The only problem now was that today was going to be a long day; riding nearly 80 miles from Cistierna to Pola de Lena over several passes, including the Sierra de las Fuentes de Invierno. You have to pay attention to names when you're touring on a loaded bike, and Mountains of the Springs of Winter could be bad news. To make matters even more interesting I could see that the weather was closing down on the mountains as they loomed ominously ahead.
Last night I had been reading a book from the hotel's small library. It recalled the glory of a small group of local cyclists who dominated international racing, especially in these mountains, before the Spanish Civil War cut short so many lives. This morning's view ahead was of those same mountains whose photographs I had seen the night before. The mist made everything about them monochromatic; I rode into the photographs.
By midday I was well into the mountains. I was also well into the rain and mist, too. A profound silence had descended as soon as I passed the tiny town of Redipollos and took the road climbing into heavy mist towards the Sierra de las Fuentes de Invierno. The scenery was probably breathtaking, but all that I could see were the trees close to the unusually narrow and winding road. This region is not the southern Spain of sun-browned plain and parched landscape; this is a very different Spain, of dark green mountains and strong, healthy waterfalls fed by abundant rain. I was becoming tired of the rain, and thinking that it was about time to stop for a well-deserved lunch; unfortunately, the road I had chosen didn't have much in the way of villages, or anything else. I was so distracted by wondering whether the name of Isoba on the map would be just a hut, or if there would be a restaurant in the hut, that I failed to keep my usual watch in the mirror and came close to riding off the edge of the road when someone with a loud voice said "Hola, chico!" about a foot from my left ear.
It was another cyclist. The first I'd seen all day. You often see other cyclists as you travel here, but this lonely road was unusually quiet. No traffic whatsoever had passed since I turned towards the mountains, not even sounds in the distance. He must have caught up with me very quickly, and he looked like a fast rider. "Hola," I replied, "Me asustó." He smiled; he knew damn well that he'd startled me. The big surprise, apart from his being there at all, was that he could have stepped straight out of the pages of the book I had been reading the night before. It was rare to find anybody in Spain interested in antique bicycles.
I had to admire his bicycle. It was beautiful: A perfect reproduction of the antique fixed-gear road racing bicycles that the riders in the photographs had used. He was dressed in period clothing, too. I was glad to be wearing Gore-Tex instead of his long-sleeved woollen jersey. Over his eyes he wore a pair of goggles. When I complimented him on the bicycle he seemed pleased, and explained that no, it wasn't a reproduction at all; this was a genuine 1938 Orbea, built in Bilbao. The overall effect was so perfect that I wouldn't have been surprised if he had a few pages from a 1938 newspaper under his jersey for insulation. The rider's name was Arturo Barreiros, and he turned out to be good company. As we climbed towards the top of one of the day's smaller passes he told me that there was, indeed, a small restaurant in Isoba that he knew well; in fact, that's all there was to be found in Isoba. Better yet, the approaching summit was the last before lunch, and the descent was one of those sweeping, sinuous joys where the road just flows past. Eventually I had to start using the brakes as my heavily loaded Cannondale proved to be less agile than a fifty year old Orbea, and he shot ahead into the mist.
Arturo was waiting for me outside the restaurant. I think he was probably finding that authentic period clothing is less useful in lousy weather than modern waterproofs, but he looked no more uncomfortable than the men of iron braving the weather in those old photographs.
Isoba was another step back in time. One of those places that you hope you'll find, but are usually just tourist reproductions. This one was genuine. No name on the restaurant, just a few tables in a small run-down building. No menu, either. I think that the waiter was also the cook, and he seemed to know Arturo. I didn't recognize many of the names of local dishes, so Arturo ordered for both of us. The mist and low cloud made the interior of the restaurant so dim that we called for some light, and got what looked like a genuine antique oil lamp. That surprised me because in that sort of place they don't usually care much about atmosphere, and the usual lighting is garish fluorescent tubes. When I remarked on this Arturo said "that's because there's no electricity. They won't have electricity in Isoba for another twenty years." I looked around. He was right. Not only was there no electricity, but there was nothing else to stop it from looking just as it had when those young men in last night's photographs had stopped in places like this, perhaps even right here. If it had been more obvious the effect would have looked contrived, but somehow it wasn't immediately obvious that there was nothing, absolutely nothing, in the restaurant to spoil the period effect. It was superb.
