A short tour in Almeria province - Day 2 of 3

A short easy day!

Apart from the look of outrage on the face of the barmaid when I asked for my ratatouille type tapa to be heated up a little more, it was a pleasant evening and as usual, considering the number of cerveza/tapa combinations consumed, very reasonably priced. The hostal was £22.50 a night for a room with air-con and included a substantial breakfast buffet.

I partook of the buffet breakfast with gusto, carbo-loading completed, I consulted my road map page and spurning the main road, headed south-east towards the hills. There was a village on the map called Turrillas which looked ideal for the intended short and easy day.

I could see a small hamlet high on the hillside ahead and hoped with every fibre of my body that it wasn't Turrillas. It wasn't, Turrillas was much higher! 

                                                          Part of the climb to Turrillas:

The final approach to the village was tackled with burning thighs and rasping lungs, a fierce warm wind was throwing me off balance until I entered the deserted narrow streets and popped out into the small plaza where surprisingly there was a single market stall selling clothing. More with expected disappointment than hope I continued my fruitless search for boxer shorts sufficiently voluminous for my ample derriere. I travelled to Spain with very little clothing and despite extending my wardrobe at various local markets since have not had much success procuring underwear which doesn't have a tourniquet effect on my neither regions.

With sadness, I left the stall. I topped up my bottles at the fuente and took refuge in the village bar where there were 2 card schools in progress on the terrace outside. If my Spanish was better I'd have asked the fat bloke at the first table where he gets his boxers?

I downed an ice cold coke and poured the remaining ice into my water bottle. I consulted the map as it seemed a shame to drop back down to the hostal directly having expended so much toil to get there. I could head east on a moutain road to a place called Lucainena de las Torres, I'd visited this village once before by car so I scoured the map for other options.

                                   A Mirador (view point) in the village of Turrillas:

To the southwest there was a Radar station on top of a mountain called Colativi. I didn't intend to go all the way in the heat of the afternoon but I thought it would be an interesting ascent and I could turn around at any point.

                                              Heading to the top of the Alhamilla range:

                            
                               Looking south from the watershed, the Mediteranian in the distance:

                                         Getting there, but not as close as it looks!

It was good to sit on the summit of Colativi. It's been a long time since I sat on top of a mountain and although I'd cycled up rather than walked or climbed, it felt like a proper mountain. It had a trig point on top, it had far reaching views and it was blowing a gale. At 1387m, a bit higher than Ben Nevis, I suppose it is a proper mountain.

                                                                        The summit:

                                                                            The view:

The outward route took 2 hours and 45 minutes, the same journey in reverse, 40 minutes including a 5 minute break to cool down my sizzling wheels.

It was an exhilarating descent, I'm beginning to enjoy descending albeit at a modest speed. I've stopped feeling inferior about not going fast downhill and am now a little more relaxed and in control although always there is the knowledge that a small mistake can hurt.

Back at the hostal, again a couple of beers and a short siesta took preference over the piscina.

Tomorrow I would head back to La Alfoquia. I could take the main road east to Sorbas and then head over the lower hills to Lubrin, that would be the sensible option...............

Wild life in Spain!

I've had a few close encounters on my travels through Spain.  Numerous occasions where dogs seem to think a cyclist is fair game, it's the little ones that are the worst, the big ones are either fenced in or too old to bother.  The little snappers seem to enjoy accompanying me for 50 metres or so and almost getting under my front wheels. I started braking to avoid them but now don't bother, if they get splattered so be it, they always seem to get out of the way though.

I've seen red squirrels, foxes, lots of hares.  Ants of all sizes are a constant companion on camps.  Birds of prey are common place, I just wish I new what they were.  A birder I met on a camp site said he'd been watching a Golden Eagle so I'm sure I've seen a few of those.  I was accompanied on a lonely country road by what looked like a Falcon flying just 30ft above, it crossed my path several times scouring the fields on both sides of the road.

My closest encounter was too close.  I was cruising on a descent up in the Sierra de Cabaneros when around 20 metres in front a big Deer appeared and started to cross the road in front of me.  I braked gently knowing there was time for the Deer to cross, unfortunately the Deer spotted me and in a blind panic decided to change direction, it did a half pirouette and fell in a heap in front of me.  I braked hard on the front and the Deer scrabbled to it's feet leaving scrape marks on the road from it's hooves.  It cleared my path just in time.  

If the deer had appeared a couple of seconds later there would have been a big pile of Venison and English beef for someone to clear up!

I see snakes every day, mostly dead on the road.  The biggest was a chunky 4 ft long silvery green thing which was providing lunch for a thousand flies.  I've glimpsed a few small dark ones sliding into the undergrowth at the side of the road.

