The tourist industry along the Spanish Mediterranean coast is completely insane. Small town Altea even has a small Scandinavian district. The tall buildings bear names like Viking and Scandinavia, and all the occupants are from Sweden, Norway and Denmark. A kind Swedish lady, who lives in a villa behind those buildings, invites us to camp in her backyard.

Complejo Coelius Camping (www.coelius.com) in Miramar sponsor us for the night.

We stay in Valencia with Robbie and Alan through the Hospitality Club (www.hospitalityclub.org). Great hosts; beautiful town.

Thanks to Camping Mediterráneo in Xilxes (also Chilches), the fourth we tried this day.

In Vinaroz, a small town which we reach early in the day, we ask a woman on the street for an open Internet café. She tells us that they’re all closed until five o’clock (Spanish siesta), but we continue to chat. When we explain that we are also looking for a campsite, she instead invites us to stay with her. She is from Scotland and has (long story) ended up on the streets of Vinaroz after a broken marriage. After 20 years in the country, she now sleeps in an abandoned caravan in the outskirts of town. We meet her there later in the evening. The caravan stands on a small yard, enclosed by a man-high fence. We climb the latter and walk up to the caravan. On the ground in-front, we make a fire over which we fry liver that she has bought earlier.

During the day, she had also pinched a frying pan. “It just slipped in under my shirt,” she says. Usually though, she earns her money by bringing back peoples’ shopping carts at the big supermarket nearby. That gives her the one euro deposit that the customers have left inside. “If today I can earn two euros, tomorrow I am rich,” she says, and continues, “Then I can have a cup of coffee at a café in town the next morning – a good start of the day.”

A new friend of hers, Oscar, is around the whole day. He is a former member of ETA – used to manufacture bombs. Wife and two kids. He is less than thirty days out of jail (convicted of dealing drugs), but he seems determined to find a new, better life than his previous. Together with our friend, he drinks Coke mixed fifty-fifty with cheap red wine from paper box.

She smokes cigarette butts that she has collected from the street, and shares with us the bread that the bakery in town gave her in the morning. Also, each Friday the local nuns hand out filled baguettes to her and other homeless people in town. Sometimes, she collects the half-eaten leftovers that fill the container behind the nearby McDonald’s. She is amazed over how much people throw away. After that I had peeled some carrots that we contributed with to dinner, she took the small pile of peel and ate it. But despite the difficulties, she never shows sadness or dejection. What is most difficult for her, it seems, is that she is not treated with the same dignity and respect as others in the society. How people look down on her. In itself, begging for money and food is not a problem, but to be looked upon as something else than a human, is so demeaning.

Come nighttime, we put our bags safely in the storage space underneath the sofa beds in the caravan, and sleep on top.

We bike on a boring N-road during most of the day. They are the third biggest roads after the AV (autovía) and the AP (autopista), but also the biggest road on which it is lawful to bicycle. At least already the second camping site we visit sponsors us with a nights stay. Thanks to Camping La Masja!

It proves more difficult to find free accommodation in Spain than in any other country so far. To ask for a place to camp in peoples’ gardens or on their farmland is impossible. For us to reach above their high fences and iron gates seems impossible, and even if able to show our faces, people are too private to let us inside anyway. The campsites are less interested in sponsoring us, too. It took us six campsites today before we finally found one that accepted to give us a free night. Huge thanks to Camping La Rueda.

In Barcelona, we are hosted by Simeó through the Hospitality Club (www.hospitalityclub.org). We enjoy some good days of rest and try to get some shopping done for spare parts and camping gear.

We continue along the N11 back to the coast, where we get sponsored by the friendly owners of Camping Mar i Sol – just a few meters; barefooted walking distance from the beach.

We cross the southernmost border between France and Spain. The road winds up and down along high hills that cut into the sea – it is one of the most beautiful roads that we’ve cycled to far. Also, it is nice to leave touristy south France for the more relaxed northeastern corner of Spain.

Just like the customs office by the previous border, the one here has been closed with cardboard covering the windows. The “cambio/exchange”-signs have been scrawled over. Instead, there is a new EU-sign “España.” Very windy. The winding roads are tough uphill, but downhill refreshing with the wind, whilst both hands rest steady on the handbrakes.

From Llanca, we continue inland to Figueras. There, after much searching, we are finally let to camp in some farmer’s field, just outside town and right next to the N11-road.

We continue south and for a good part of the day, we cycle along a canal. It is nice to once again cycle in peace; without sharing the road with cars. In Argelés, Camping La Marende (www.marende.com) let us shadow some of their grass for the night.

Camping La Nautique (www.campinglanautique.com) sponsor us with a nights camping.

We finally reach the Mediterranean and with it a pleasant, cool breeze. After passing a maybe fifteen kilometer long road along the beach – lined on both sides with parked cars; tourists looking for a swim – we reach the outskirts of Agde. Sponsored camping at Mini Camping Sokol.

We camp by a harbor along the road to St Gilles.

There is heavy rain, but the owners of a campsite in Bourg-Saint-Andéol let us stay in a small house – in the daytime used as a playhouse for visiting children. It also happens to be the National Day – la Fête Nationale. The campsite arranges a small disco in the evening; there are fireworks by the river at midnight.