Cordoba to Zafra

I saw this charming bronze as I was leaving Cordoba Old Town

My trusty MSR Dragonfly stove. Its multifuel and I run it on petrol as there are plenty of garages about, but I get some funny looks when I ride up to a pump and fill up with 0.8 litre. Here trying to dry my boots out after a soggy ride into the hills north of  Cordoba. I'm camping in the woods and tucked up in my 'maggot' I was just thinking how noisy woods are at night. Owls in particular towit towooing.........and the screeching of whatever their hunting, when suddenly just outside my tent there was the grunting and snorting of  wild boar. I#m sure they could smell all the food goodies in my tent and  I wondered if, like bears, they might barge into the tent uninvited. I had a quick look on the internet for advice and quickly turned it off again as I read about all these horror stories. I did consider putting my food bag up a tree but it was dark and raining and after a while they moved on anyway.

I like radio masts because they mean that you are probably at the top of the climb that's been making you sweat for the last hour. In a similar vein I like valleys with railway lines because you know the gradient is going to be sensible.

This is the Albergue de Espiel in the small town of Espiel. Its a converted train station and although I was the only guest I arrived in the middle of a karaoke cum disco that was arranged as part of the Carnaval celebrations. It was excellent entertainment with some local folk type dancing thrown in..

The had a great log fire and an excellent Rioja...........still trying to dry my boots out!

My route to Zafra from Espiel

Sunset from the railway station . The tracks looked like they were still in use. I was told  until recently there was a weekly train shifting 'carbón' or coal from the local mine but that had now closed. Its the end of the line for coal. Oil next?

Doing a bit of route planning with  a cup of tea - very civilised

Now what's my room number? For the visually impaired I suppose.

My bike is stored in the corridor opposite the communal loo. I pay a nocturnal visit and notice that my back tyre is flat.....again! Another delayed departure but this time I fit a tube filled with a  gunge to block leaks.........and  it worked, no more flats!

Not a great photo as they are a bit shy, but these dark-skinned pigs are everywhere. Jamon is big businees here.

My brother Rob suggested a brandy with my coffee would perk me up. Now I'm hooked and if its cold I'll maybe have a couple a day. The average price is 2.50 euro

Sunny during the day, but the temperature plummets once the sun goes down.

Maybe it's wild camping but it's certainly not stealth camping

This was a cold night, The GPS was in my bar bag in the tent

In the morning I up-end the tent and face the sun

.... a bit like these

Waiting outside the Albergue Convento De San Francisco for someone to come and let me in. There was no-one there, definitely low-season for pilgrims.

I finally reach Zafra and I'm booked into an Albergue that is a converted convent, very nice...........again I am the only occupant. 

This is not the convent, It's a parador, a governmen- run hotel, normally in some converted historic building.

A highly decorated chemist

After a thorough tour of the old town it's back to the convent kitchen for a drop of Merlot and a bit of next stage route planning. The room was so cold my olive oil on the right of the picture has solidified......and has remained so for the rest of the trip. I have to stand it in my billy can while its heating up  to be able to use it.

Ronda to Decathlon (Cordoba branch)

So, I leave Ronda feeling refreshed........shampooed and shaved and with my batteries recharged...literally. There wasn't any electric hook-up in the camping (plebs) zone so I trustingly left my laptop charging in the toilet block over night.
I can normally keep my phone and a Garmin GPS charged up from the bike hub generator but that doesn't work too well unless you can maintain 15kph for a few hours, a tall order if you are off-road or on a long climb. So, apart from doing what laptops normally do best it is also a back-up battery for the phone and GPS.