Apart from one decapitated head I could see from my Hostal window, nothing else of any real note.

I thought for a moment the head was real until I realised I'd left Santa Eufemia far behiind.  I hope?

The Heat is on

The heat is getting to me. I've had a run of days in the hills which have left me 

wasted. Invariably there is a big climb to start the day, most of the villages 

in the hill country are in the valleys.  

A couple of days ago I left the camp site and immediately started climbing, not 

desperately steep but sustained. The climbing continued without respite for exactly 

an hour, I was spinning in the lowest gear of the middle ring and with relatively 

fresh legs and the enthusiasm of the morning I was going well.

I stocked up for lunch at the small town of Villaviciosa de Cordoba and set

 off on the next leg.  On the map and as the crow flies it looked little more 

than 15 miles to the next town, Posadas.  The way was constant gruelling climbs 

and short descents, twisting all the way over and through endless forested hills.

I was crossing the Sierra de la Hornachuelos which is a Natural Park. 

I kept checking my compass for the general trend as I could have been cycling

round in circles and doing the same hills over and over again for all I could tell.

I finally rolled in to Posados three and a half hours after leaving Villaviciosa.

I'd seen 3 or 4 cars and no other people.  I'd done four and a half hours without 

food and in the blistering heat, I was in a state.  I seem to be able to go for 

hours without food although I know it's bad form.  I think the bigger issue for my

is dehydration and loss of body salts.  I sweat constantly, it drips from my head 

continually on the climbs and rolls off my arms clouding my mirror with washed off 

sun cream.

I had drunk a lot during the morning but my reserves were low. 

After riding in the heat for a few hours the water in my bottles is warm enough

to bathe in, hardly refreshing but much needed. 

I searched the sizeable town of Posados for a Fuente, not as easy to find as in 

the small villages. I spotted an area with trees and benches, normally a good bet. 

I found 1 fountain which was dry.  I asked a local woman and she pointed me to a 

second in front of a church, it also was dry.  She suggested I try around the back 

of the church as there may be one there, there was.  It was alive with wasps but I 

didn't care.  I filled my bottle and tipped the whole thing over my head.

The second filling was gulped down in seconds.  The third was poured over my 

swollen right foot to great relief.  I drank 2 more then filled all 3 of my 

bottles before deciding the wasps were a problem when I moved away.

I found a shady bench in front of the church and set about my lunch just as the 

local secondary school was turning out.  The kids filed past, what they thought 

of a dripping cyclist with a knife in his hand trying to coordinate enough to 

slice a huge beefsteak tomato I can't imagine. 

I glanced up whilst having lunch outside the church

                                                 The church where I found my salvation, water!

I still had a fair distance to do to get to the camp site I was aiming for but 

I was down from the big hills and the 'relative' lowlands of the afternoon passed

in little over an hour.  

If the afternoons route had been as taxing as the mornings I simply wouldn't have

made it and it isn't easy to wild camp as this lower area is all agricultural.

The heat is a concern as I head towards June and my long trip through and over 

the many mountain ranges in Andalusia will be a challenge, for a fat bloke!

Toledo

A Great place to walk around:

 

With it's maze of steep and narrow cobbled alleyways,  endless impressive buildings and surprises around every corner Toledo is a wonderful place to spend a relaxing day pottering around on foot.  A bike is nothing less than an almighty embuggerance but I'm there on a bike or not at all and I wasn't going to miss out on seeing the city I'd battled through storm and tempest to get to.

The locals and tourists alike once again were surprisingly tolerant of a cyclist nudging through the crowded streets, they either moved out of the way or not but never was there any problem. (That I was aware of).

I liked Toledo, more so than Segovia.  It seemed more of a lived-in sort of place, more real.  There were tour parties but fewer and the city still seemed to belong to it's residents.  As always, I found some quiet corners. A quiet spot for a picnic lunch overlooking the Rio Tajo (River Tagus) where I was interviewed in some depth by a local elderly lady who was at some point a keen cyclist and wanted to know all about my trip.  A faltering exchange conducted in 2 different languages, Spanish and an unintelligible language I speak when I try to speak Spanish, nevertheless a charming encounter. 

I enjoyed Toledo but decided to avoid cities for a while and in fact I had little choice but to head into the hills on my journey south.  Little did I know just how many hills!

On the morning of my departure from Toledo I had some trouble finding the right road out of the city and it was only my now passionate conviction that the Spanish don't understand maps, or points of the compass that got me on my way.  I did however stop to take some photos of the city from the south to salvage something from the confusion.

Oh Deer, another dodgy Hostal!

