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.

Doing a short day yesterday has paid off and we are all feeling strong again. The rest of the week is still open, but we have decided to head for Gibraltar which is close enough that we will have enough time in the afternoon to explore the rock.

We sat in the bar this morning drinking coffee, planning our day and listening to Eva Cassidy. The first part of the ride went quickly. After so much time in the mountains, we are flying on the flat roads and even the small hills didn’t slow us down.

When we got near the coast, we mistakenly took a new road that wasn’t on the maps or the GPS. It led us down into an industrial hell that we were forced to weave through to avoid the highways. The traffic was horrid right into Gibraltar.

The Rock of Gibraltar is beautiful, but the city below is crazy with tourists and traffic, making it very stressful. We are staying in the dumpy Bristol Hotel which would give some of the worst in London a run for their money. The walls are fake wood panelling making it look like a 70s basement. All this, and it is one of the most expensive places we have stayed.

Touts below the cable car try to sell tours of the rock and with each person who passed them to take the cable car up, they would say, “fine the, make the rich men richer” and then grumble amongst themselves.

At the top of the rock, Barbary apes lounged around on the walls and on the rocks. One baby took a liking to Dave, playing with his shoes and trying to climb up on him. It must be his motherly disposition.

We spent the afternoon wandering back down the rock annoyed by the high cost of visiting all of the historic sites, refusing to pay £10 a pop to see tunnels, castles, or other attractions. The small details like the gun emplacements, the huge steel rings used to haul the cannons up the steeps, and of course, the views made the walk worthwhile. Back in town, the cruise ships had set sail and the crowds were more manageable, so we wandered through the duty free stores and shops that seem to be the backbone of the local economy. Locals flowed between Spanish and English in the same sentence, speaking with an indefinable accent.

Download GPX file for the day.

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.

Last night we went online and booked a van to drive back to Malaga on Saturday, and booked a hostel in Tarifa for Friday night. This gives us a lot more freedom in our schedule. Now to see what we do with that freedom…

We made breakfast and coffee in Dave & Mari’s apartment this morning, then reluctantly rolled out of town. Everyone is tired after yesterday’s struggle through the mountains, so we are taking it easy and riding slowly.

There was a long, easy climb out of town, then the road followed the ridge South, up and down, passing white towns clinging to the hillsides. At about 30 km, we crested a hill and in the distance we could see the Mediterranean, the Rock of Gibraltar and across into Africa.

We stopped just past here for elevenses in Gaucín, a cute little town that sees few tourists. We sit at a café by a small roundabout while the local cop hangs out talking to everyone who comes by. As we order our lunch, someone from the café runs out to the grocer to buy the food.

After lunch, we had a short climb out of town, then flew the 15 km down into Jimena de la Frontiera. As always, it was a short, hard climb into town, then steeply down to the Hostal. If you don’t climb into town in the evening, and out of town in the morning, it is not a town worth visiting!

The Hostal Anon is a rambling maze of stairs, patios, rooms and plants. We spent most of the afternoon sitting by the rooftop pool drinking beer and soaking up the sun before heading into town for snacks, then back to the bar at the hostal for dinner.

Download GPX file for the day.

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.

We woke this morning to a wonderful breakfast laid out for us on the huge wooden dinning room table and Marie-France had even packed us lunches for our trip over the mountains. Before we could leave, she insisted on taking pictures with all of us and waved us off.

On a hill, high above Tolox, there is a hotel. As we started climbing through town, we jokingly looked up and said, “I hope we don’t have to go up there” seriously believing that we didn’t. An hour later, we were past the hotel and looking down on it from an even higher mountain.

The road through the Parque Natural Sierra de las Nieves is barely a dirt road. It is rocky and rutted, in places washed out, and climbs to the high slopes below Mount Torrecilla, the highest peak in Western Andalucía.

At points, the road became so steep and unstable that we had to push our bikes up, slipping back with every step. In many places, the road dropped away dizzyingly on one side and I was afraid to ride to close to the edge.

At around eleven, we sat in the dirt and ate our lunch, grateful for the care that Marie-France had shown us. We then continued to push and struggle with our bikes.

Just as we were losing the will to go on, we hit the highest point and began a long, bumpy descent that threatened to shake us loose. 35 km and many hours after starting, we finally hit the main road and turned North towards Ronda into a gale force headwind.

We were exhausted, demoralized and hungry, so we stopped at a restaurant by the side of the road for a second lunch before facing the remainder of the ride and the winds. Luckily, it was a descent most of the way into town and the kilometres disappeared quickly.

Tonight, we are staying at an apartment in Ronda that Mari found. It is a gorgeous place with post and beam ceilings, heavy wooden doors and tasteful furnishings. It looks out over a cathedral and a plaza and is a great place to unwind after a hard day.

Download GPX file for the day.

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.