Now when you pick a pawpawOr a prickly pearAnd you prick a raw pawNext time bewareDon't pick the prickly pear by the pawWhen you pick a pearTry to use the clawBut you don't need to use the clawWhen you pick a pear of the big pawpawHave I given you a clue ?Jungle book 'The Bare Necessities'

OK, the story is we bought some of these fruits at home......Maria peeled them with gloves and they were very tasty. The roadside is full of them here so I pick one, peel it without gloves and end up with these minute thorns stuck all over my hands, impossible to remove and very painful. Just glad I didn't get any stuck in my lips or mouth

Setenil de las Bodegas - a small town with a VERY steep climb out. Famous for these houses built into the overhanging rock

I'm dropping down out of the hills but there are some big rain clouds about and the forecast is for a night of heavy rain

..........and then I'm on the plain and the rain is definitely starting to threaten. There is a strong tailwind and I'm bowling along but there is absolutely nowhere to camp, just miles and miles of  open wheat field.

As dusk falls and the first rain squall arrives, I drive into a large hacienda and ask a tractor driver if I can camp behind some/any building. The farm is actually abandoned and he says the owner is not about, so I go and shelter round the back and wait while the squall passes.Eventually the owner pitches up in a big 4WD. He must have felt sorry for me because he said no problem. I could have kissed him.

The next day, heading north-east I reach the other side of the plain and I'm running towards Cordoba. Sierra Morena is to the north with some very ugly thunder showers developing over the higher ground. If you are into castles this is the place to be, they are everywhere. This is Castillo Almoldovar del Rio.






I arrive at Decathlon and ride in to get fitted out with panniers and pack them with the contents of the holdall.  The panniers were too big for the front low-rider rack so I had to lash them horizontally to get enough ground clearance. (not as shown in the photo. They are not waterproof so I lined them with bin bags.






As I am about to leave Decathlon to find the municipal campsite there is a terrific hailstorm and I wait until it passes over. It's near dusk when I get to the campsite after getting lost a few times. When I finally get there I am a bit annoyed that the the receptionista wants €28, the same price as a motorhome, to pitch my teeny weeny tent on their wet grass. I remonstrate..... I can stay in a cheap hotel for less than that. Ah but, she says, you can have two people for the same price. Oh that's useful, I'll just scour Cordoba and see if anyone wants to sped the night in a cold damp tent with me! The final straw was when she wanted payment in advance but wouldn't accept a credit card. I actually didn't have enough cash to pay for the night so I headed off in a huff and a puff to find a hotel in the old town, arriving after dark. The puff was because the back tyre was going flat again and I had to pump it up every couple of kilometres. In my hostal, which was cheaper than the campsite I was allowed to keep my bike in the room with me, which was a  dimly lit shoebox next to reception. Actually there was nowhere else to put it in this tiny cramped accommodation. However this was useful as I have picked up some new inner tube's at Decathalon and needed to change that rear tube AGAIN. I'm beginning to suspect there is something in the tire that keeps causing the punctures but I have checked the tyre really closely. The first stop was to nip round the local chinese 'bazaar' and buy a 100W light bulb so that I could see what I was doing in the room.......I hate that, so stingy when they stick a 15W bulb in. Oh, and I bought a sink plug, in fact a set of 3.......sadly none fitted so I had to wash my undies as quick as possible as the soapy water rapidly disappeared.




The next morning I take the opportunity to visit the Cordoba Cathedral-Mosque..........it is huge!









It looked more like a mosque than a Catholic cathedral though

The room was so small I had to perch  on the loo to take this photo. It was impossible to open the wardrobe doors facing because the bed was pushed hard up against them.. Better than working on the street though. The biggest disaster was that my new tubes  had  schraeder valve stems that wouldn't fit through the hole in the rim......ho hum......so  I'll have to mend the puncture and it's back to Decathlon in the morning     : \

The 3rd week - Life after 'Trailer Failure'

So let the tour restart today, 3 weeks and 700km after I left home on Jan 15. I don't really want to talk about the 'trailer events' over the last 2 weeks but I supposed I ought to for context. 

Don't ask me why but I thought a two wheel trailer would be the most wonderful thing for carrying all my winter touring/camping/cooking stuff.  If you google Burley Travoy trailer you'd have to admit that the sales video of the guy whizzing along in a park is quite beguiling. I bought it principally for touring with my folding bike as folding bikes are a bit restricted in the baggage carrying department. 