Well, here I am in a hostal because the camp site, which according the Internet is open all year round, is closed. I had prior warning as I chatted to a Dutch couple at lunchtime who had tried to camp at the same site the previous night, they arrived at the site to be greeted by a sign which said 'Abierto todo el ano' (open all year) – next to that sign was another saying 'Cerrado' (Closed)!

Welcome to Spain!

I rolled into Navahermosa with the good intention of finding some water and heading into the hills to do my first wild camp of the trip. I was frazzled, my bits were hurting and I stopped at the first cheap looking Hostal I saw. It was 20 Euros for the night and it looked like a proper Spanish dive with locals playing cards and dominoes, and rubbish all over the floor so I checked-in.

The first thing I generally do in Hostals is let in some air and light into the room, I opened the curtains, 2 sets of sliding windows and the ubiquitous shutters and the splendour was revealed!

With monotonous regularity I was greeted with a building site, I'd be disappointed if I saw anything else. There was of course a feckin great deer in the yard next door but nothing there to surprise me!

I'd been assured that there was WiFi in the hotel and there was, but it didn't work. The conversation to resolve the technical issues was interesting and fruitless. The barmaid seemed quite offended that I would suggest they had a problem with their Internet. She drafted the owner in for support and she seemed 'up for a fight' - I wasn't, she was bigger than me!

Whilst on the subject of bar staff, I have the greatest respect for bar staff in Spain, They will be there when I leave the bar at 10:30pm (Claire may read this) and they are there again when I go for breakfast at 8:00am. They do everything, serve drinks, coffee, food, sweep the floor and everything else, usually single handed, you rarely see a Spanish barman/woman not doing anything.

I'm the last customer in the bar tonight, purely in the pursuit of updating my blog of course. As is usual I haven't got a clue where I'm heading tomorrow. I'll have a look at my road map sheets before I go to bed and see what's south of here. There have to be more building sites to discover as I inch ever closer to the Med?

Ps - there was something on the menu called Venado, I asked what it was, I should have known!
I had the Squid.

Losses, repairs and bodily impairments

A pain in the Proverbial:

I'm thankful that nothing too traumatic has befallen me so far and I hope I'm not tempting fate by saying so!

I've made it beyond Madrid so if the journeys ends tomorrow it will still have been worthwhile.  It's not without it's challenges but that's just what I needed and I'm enjoying ride.

Minor niggles are always to be expected:

Repairs:  My brand new Topeak extra large water bottle cage (accommodates a standard Euro 1.5l bottle) broke on day 1.  This was anticipated as the design is suspect so I'd put a 'fix' on standby before I came away (smart arse that I am) so that was no problem.

My lavishly expensive sunglasses bought from Lidl a few days before I departed broke on day 2 but are still usable.

More worryingly I had a broken spoke on the back wheel after a fairly tame off road section on about day five. Fortunately it was on the 'non gear' side of the hub so I was able to replace the spoke without removing the cassette.  I do have a cassette removal tool but not a big spanner to turn it so if a spoke goes on that side it's a bigger problem.  2 days later a 2nd spoke broke, again on the 'non gear' side!

This was a concern so I had a rethink on my packing and shifted some weight from the rear to the front panniers, this makes the steering even more twitchy but I had to reduce the weight on the back wheel.

Amazingly in the small town of Cantalejo I found a big bike shop where I bought 6 more spokes.  I'd brought 4 spares, used 2 so I now have 8 spares.  I haven't had any break 'touch wood' since I shifted the weight around.

'The Tank' after the first spoke repair, fully functional once again (as a washing line and water dispenser).

One problem is pumping the tyre up to a decent pressure after the spoke repairs, The tiny pump I carry takes forever but after a sufficient amount of sweat has been sacrificed it gets there or thereabouts.

Losses:  I left my fancy new washing line behind early on so have resorted to the faithful old spare guy line method.  The day after my warm clothing went home in the camper van (yes, just before the weather turned)  I lost one of my remaining gloves so I'm now down to 1 fingerless glove.  Thankfully it seems the bad weather is over, for now.

Body:  Despite my general decrepitude I seem to able to keep going.  My back is no better or worse, the Facet joint injections I had before I left the UK have had no effect.  

My first issue was sore toes on my right foot, I think my feet swell up in the heat and after a few hours my cycling shoes are crushing my toes.  I almost took a knife to the leather of my right shoe but tried something else which seems to work.  every night I soak my shoe in water and refresh it in the mornings before I start cycling, this allows just enough stretch to ease things.  It does mean I start every day with a wet right foot but it's worth it.

Both of my knees twinge daily, the left one, which still requires further surgery on the cartilege is worse and feels very flakey towards the end of the harder days.  It recovers overnight so it's hopefully just a case of not overdoing it.

