Day 7 - 06 Feb Palencia to La Horra 78km

A late start around midday today, it takes 3 trips to carry my bags from my room on the 3rd floor to my bike in the garage. I dialled up my next GPS track to get me out of Palencia and it is missing! So, it's back to my handle-bar mounted compass (this has been so useful) and my very large scale map of Spain. Now this type of navigation is much more fun but not so efficient in terms of time and energy.

I seem to get on stretches of road that are favoured by truck drivers. There  is a constant stream of these powerful machines and they are from all over Europe. The roads are salted to prevent black ice and each time they pass they stir  up a white cloud of salt dust, I can taste in in my mouth. I think to myself......ok, so you've got a long way to go to....... but I bet my trip is longer than any of yours! Sharing the same valley as a disused railway line it seems that we made a bad decision to give up on rail transport.
Now I don't know why I didn't know about this before, but some truck drivers (in this country anyway) pee in plastic bottles, put the cap on, and throw them out of the window. The unpleasant evidence lies there in the fields and ditches. Now it might be unwanted iced tea but I really don't think so. And it's got to be a road safety hazard; I don't mean being hit by a flying bottle.....but gentlemen, imagine trying to pee into a coke bottle while driving a  40 tonner on a minor road.......do they use a funnel? Are there any accident statistics available? Anyway, it's not pretty to look at as you cycle along.

I'm about 10km NW of Aranda de Duero and heading into vineyards. I'm noting the names of some of the bodegas and will try and track a bottle down in the supermarket when I get home. There are acres and acres of vines, many still to be pruned? How on earth are they going to get them all pruned before the sap starts rising? There doesn't seem to be anyone about.