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.

[lfh-gpx src=”/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Malaga-Tolox.gpx” color=darkgreen width=6]Malaga to Tolox[/lfh-gpx]

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. [maptype=G_MAP_TYPE]

View Jen & Rich’s post for today.

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 grabbed breakfast at the hotel this morning, then rolled West out of town. Just out of town, we turned South towards Rute through the Parque Natural de las Subéticas de Córdoba. There had been some recent rockfall on the road, so it was closed to anyone who could not get around and once again, we had the road to ourselves.

After the last few days, the climbing was easy and we were treated to kilometres of downhill into Rute. The mountains here have sheer cliff faces and several of the smaller ones have ancient castles guarding their heights. Below us, for as far as the eye can see, are endless groves of olive trees.

Out of Rute, we descended to Embalse de Iznájar, a massive reservoir. We passed over the dam and found a spot for lunch in a pine forest overlooking the water. The view across the water to the olive groves was beautiful, but marred by a layer of scum and garbage on the water near the shore.

We headed West again to Cuevas de San Marcos and continued on to the A-45 where we followed a long, straight service road paralleling the highway South into Antequera. The riding was easy, but boring, only made interesting by blood red fields of poppies stretching between olive groves.

In Antequera, we stayed in the Hotel El Coso overlooking the square beneath the castle. After cleaning our riding clothes, we wandered the town, checked out the shops and had a dinner of tapas and beer before retiring for the night.

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

View Jen & Rich’s post for today.

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.

There was a soccer game last night. As we tried to sleep, each goal echoed through the streets with cheers and “Gooooaaaaal!!!” We got up early this morning to beat the traffic out of the city. We put the lights on our bikes and started threading our way North and out of the city. The roads were quiet this early in the morning, but at one point, an old man pulled up beside me on his scooter and started giving me hell for being on the road. This is the first anyone has treated us with anything but extreme respect on the roads.

We stopped for breakfast in Albelote. We decided that the planned route to the North didn’t look very interesting, so we worked out our route to head West through the valley, then cut North over the mountains towards Priego de Córdoba. We headed through flat fields as workers picked asparagus in the cool morning air, leaving them in bundles behind them and across the fields.

As soon as we turned North, the road got steep and we climbed into the small town Illora where we stopped to stock up on food and water for the day. The climb out of town was steep, long, hot and slow, passing through groves of olives and almonds. Eventually, we crossed over the Sierra de Madrid and flew down the other side.

Part way down, we came across an older couple on rented touring bikes stopped to rest. They are from Calgary and are doing a supported tour out of Granada. They ride about 50km every other day and their bags are transported to each location for them.

So far on this trip, we have seen countless other bikers, mainly Spanish roadies working out on the mountain roads, but also a number of mountain bikers. I think that the large number of bikers and the respect for the sport is a lot of the reason cars and trucks treat us so well on the roads.

We flew down into Montefrio, a crazy town on the side of a hill with steep, narrow streets overlooked by a castle on the top of a cliff. We stopped in the square in front of the church and spread out our lunch on a wall overlooking the town.

As we ate, seniors idled through the square, stopping to try to talk with us before realizing we hadn’t a clue what they were saying. Cars passed us and made a hard left down a steep street. As they turned, one of their rear tires lifted off the ground and we cheered as they made the death defying descent.

From here, we plotted the shortest route and the GPS led us North through rolling olive plantations. We doubted the GPS when it told us to turn West again. The indicated road didn’t go through on my map and Mari’s map wasn’t clear, so we continued North searching for a road that was on both of our maps, but not on the GPS.

It turned out that the GPS was right and the road didn’t exist, so we carried on to the North searching for a third road to the West. Once again, it was on our maps, but the GPS said it didn’t go through. Amazingly, it turned out to be 10km of fast downhill that cut 15kms off our route! The road was impassable to cars because of recent rockslides, but we managed to get by the repairs and had the road to ourselves.

From here, we made our way into Almedinilla, another white town set into the side of a steep hill. As we climbed into town, an old man blasted a whistle to cheer us on. Several of us were desperate for ice cream and cold drinks, so he pointed us down a steep street which we flew down with him chasing us and blasting his whistle.

As we entered the square, a group of about 100 school kids stopped what they were doing, turned and started cheering us in. It was the best reception we have ever had!

After cooling down, resting and refuelling, we completed the last 9km to Priego de Córdoba. As we rounded the last hill on the road, we looked up to the city perched at the top of a cliff high above us. We turned off and began the steep climb up into town. The hill was so steep that none of us could make it with the heavy bikes, so we pushed and struggled our way to the top.

Near the top, we started riding again, and as we passed people, they cheered us on. We rode along the cliffs edge into town and to our hotel. We had dinner in one of the plazas as the sun set, locals sat and talked and kids played in the fresh air.

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

View Jen & Rich’s post for today.

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.

I seldom sleep so soundly as I did last night. It was a bit hard to get out of bed, but despite that I feel surprisingly strong today.

We sat on the patio of the hotel this morning waiting for breakfast. Lines of old men and women streamed out of the hotel past us with small plastic bags under their arms on their way to the baths.

The ride out of town was incredible, a little bit of up, but mostly fast, twisting descents. We ticked off the towns on the way to Granada, one after another. I stopped on the side of the road, picked a few lemons and squeezed them into our bottles, the acid cutting our thirst.

The roads got busier and busier the closer we got to Granada. Riding into the city, the traffic got insane and we ran into endless construction. Working our way through the work, we got cut off from Dave and lost him. We circled back, but he was lost in the confusion, so we continued on to the hotel hoping to meet him there. We kept getting cut off by roads closed to construction and ended up winding our way through back alleys and backtracking to find the hotel.

The Abadia Hotel is on a tiny street and hard to find. It took a bit of circling before we finally found it, but it was worth it. It has a beautiful courtyard in the middle on which most of the rooms look out. We sat waiting for Dave, had a bite to eat, then headed in for showers.

Dave doesn’t actually know the name of the hotel and it looks like it is not waypointed in his GPS or he would have arrived by now. Hoping that he will stick to the original plan and meet us at Alhambra at 2pm. The thought of Dave separated from us and alone in a city this large is scary, but I try to be as positive as possible for Mari.

When we arrived at Alhambra, Dave was waiting for us in the shade by the entrance. He quickly changed then locked up his bike and bags and we headed for the palaces. Alhambra is a Morrish castle and palaces overlooking Granada, built in the 14th century. It was the final seat of power of the Muslim rule in Spain until 1492 when it was finally taken by the Christians in the Reconquista.

Alhambra is one of Spain’s most well known tourist attractions and a fine example of Islamic architecture from the period. The palaces are all intricately carved marble, multi-coloured tiles, serene gardens and breathtaking views over the city. It was interesting to see the differences between the Islamic and Christian architecture in the different parts of the palace. 

By the time we got out of the palaces and into the gardens, we were all hungry and tired from too much sun, so we retreated to a shaded courtyard in the Hotel América near the palaces. The courtyard was filled with lush green plants, fountains and was covered by a weaving of vines.

After lunch, we walked back down through town to the hotel to wash clothes and rest before dinner in one of the large plazas near the hotel.

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

View Jen & Rich’s post for today.

See Mari & Dave’s post for today.