After too many beer and a couple bottles of wine to send Jen and Rich off, we decided to make a lazy start to today. We still woke up at just after seven, but took our time before meeting Dave & Mari at nine to search out breakfast.

As we were having dinner on the beach in Almuñécar last week, a homeless man wheeled his bike out onto the beach and started making camp. He had built a wooden carrier on the back of his bike in which he carried his dog. As he set up camp, he laid out a bed for the dog before his own and fed the dog before himself.

When we arrived back in Malaga yesterday, we saw him again. He has obviously been working his way West along the coast as we circled around to the North. This morning, he is sitting in the café having a coffee with his dog at his feet. He is well dressed and always smiling. He has a sign on the back of his bike with both their names. It ways that they are wanderers and that he sells one joke for a Euro or three for two.

Leaving Malaga, we made the mistake of following the GPS South of the airport which led us for a few kilometres down a six lane divided highway with trucks and cars flying by. Even when we got off the highway, the traffic was heavy and oppressive until we got through Alhaurín de la Torre. From here, the road rolled up the valley with a cooling headwind.

As we passed through Alhaurín el Grande, they were setting up for a parade. Explosions were going off in the air above us, church bells were ringing, chairs and people lined the streets and hundreds of kids in khaki green military uniforms with black patent leather sashes and belts milled about. Green cloth banners with silver and gold crosses hung from the balconies above the street.

Just past here, we stopped for a long, leisurely lunch in Coín at a sidewalk café. We watched the world come and go, before finally getting on our bikes to finish the day’s ride. It was a surprisingly quick ride to Tolox with the usual steep climb into town. Tolox is a pretty town nestled in a valley below the Sierra de las Nieves.

We are staying at a lovely bed and breakfast that I found on the Internet called La Posada Azul. Kristien Nelen, The Belgian female mountain bike champion spends her winters training here. The owner, Marie-France, is a lovely French woman who settled here many years ago. We have two large rooms and access to a large rooftop patio where we spend the afternoon sitting, reading and planning the days ahead.

We are trying to work in a day off in Tarifa, but are having trouble with the route back East to Malaga. The only roads are major highways through the tourist infested beach resorts. The alternative is riding back North through Ronda, but that will take an extra day. We are considering taking a bus back to Malaga, or maybe even a ferry from Africa, but we don’t know what is possible.

We headed out in the late afternoon to find dinner and climbed higher up into Tolox. We found a large patio restaurant overlooking the town and sat down. The place was filled with entire families drinking beer and watching soccer on the TV. The kitchen was closed for siesta, but the bar-tender managed to pull us together a dinner of cheese, ham, calamari and fries.

That is the only problem with riding in Spain, we often finish the day starving during siesta and too tired by eight or nine when the kitchens open again. Everyone is super friendly though and always willing to do what they can for us.

After dinner, we returned to the guest house to try to figure out the remainder of our trip. Marie-France lent us her computer so that I could email hotels in Tarifa and we checked the possibility of renting a van and driving ourselves. It doesn’t look like there is a convenient ferry back to Malaga, but other than that, it looks like our options are improving. We should have a better idea when we receive the replies to my emails tomorrow evening.

We also discussed going over the mountains to Ronda on the dirt roads, or taking the main road around. We are all up for an adventure even though Marie-France as a bit incredulous that anyone would want to do such a thing. She assured us that the road does go through and the route is very pretty, so we are decided. She even offered to make us sandwiches for our trip.

It sounds perfect to me. I will take any chance to get off the hot, busy roads…

Download GPX file for the day.

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.

Today began with a hot 11km climb out of town and up the Sierra Palada. As we crested the pass, we stopped to put on warmer clothes against the cold winds and began a long, exciting descent down the other side.

The remainder of the day alternated between climbing and descending as we wound our way through the rocky canyons towards Malaga. On the hillsides around us, countless bells on sheep and goats rung like wind chimes and the cool breeze pushed up from the Mediterranean, cooling us despite the 31°C temperatures.

14km outside of Malaga, the road was closed by a large rockslide. We were unwilling to go back, so we carefully picked our way through the giant boulders, over the cracks in the ground and then finally up a meter high cut in the road where the ground had dropped.

We rolled into Malaga in the early afternoon, showered, changed and headed out to explore the city. We started with the Picasso museum, then headed up to a town square to meet Dave and Mari. A Spanish ska/punk band was playing in the square in support of a local communist labour movement. I liked the music and would have happily joined the party, but it grated on the others, so we found a small alley café to sit, drink beer and watch the world go by.

The rest of the afternoon was spent wandering the streets and haunting the sidewalk cafés.

As the sun set, we said our goodbyes to Jen and Rich before heading off to bed. The remainder of the trip won’t be the same without them. Juliette and I haven’t known either of them for long, but they are already amongst our closest friends and are an important part of our lives. It is tough seeing them off to Sweden, but it won’t be long until we see them again.

Download GPX file for the day.

View Jen & Rich’s post for today.