It’s hot. Now we’re getting to the Spain we expected, the one that is a furnace. We haven’t seen a cloud in days, and there are public service commercials on TV reminding people that throwing glass bottles into fields can start fires as the glass magnifies the scorching sunlight onto the dry brush.

As someone who has biked across Nebraska twice and can appreciate the subtleties of dry, unchanging ranch land, the landscape in Castella y Leon has been pretty subtle, if not downright boring. Fields of wheat, not a tree or piece of shade in site. Flat but not perfectly flat, just like the ocean isn’t perfectly flat when in a small craft.

Ocasionally we’ll pass by a pig farm that wakes our senses, or a group of los toros grazing in the pasture, but our days consist of a series of hops into the sun, from one town to the next where we can find some shade until we make the next 10 km jump to the next village. Usually the village streets are deserted, but anyone out walking gives us a long stare, unbroken by any stares in return. The cafes where we get some water are alive with men on their siestas drinking beer and playing dice.

Passing through this monotonous landscape, we’ve had to find excitement for our pallates instead. I’ve long thought Spain has the best green olives of anywhere in the world, but we’ve also been feasting on the sweetest red bell peppers, wheels of Manchego cheese, and whatever local delicassies the restaurants offer.

Up north we saw a lot of pilgrims traveling the Camiño de Santiago, the route they’ve traveled for a thousand years to Santiago de Compostella, to the cathedral where the body of the apostle James is buried. There are many cathedrals along the route with their own relics, although by this point in the trip we’ve seen enough “splinters of the cross” to build a new housing subdivision, so we’ve avoided many places such as Lourdes.

In Alba de Tormes we received our first flat tire — my rear tire, the most worn of the four because it carries the most weight. It’s near the end of its life and I have no complaints patching a tube every 4115 kilometers.

In France the people passing in cars would sometimes yell “allez allez!” or “bon courage!” as they passed. In Spain, we’re more likely to get the middle finger or “burro!” or something worse. It’s so much like Nebraska it almost brings a tear to my eye (but no, it’s just salty sweat burning my eyes). Does Oscar Pereiro deal with this harassment on every training ride, or perhaps this is something unique to what must be the most desolate part of Spain?

We haven’t gotten a good night’s sleep in Spain, with noisy campgrounds or the annual patron saint’s festival on the night we’re there, with music until 6 a.m., which we’ve experienced twice. When we tried to get away from the noise by camping out in the country, the deserted spot we chose seemed to come alive after sunset with teenagers bothering us all night long.

Anticipation builds as we near Portugal.