As soon as I left home in the pre-dawn of January 15 I new it was a mistake. Pot holes, kerbs, narrow gaps all had to be negotiated with care. Braking hard going downhill and the loaded trailer threatened to jack knife the bike. Anyway, I was afflicted with a severe case of 'pressonitus so next thing I know is Travoy and I are negotiating the highways and byways of the Algarve.  Being a bloody idiot I had also decided that it would be good to follow off-road mountain-bike routes in winter. Now I assumed that Travoy's dinky little wheels were fitted with sealed bearings, don't ask me why, I just did. So when I had to wade knee-deep through mega-puddles of muddy water, T's axle was well and truly submerged. Likewise, when I decided to ride 10k along a beach east of Cádiz we had to wade through a salt water lagoon to get to the hard-packed sand. 

A few days later it was pay back time. As we sailed along I felt a vibration and looking back I could see T's wheels wobbling like crazy. The bearings were breaking up and on one side the balls had completely disappeared. I was very worried about a wheel coming off completely, I didn't even have a luggage rack on the back of the bike......I had removed it to save weight hahahaha!.......idiot!

We limped into a lovely, but remote, whitewashed town called Jimena de la Frontera. However it was blessed with a railway station on the Granada/Algeciras line serviced by Media Distancia (MD) trains which let you wheel your bike on for free. 

The Spanish trains are absolutely superb, clean, modern, cheap......and bike friendly. Where did the UK go wrong?

So the first few days were spent trying to source new bearings in Algeciras. No joy.  Travoy, being American, needs imperial sized bearings. Spain, unsurprisingly, only uses metric bearings. Eventually I decided to revert to panniers and mailed the trailer back home to Portugal. I cycled 10km out of Algeciras to a Decathlon store but they had no panniers and one cheap crappy rear rack. Algeciras has two bike shops, again no luck but I did manage to pick up a second hand Old Man Mountain rack which are solidly built. All this might sound quite easy but there is only one return train per day...........plus all the shops shut at 2pm for a siesta so I only had about 2 hours to play with in Algeciras..........and of course everything shuts for the weekend.

 Running out of options now, I got in touch with a locally known bike tourist and he said he bought his Vaude's online on Amazon.es and they only took 3 days to arrive. Well that's it then. I too bought some nice Vaude's from Germany. Top quality. Front and rear. Just got to sit and wait for UPS to shift them from Germany to my Jimena hotel. After a week my computer tells me they have been delivered and signed for. What! Where? Who by? Oh bugger. It's Friday afternoon too, oh double bugger. I mean, really, how many bloody Los Arcos hotels are there in Jimena?

Now, UPS has one 'customer care' number for the whole of Spain and you don't actually get to speak to a human being...I couldn't work out what the Spanish instructions wanted me to tap into my phone......customer account number? I don't have an account....By customers they mean shippers who pay them money, not the poor sods like me who haven't received their stuff. It stinks. 

Close to tears with frustration and disappointment I decided to cut my losses and go home After 2 weeks my hotel bill was becoming alarming. I went to a Chinese shop and bought a cheap hold-all to put all my kit in and checked the train times to get me to Seville. Good, there's one at 16:09. As I loaded up the bike for the short trip to the station I suddenly thought 'If you can ride to the station then why can't you carry on with the trip'.  It's top-heavy wobbly I know, but you'll get used to it.

So, I rode straight past the station and had a sweaty, but happy 2 hour climb of 700m up to Gaucin. 

There, that's more than enough context. 

Postscript.  Good news/Bad news. 2 days after I left I phoned the hotel to see if the bags had turned up. I was only an hour away by train and could easily nip back and get them. Yes, they had arrived, at 12 o'clock that very day! Great!! And yes, as per my instructions they had forwarded them on to Portugal. Groan!

Should have brought some spares!

I'm getting to know this province quite well

Off to Algeciras.....again!

With a weekend free I go off castle spotting

.....and cycle some single track paths

What cycle touring is all about - Iran. (this is not me, its the Vaude-man)

Do I stay or do I go now

Maria, my landlady, who thinks I'm bonkers, waves me off at the station. I've been there so long I feel like one of the family.

