San Fermin it is!

BACK IN PAMPLONA!!!
Waking up 4 o’clock in the morning, to discover the rain penetrating your down feathers sleeping bag, while your iPod is blasting out Peter Belli (Danish Rock ‘N’ Roll singer), isn’t exactly the way I can recommend  anyone to wake up. To be frankly honest with you, I don’t know what is worst, my bad taste of music or the rainy weather?
A couple of weeks without a stove, means no coffee for breakfast! I’m now up and running with a new stove again, flown in from Germany. Meanwhile I have been to every bars on my route to get my daily dose of the black stuff.
After my rather embarrassing attempt on touring the Picos de Europa in Spain I ventured off to Madrid to replace some of my lost items. But it was not all negative, when thinking back it actually was good that it happened to me, because I then had the chance to hook up with Ramón Nebari and his family. Ramón gave me a call though he didn’t speak English, so what does one do? I had a foreign guy to speak with Ramón over the phone and translate from English to Spanish, to set up the arrangement. Ramón was a great chap, and I think I can say that we both enjoyed the day I stayed at his house, beside of destroying his motorcycle, upon arrival / . As you all know, I don’t hide any things about my experiences during this journey, or try to twist things or so. So I will be honest with you about the first 5 minutes at Ramón’s place in Madrid. After a couple of hurdles finding his place, which is located in the suburbans a bit outside of Madrid, I finally arrived. Ramón greated me welcome by standing and wavewing to me on the pavement as I toured down his road. He advised me to put Ussel Mammut in his garage. This ment reversing the bike in, which isn’t that easy with a fully loaded VFR, ready to go overland in the African continent. So he helped me, no he rather pulled the bike with me sitting on it into his garage. I thought that he was taking precaution of the width of my attached side alu boxes, so I wouldn’t run into his two bikes, a Honda RC36-2 and a RC46 standing proudly and clean in the garage. I was wrong, suddenly I heard the sound of plastic cracking for the second time (first time was my own bike in France). My right hand alu box had hit the front flashlight on his mint condition RC36-1. I had just arrived, said hello to the dude, been there for only 5 minutes, and this happens. I was almost ready to leave again, but as Ramón said, I shouldn’t think about it, and after all I didn’t have a chance to avoid this as he was the one pulling and guiding me and the bike into the garage, he had the command. This is not the best way to start a new friendship, by destroying the guys most precious property. You can miss with a guy’s wife, but not his bike, and I just picked the worse choice!
Nevertheless I had one of the best evenings that day here in Spain, it was like being with your own family, I enjoyed a good meal prepared by Ramón wife, and had a good conversation with them including a couple of beers, or should we say plenty of beers. When I left Ramón, he was ready to head for Liverpool, United Kingdom, find a local bar and have a chat we the locals, he now spoke English fairly well, and it sounded very originally when he pronounced the word “Hot”. Next day he followed me the way to Ávila to meet up with José, touring on bendy and  twisting roads. Here I stayed for a couple of days enjoying the company of José and his family, and not to forget the great food made by his grandmother Pilar. I also had the opportunity to watch Transformers II synchronized in Spanish, without English subtitles, visiting bars and pool with José and his brothers Borja and Eduardo ;oP I decided right away that I loved Ávila and its people.
It was time for me to do some progress again in my journey, and head on. José joined me and we picked our way towards Jaraiz, to say hello to another member of the Spanish VFR Club, his name was Angel. Angel and I took the opportunity to go for the nearby lake called “El lago de Jaraiz” after arrival to his home. Nothing better than a cold swim after a day of riding in the hot sun. We later went out to dine at his favorite restaurant. Cause as Angel told me, his girlfriend didn’t like Chinese food, so I guess he finally had the chance to get me into eating chinese! Angel was a funny bloke, we discussed a lot of things, of cause main themes were as always in the order, motorcycles and girls.
All the time I had the idea of going to Portugal, I’ve never been there, and the feeling of going to a new country you don’t know about is different from the ones you are familiar with. You never know what is waiting you, one only have the expectations to rely on. So again I tried my luck on Couch Surfing to see if I could hook up with another crazy dude in the city of Porto in Portugal. Success again, I got contacted by a guy I had emailed and was invited to stay at his house close to the city of Porto. We met in the inner city and had a beer at a bar. His name was Alexandre and a great guy who showed me around his city, including going to a gay bar once again (funny places those kind of bars), eating the famous Sardinas at a very good restaurant. Later that day he asked me if I had any girlfriend or children, and I told him that I was single, not knowing he was gay, I was later to find out, as he told me if I couldn’t see that he was attracted to men? During my stay I took the chance and slept in his king size bed instead of sleeping on the floor You have to imagine being in my situation, and think about the luxury a bed is, when you normally camp in the forrest’s, or just crash next to your bike during the nights. He said to  me before turning off the lights, that he didn’t mind if I graped him during the night. I slept with one eye open that night! Next morning I woke up, and luckily for me, I was still a virgin ;oP Alex was I great guy, and I chose to stay for one more day in Porto. I had pointed out clearly to him that I was into women, not men nor boys or any other thing! I had some splendid days and evenings with him and his family, eating a good dinner and tasting the local port wine. His sister was very nice, but already married with a funny guy called Berto. During my stay we visited the local port wine distillery Ferreira and took a tour around the city of Porto, including a boat trip to see the bridges stretching over the river Douro, one of them was build by Gustave Eiffel. After two days at Alex’s place I said farewell and picked my way up north to go east to Pamplona, I was heading for San Fermin. I went through Picos de Europa again without loosing any of my belongings, instead I upgraded Ussel Mammut with a nice Metzeler Roadtec Z6 rear tyre, at the moto shop in Xove, you can say I wore it beyond the limit.
I’m back staying at Pepe’s flat here in Barriozar, together with a crazy guy called Diego, he is from Murcia, southern part of Spain. Pepe is in Finland visiting Santa Claus, what a weird thing to do!! So Diego and I are staying in his flat, while he is gone, what a friend! The other day we went for the Erotic event in Pamplona to see the live show, people having sex on the scene! Naked girls all over the place, you can imagine I didn’t need much time to consider the offer to go there with the guys ;oP Unfortunately my camera ran out of power just as things was starting to get really hot! Things always tends to go a little crazy when going to Pamplona, I like it, maybe because I am a little crazy myself?
Right now things here in Pamplona are going wild and out of control. It’s a sight for the gods… Last time I didn”t get much sleep when partying with Pepe and his friends, now it seems like there are too less hours during the day and night. People are all dressed up in white clothes pasted in Sangria, ready to outrun the bulls during the next many days, should I run?? Over one million people come to participate in the fiesta, many of them foreigners, girls looking damn nice, and of cause one handsome Danish bloke stucked here. It’s a hard job to become an alcoholic for the next many days and try to keep up with the guys here in the age of 23-26. Every morning I’m trying to find my way home from the city, this morning I got lost, spending 4 hours finding my friends house, wearing my new shoes, they are crap so my feet was completely wasted when I arrived,  too much Sangria, bitches (hookers) whistling at you when you passed them on the street, drunk people everywhere having a great time, girls coming over to talk to you. Am I enjoying it, sure I am… Life is good!