I gashed my right calf on the chain ring when I changed down to the granny ring on a steep alley in Toledo, the chain jammed and I almost fell in a heap unable to unclip from the pedals but just about unclipped but not without landing on the chain ring.  Blood and oil everywhere, messy, I had to stop and cleam myself up as I was putting the tourists off their lunchtime tapas.

Other than a bit of sunburn, a few Mozzie bites from the Atlantic coast nothing much else is awry, apart of course from the big one!

I've had a troublesome issue for around 10 days now.  An issue in a place where no cyclist wants to have an issue.  I'll not elaborate further but it really is a pain in the arse.  Daily appliacations of chammy cream and nightly apllications of Savlon are keeping an unhappy medium but if I make the wrong move on the saddle the air turns blue.

Despite numerous requests to local barmaids for a soothing massage, incomprehensibly, none has been forthcoming!  So far?

Who needs sleep?

Bless them, they're young!

On arrival at the camp site at Pelayos de la Presa beteen Avila and Toledo I wasn't impressed.  It seemed to be, no it 'was' a construction site, all the access roads and area around the facilities were dug up and everywhere was a mess.

I asked as usual for a pitch not too far from the servicios so that I don't need to ride my bike to go for a pee.

I was offered a couple of pitches which were just loose dirt and gravel.  The only alternative was the long grass on some spare land behind what was described to me as a sanitation block.  It was the best option!

I was assured it was a quiet area which was good as I knew I had a biggish day tomorrow.

After my customary 30 minutes of Ipod induced entertainment I settled down for the night around 

11pm.  The noise started shortly after.  It seems the sanitation block is also the staff living accommdation, whether they party every night or just on Saturdays I don't know but they made a lot of noise.  No music but lots of shouting and screaming about 5 metres way from my tent.  When I say no music, I mean no music until midnight when the party really got going.  

I lay there trying to be chilled out about the situation, saying to myself  'they're just youngsters having fun' although if I'd had an Uzi available, I suspect it would have been used! 

The music only lasted for an hour but the general din went on and on, I last checked my watch at 3am.  I'm not sure if the noise stopped then or I fell asleep but I was awoken by them clattering around at 6:30am.

Once I was up and about at 6:45 they went quiet for the next couple of hours!  Youngsters eh!

The next day was a tough one, it started immediately with a steep climb of around half an hour.

Looking back at the first climb of the day from about half way up.

The day was 80km+ and the vast majority of it was into a strong and cold head wind.  It was a digging deep sort of a day.  I finally left the region of Castilla y Leon which I'd spent 5 or 6 days in and entered Castilla La Mancha.

Todays lunch stop for once didn't look overly promising.  I entered a fairly nondescript town and headed, as usual for the church.  No water fountain but a welcoming bench and as I approached I heard the combined voices of the village children singing hymns in the church. 

The town grew on me, even the architecture of the supermarket next to the church was sympathetic.

I don't know how long the kids had been in church but when they eventually ran out every one of them stopped dead at the door to shield their eyes from the bright sunshine.

I was fairly weary as I approached Toledo.  Around 10km outside town I came to an incredibly confusing junction of roads, mostly motorway either in use or under construction.  This is the second time the road into town seemed to disappear with no option other than motorway to continue.  On the approach to Avila a few days ago I did around 2km on the motorway because there was simply no other choice.

So it was again.  I set off up a slip road only to realise after a few hundred metres it was the motorway to Madrid.  I continued for a short distance and then went the wrong way (intentionally) down a slip road joining the motorway which turned out to be under construction and not in use.  I crossed a building site 'a bit like the camp site' and joined a dual-carraigeway going in the right direction.  I wasn't sure if  it was a motorway or not but it turned out to be the 'National' road and the right one for Toledo.

This road was fine for a few km until I reached another confusing roundabout with only what looked like motorway exits.  I took the road designated as a 'CM' road as motorways are normally 'A' 'AP' or 'E' roads.  I climbed a long steep slip road on very tired legs only to find a sign at the end saying 'Autovia' - definately a motorway.  Why couldn't they put the bloody sign at the bottom of the slip road.

I went back down the slip road, the wrong way 'again'.  At no point during all my traffic misdemeanors has anyone blasted me with their horn, the Spanish seem very tolerant.

As I got back down to the roundabout the heavens open and I was battered by driving rain.  I stopped under the bridge to put my waterproof jacket on, by the time I emerged from the other side the rain had turned to hail and my face and legs stung with the onslaught.  I took the other exit which also looked like a motorway but by this time I didn't care, it was going in the right direction.

I was on a long and steeply descending dual-carraigeway, soaked through and freezing cold but I could now see Toledo.  It looked impressive but I wasn't impressed with it's welcome.

It had been a long day but Claire had booked me in to a Hostal for 2 nights so all was well.

I just had to find it.