Andalucía: Where the uppers are downers and the downers are uppers

There are many ways which one can have a great day of cycle touring.  You can have perfect cool weather, great views, find a shortcut, whiz down long hills, find a cheap and tasty cafe or better yet, you can find all of the above.  That was our day last Wednesday.  We had spent the night cozily on a section of collapsing road, just out of sight of the detour route and away from the glare of the headlights.  We awoke casually at 9:00am, broke camp and rode downhill towards Alhama de Granada.  Alhama, a classic Andalucían town, was glowing brilliantly white below us in the morning sun.  We rolled in, found a cafe and ordered breakfast.  We generally get the same thing everyday, uno cafe solo, uno cafe con leche y dos tostadas tomate.  That´s one black espresso, one espresso with milk and two toasted baguettes with tomato mashed on them.  The toastadas, when smothered in olive oil, salt and pepper, are the best way to start any day on the bike.  All this came to just 3.50€, about 5 bucks for two of us.  Happily fed, we bagan our climb out of the valley.

Alhama de Granada

From here on things only got better.  For one, today was the first day we weren´t completely dying from the heat and as a matter of fact, there was a noticable crispness to the air.  Fall had arrived in Spain.  Finally.  We peddled on, through a place called Vuenta de Zaffaraya, between two giant limestone peaks and were greeted with Malaga province. This greeting included the most intense looking road decent we´ve ever seen.

But, it wasn´t to be, just around the next few bends we noticed a sign on a crumbly road heading over a saddle:  Perianna 8km.  Perianna, was a town we´d planned on passing through, though this road was not on our map.  Our map showed one road into town, and it started at the bottom of this gigantic hill.  Going on a hunch, we followed the crumbly detour.  The result was spending the rest of the day following a quiet high level road, enjoying panoramic views and avoiding a long climb back up.  It was perfect. 

Over the next few days were were treated to some of the best views and hills Andalucía has to offer.  If only the downs lasted as long as the ups, because these were seriously huge hills.  Each day we´d find ourselves 5-700 meters above our low point the day before and each high point would be followed with a long, winding, exhilerating descent.  The best one was from El Torcal.  The climb started in Villeneuva de la Conception, a small town accessed by a frighteningly steep, curving decent.  We stopped for two coffees, contemplating the massive hill in front of us.  We were exhausted already from several days of these hills, and the grind to El Torcal was painful.  We took many breaks, enjoyed the view and for our effort, began a 10km decent.  Most roads here have at least a few hairpin turns but after just two of these, the road from El Torcal  straightened out and we rolled on out of there at just under 80km/hr with fully loaded bikes.

And so it goes through Andalucía, long hard uphills, beautiful views and crazy downhills.  It´s exhausting, but it´s just the right combination for unbelievable cycling.

A crazy night in Casablanca

So we´re almost out of Spain, less that 100km from the coast where we´ll catch the ferry over to Morocco. Spain has been a pretty awesome 3 weeks. We´ve finally learned how to order food in restaurants (there usually isn´t a menu) and have actually come to enjoy riding uphill. Definitely one of the highlites of the trip so far was our stay in Casablanca.


It started out as one of the hardest days we´ve had. It was hot-SO hot, and we ended up going through a 993m pass that wasn´t on our map, and of course we rode through it right in the hottest part of the day. The road took us through endless hayfields with no shade in sight, not even a ditch to hide in, just sun, pavement, and hay. We finally found a small square of shady relief behind a highway sign and sat there, in the dirt, waiting for our bodies to cool down to a somewhat normal temperature.


After hours of pedaling and sweating we topped out the pass and rolled down the other side, into a little place called Casablanca. It´s one of those ¨don´t blink or you´ll miss it¨ towns, with only a boarded up gas station and a restaurant between the entering and leaving signs. We desperately needed water, but were too tired to figure out how to ask to fill up our bottles, so decided to head into the restaurant for a beer instead.




When we ordered the beers, the owner gave us a concerned look, and managed to convey that he didn´t want us drinking and driving. I said ¨no, bicicletta!¨, and pointed outside, to which he let out a huge knee-slapping uproar of a laugh, did a little charade dance of riding a bike drunk, and slapped two beers down on the bar, still chuckling. Seeing that we were pretty wrecked, he also brought us some bread and meat to munch on. When we devoured the first plate, he immediately brought a second, this time staying a bit to ¨chat¨.


I say ¨chat¨ because between Steve and myself, we probably know about 5-10 random words in spanish-things like bathroom, bread, beer, danger, and exit, which isn´t alot to go on. Juan (as we later found out was the name of the owner) knew even less english. But that didn´t stop him from engaging us in a very animated pseudo-conversation, much of which he spent trying to teach us some spanish. We managed to introduce ourselves, tell him where we were from, and where we were going, and he in turn told us about his farm, the animals on it, and the members of his family. I think maybe they don´t get many tourists through their neck of the woods, so we were a bit of a novelty, and he was totally happy to entertain us all night.


At one point, we figured it was getting late, and we needed to push on and find a place to pitch a tent for the night. Once he figured out we were camping, he essentially wouldn´t let us leave, instead dropping two more beers on the table- ¨from me to you¨ and plying us with more food. Suddenly we were presented with giant plates of grilled meat, delicious olives, cured ham straight off the leg of the pig, and piles of vegetables. He topped the feast off with some whiskey in tea, all the while listing off the spanish names for everything we were eating. In the end, as much as we tried to pay him, he would only accept a fraction of what I imagine the entire night was worth!


