Day 1: Porto - Tordesilhas - Bilbao

Saturday, the 30th of August 2005, 11.20 pm: with a delay of over 4 hours, our journey has finally begun.
Having on consideration our late departure, we knew from the start that our original plan for the 1st day was in jeopardy. Nevertheless, we moved forward with our motivation untouched.
Our first aim was to reach Spain, objective accomplished in about 3 hours. But not before the true hero of this adventure passed brightly his first hard test: the Highs of Marão. Never going under 60 km/h, in third gear, the 2cv managed with no major problems the consecutive long uphills, some of them 6 and 7% steep.
It was already in Spain that we finally came across that who we immediately acknowledge to be our most perseverant enemy till the last day of our long jurney: the intense heat. Always with the car’s top off, I easily dealt with the strong sun with a heavy load of sun lotion. Unfortunately such an easy solution couldn’t yet be found for the impact the high temperatures have in the 2cv's engine. Despite continuing “eating” mile after mile at constant and reasonably fast speed (around 75km/h) for a National Road, it became clear that the car’s engine was overheating. That problem can be spotted very easily, as some parts of the engine expand, making the accelerator start to get stuck (the car remains in constant acceleration, even when the pedal is not being pushed). The problem was minimized by increasing the number and the duration of our stops, something that did not come in hand being us already running quite late.
But as all situations, there was a bright side. In order to keep up the spirit of the trip, we decided to stop at Tordesilhas (see post Spot 1- Tordesilhas) for over one hour, adding a new destination to hour already quite filled route.
With the night and temperature falls, the 2cv seemed to regain his enthusiasm. The average speed (he’s the one deciding that, not me) increased, the number and duration of the stops went in the opposite direction, allowing us to make till Bilbao (see post Spot 2- Bilbao), minimizing our delay.

Moment of the Day: crusing the Portuguese-Spanish border with the top off, listening and singing out load the hits of the one and only “Marco Paulo”, kitchest Portuguese singer ever, but nevertheless, an icon!

KILOMETRES (Total):	745km
KM SINCE LAST POST:	745km
GAS SPENT (Total):	49.44l

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