Malaga to Almuñécar – 77 km

I am posting my journals backdated to the day I wrote them, so read from bottom up if you have just arrived. Keep checking back, I have two weeks of journals to upload.

At 8 am this morning, we discovered what chirros are. We found a small café near the hotel for breakfast. Street cleaners were working in the square and young partiers were stumbling home after a long night.

Breakfast started with the recommended chirros, long thin strings of doughnut batter strait out of the deep fryer. Jennie was smiling and watching the guy working the fryer work. He noticed her and a few minutes later three heart shaped chirros arrived on a plate for the ladies.IMG_0016

We rounded out breakfast with espresso, cafe con leche and fried ham and cheese sandwiches. Outside, several people stopped to inspect our bicycles, including one police officer.IMG_0018

After breakfast, we threaded our way out of the city through small one-way streets. We headed down to the beach and started following it East along the coastal roads, beach promenades and dirt tracks. The ride along the coast was beautiful, but dotted with tacky strips of beach condos and apartments.IMG_0019

Further out, in Torre del Mar, we stopped for another coffee and some fruit. We sat in a bar on the beach and watched local duathletes transition from running to riding.

Just before Nerja, the road started to climb into the hills. We stopped for lunch at a beautiful patio restaurant perched high on a cliff overlooking the sea. The fruit or the lunch didn’t sit well with Jennie though, she became very ill. We rode on slowly, Jennie pushing herself and us worrying over her. Eventually, Juliette took her panniers and slowly Jennie started to get some strength back.IMG_0024

One thing I love about bike touring is the places you find that you would never see otherwise. We came to a long tunnel in the road and didn’t feel like digging out our lights to ride through. To get around, we followed the small old road that climbed and around the cliffs over the sea. It was a beautiful twisting road with stunning views, few cars and white villas looking out over the Mediterranean.IMG_0051IMG_0060 IMG_0053

From there, we flew down to La Herradura, then one last climb and a twisting descent into Almuñécar and we were at our hotel. The hotel Casablanca is a pretty pink building right on the plaza by the beach. We arrived to a message that there was some confusion about my bags. They had arrived in Malaga, but they had not sent them on to our hotel. The only way I would see my bags was if I had a location to send them to tomorrow, so I grabbed the guidebook and we started calling hotels in Orgiva until we could get a reservation.IMG_0064IMG_0070IMG_0076IMG_0078

I must admit, a small part of me is disappointed that my bags were found. While I look forward to a change of clothes, I was also looking forward to this light nomadic lifestyle with so few possessions. On the other hand, after living with little more than the clothes on your back, if only for a couple of days, the prospect of a whole pannier full of possessions feels like an unimaginable bounty.

For dinner, we decided to head inland. We turned off the road at a sculpture park and walked through Roman ruins. We then climbed through a maze of narrow cobbled streets lined with whitewashed houses. Eventually, we found the restaurant we were looking for, but it was closed, so we worked our way back to the beach where we ate, drank and watched the sun set.

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Download GPX file for the day. [maptype=G_MAP_TYPE]

View Jen & Rich’s post for today.

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