Eventually, as the night was winding down, we asked if there was a place we could pitch the tent, figuring he had a section of field somewhere. Not likely! Instead, he led us into the back of the restaurant to a little room with freshly made beds and an onsuite bathroom. Sometimes, misprounouncing ¨thank you¨ in another language just isn´t enough to convey just how much you appreciate something.


In the morning, we went back into the restaurant for some coffee before continuing on our way. Juan´s wife was busy prepping food and tapas for the day, and Juan was nowhere to be found. We waited around a bit, but the road was calling.... and eventually we needed to keep riding. We didn´t really get to say a proper goodbye (which likely would have involved many more misprounounced ¨thank yous¨) but we did leave a loonie on the counter, hoping they would get the message and have a little canadian trinket to remember us by.


That night was a good example of everything I love about travelling... the unexpected twists and turns, and the way you can have such a great time with someone without speaking the same language or living in the same world. And it´s a great reminder how genuinely nice people can be without expecting anything in return. If anyone ever finds themselves in Restaurante Casablanca.... drop in and say hi to Juan, and say hi from us too!

Westward we go!

We´re 18 days in at this point, sitting in a cafe in Granada, the palaces of Alhambra high above us overlooking the city.  We´re just over 1000kms into our trip, and being on a bike is starting to feel a bit more normal.  The soreness in our backsides is starting to subside to a tender numbness, our backs are less comfortable being upright than hunched over handlebars and our legs, well, they´ve fared pretty well up to this point.  We actually look forward to getting up each morning, packing up the tent and riding away from our camp site before Farmer Manuel (he owns every peice of land we squat in) catches us.  We also look forward to the beautiful and relaxing places we find along the way.

So far, the trip has gone very smoothly.  We´ve paid for four hostel nights (two in Barcelona and two in Valencia).  Other than one free night spent at a bar in a hamlet called ´Casablanca´ (more on that later), we´ve wild camped in the forests, parks and orchards of Spain.  Along the way we saw some really cool places such as the Sagrada Famillia cathedral in Barcelona, an ongoing legacy to the architect Gaudi, and the castle of El Sid in Peniscola (totally stumbled upon!)



Sagrada Famillia

 There´ve been many surprises so far.  The Spanish have the funny habit of saying ´hello´to people as they leave..the same way we might say ´ciao´.  They don´t realize it´s only a greeting, since they use ´olá´ for hello and goodbye.  Also, a can of cold beer from a gas station will cost less than a can of coke, and a delicious espresso will be even cheaper, which we buy a lot more of since we accidently bought the ´extracto cereales´ sitting next to the nescafe.

Even on the tough days, we always manage to find something to laugh at..

Maybe it was the beer that got us here..

Here we are, sitting in Spain, contemplating just what it was that led us to be here, now, writing about ourselves.  It seems very random, while at the same time, it´s somewhat consistant with how our lives have been until now.  Sure, it would probably be nice to work hard to squirrel some money away for a later time, maybe for a comfortable retirement, but right now it seems right to enjoy and explore the world around us.  So as it were, we worked hard for a short period of time until the urge to pack up and go preoccupied our minds completely.  We wanted adventure.  Something different.  But what?  In the past we´ve gone on skiing or climbing trips, but this year, Elaine´s shoulder is giving her trouble (a result of riding her bike to work in the snow).  We discussed our options, a whole planet worth exploring at our disposal.  We toyed with the idea of going to South America, Central Asia and the Middle East but in the end, one continent kept coming up, Africa.  This was about mid-July.  We started our reseach; Where should we go?  How much can we see?  How will we get around? How much will it cost?.  Transport in Africa looked atrocious, with sweaty chicken buses stuffed with people flying around treacherous roads at high speeds.  The only way to avoid the buses is to pay for a high priced tour which hurts both at the bank and in the experience.  After about a week of intensive reseach (four or five hours a day!), we decided there was only one reasonable and safe way to see Africa; on a bike. 

Now back in the day, say 10 to 15 years ago, mountain biking and BMX was my thing.  I spent all summer riding bikes, jumping off of things and sanding my skin off on the pavement.  Back then, I thought I knew everything, particularly about bikes.  That was then.   As of July, I barely remembered how to change a flat tire.  Elaine hadn´t spent much time on a bike, with her most recent cycling experience being skidding through a round-about on a snowy January morning. This left her shoulder in it´s current, medically undiagnosable state.  Needless to say, we had work to do and the pressure was on.  The first thing we did was book a flight to Barcelona in two months time.

Fast forward through 40 hrs a week spent figuring out which bikes to buy, two road trips down to the States for cheaper gear and stuff unavailable in Canada (thanks again Jesse!), a hundred MEC purchases, a bunch of ´how to fix your bike´youtube videos and a couple half-assed training rides. Suddenly we found ourselves trying to jam our dismantled bikes and gear totalling 160lbs into boxes, eight hours before departure.  Sometimes you just gotta have faith, because we didn´t have a clue of what we were doing or getting ourselves into.

Landing in Barcelona, our only wish came true...everything arrived on time, unbroken.  Congrats Air Canada for not living up to expectations!!

Now we just have to jam the things together and hope they hold!

At Barcelona airport....and psyched!