I did think, though, that twenty years was unduly pessimistic. I expressed scepticism: "Twenty years?" "Twenty!", he replied, "You'll see."
While waiting for the main course, we started with tortilla Española (a delicious potato pancake whose only resemblance to Latin American tortilla is the name) and a bottle of wine. As the talk turned to politics Arturo told me a little of the problems of the region. When Franco came to power after the Civil War a period of heavy-handed, and sometimes brutal, repression of all the regional cultures began. The Basques were forbidden even to speak their language, and lost political power as all decision making moved to the central government in Madrid. Before the end of Franco's thirty-eight year dictatorship extremist elements had formed the ETA terrorist organization dedicated to Basque autonomy. The bomb that had started my day with a rude awakening was part of that long conflict.
Arturo didn't think much of ETA. "All they're doing now is making us seem like animals up here," he said. Explaining that he thought Basque separatism was fast becoming irrelevant in the modern Spain that had been all around me until passing Redipollos that morning. "But I'm glad that today I can show you how this region was before the war. What you're seeing on this road doesn't exist any more." We talked for a long time, and I grew to like Arturo. He was a Spanish Basque who cared much for his country, and was saddened by the strife and violence that sometimes tore it apart. It seemed that he was a historian, too, and his knowledge of the Civil War was extensive; although I was sometimes confused by his habit of talking as if it were still going on, and the Basque separatist turmoil a part of it. We talked, too, of how Adolf Hitler had aided both Franco and himself by sending military aid to the successful rebellion. About how the Condor Legion of the Luftwaffe had used Spain as a training ground for World War II, and introduced the world to the horrors of all-out attacks on unarmed civilians in the town of Guernica one market day.
Spanish lunchtime doesn't even start until about two in the afternoon, and I still had a long way to go before reaching somewhere to stay the night. Arturo seemed a little wistful when I said it was time to get on my way. "Oh, yes," he said, "a day is over so soon." After lunch we rode for quite a time in silence; and Arturo always matched his pace to my own heavily laden speed.
The weather hadn't improved. If anything the mist became thicker as we continued the descent, and it stayed that way as we came within a couple of kilometers of the small town of Cabañaquinta. Arturo pulled over to the side of the road, and stood in silence for a moment. "I can't go any further," he said. "I have to go back now, but I'd like you to do something for me. Please tell them that the bombs are a mistake. They always were. If they can't do it peacefully, it will destroy them. Please tell them." He was really passionate about this, there were tears in his eyes.
"Tell who?" I said. "I don't understand who you want me to tell, or why it should be better from me than from you." "You'll see.", he replied, "In just a couple of kilometers, you'll see. Watch for the red building on the left." He shook my hand, turned around and vanished silently into the mist.
Immediately after parting from Arturo I descended out of the mist, came to a junction and saw the first car since Redipollos. The sound of it was harsh against my ears, which had become accustomed to silence, and the exhaust smell was strong. In the background the constant murmur of traffic returned. The narrow road widened immediately. On the outskirts of Cabañaquinta was a small red building. It was modern, certainly post-Franco, and had a religious look about it. Not a church, but perhaps a shrine of some sort. It didn't seem like the sort of thing that Arturo meant would help me understand, and I nearly went past. But there was still nearly an hour before dark, so I pulled over to the left and went in.
It was a shrine. But the strangest I had ever seen. High on the wall at the back was a bicycle. An Orbea just like Arturo's, but with the frame severely damaged. And then I saw the photograph.
It was Arturo, in a long-sleeved woollen jersey, just as he had ridden with me today, with a pair of goggles hanging loosely round his neck. In the background was the restaurant in Isoba where we had eaten lunch together. The weight of that lunch there was heavy in my stomach. Underneath the photograph was a plaque. I walked forward, and a fiery-icy chill ran down my spine as I read:
"In memory of Arturo Barreiros. Pacifist, Basque patriot and bicycle racer. Killed on May 21st, 1938 by a German aircraft, while climbing the Sierra de las Fuentes de Invierno. May the wind be always at his back."
Copyright © 2008 Giles Morris, All rights reserved