now). Nice to see what songs are en-vogue in this country nowadays. Not much different from rest of world, I think. Lots of American music, Madonna, some Luis Miguel from Mexico, etc. The classical music station was intent on playing horrible atonal 20th century stuff, so it was not really worth listening to, and especially not during a very boring and tiring ride. So Madonna it was. {shrug}

After arriving in Avila I had occasion to sup on a super-delicious Sopa Castellana (English recipe here), which I ordered, mostly, because I was fascinated by the waiter's description of it: upon asking "what's good here?" his eyes widened and he gulped and swallowed, for his mouth started watering as soon as he started describing what this soup was made of, and when the very, very enthralling description ended, he added with a small shrug: "well, I really like it", which was, judging from the dreamy and enthusiastic encomium that preceded it, a great understatement.

He was completely correct, you know.