A tad top-heavy (eeek!) but I'm on my way again......on the long climb to Gaucin

Camped up at the roadside in Gaucin

Sunday 7 Feb Gaucin to Ronda

It started raining in the night. The gentle pitter-patter on the tent makes you feel cosy. Then the wind starts roaring and it's a downpour and instead of sleeping you are wide-awake, waiting for the flapping tent to take off.
The rain was forecast to stop mid-morning so I had a lazy lie-in and didn't hit the road until mid-day.
I messed up my breakfast porridge mix and ended up making twice as much as usual. Rather than waste this precious resource I ate the lot and set off feeling ready to explode. Do undercooked oats really continue to swell up in your belly?

It was  day of relentless climbing and increasingly spectacular vistas. I topped out at a pass (1000m) before the chilly descent to a campsite outside Ronda.  Whizzing down I spotted a real cycle tourist labouring up the hill towing a bob trailer. He had that unwashed hippy look of someone who had been on the road a while. We waved but I wished I'd pulled over and had a chat. I wondered where he would camp. He had a long climb ahead into a barren landscape and it wouldn't be long before nightfall.

I arrive at the El Sur campsite and make my way through the Dutch, German and French motorhomers and arrive at the tent ground where there is one solitary tent accompanied by a beat up touring bike.....I've got company!

Approaching Gaucin after the climb. A typical Andalucian white-washed town

The almonds are in blossom, as is the rosemary, and the humming of the bees......really loud! I thought I might use the rosemary with some roasted chicken but never got round to it

The top of the pass - now a lovely downhill into Ronda

I took a zillion photos of the mountain villages

Fellow cycle tourist David. Australian civil servant but currently working in Wellington, Tasmania (Tazzy?). Well, not currently working, he's on a sabbatical. The odd socks. Apparently they are a means of starting a conversation (but would probably get you turned away from several hotels). Yes, I amm on the lookout for some.
He is also a vegan, but downgraded to veggie for the trip. I tasted his porridge which he makes with olive oil, cloves, almonds and cinnamon. Ok, I suppose but I'll stick wth traditional. He had an amazing spice 'rack' which was actually a fishing tackle box. Lots of little squares each containing a mysterious powder. Even more amazing was his rear rack which was held together with cable ties and electrical tape. I wouldn't have left my drive with it but he didn't seem at all bothered...it worked: We could have spent all day nattering but we had to get going. I invited him to visit us in Portugal at the end of March. BTW, Tasmania, has not one bicycle repair shop......so there's a nice little business opportunity (Rob)

David just about packed and ready to go. I was pleased to see that he took just as long as I did to decamp and get ready for the road. He is also living proof that you do not need leg muscles to be a cyclist! Love those socks!

Apart from David and I the rest of the campsite was populated by motorhomers all busy setting up their satellite dishes so they could watch TV. They come in all shapes and sizes (the motor homes).There were two of these trucks sporting Paris-Dakar stickers and driven by an unlikely looking pair of geriatric German

Monday 8 Feb Day off in Ronda 

Ronda was one of those places much favoured by the original 'Grand Tourer's, rich young socialites who made grand tours of Europe in the 17/18th centuries, probably because it was fun and they had not a lot else to do. I loved the place. So much so that I am coming back in May with Maria and using Ronda as our base for our own 'mini tour' of Andalucia.

I love flamenco - so much passion. I think it's in the blood.

The famous Ronda bridge separating the old town from the new. Quite tricky to photograph without getting into the gorge.

.......and a steep place to cycle around, even without panniers.

Disraeli, on his own Grand Tour, summed up pretty well what I feel about my own cycling tour. Well said Ben!

The influence of the Moors is everywhere - I would hsve dearly loved to go in and have my back scrubbed in steaming hot water!

I'm off to Cordoba next week, if for no other reason than Cordoba has a Decathlon store and I need panniers badly. My cheapo Chinese bazaar bag is coming apart at the seams.