Monday October 13, 2014

For the first 20 ks we were on a major highway – it wasn’t too busy, but not much fun.

We went through some typically tourist holiday towns – lovely beach areas and tacky shops on the other side.

We cycled through Torremolinos, this was one of the first Spanish holiday areas that the Brits came to. It looks very tired along the main road, but when you go down to the beach area they are building new hotels and apartments – it looks quite nice.

Arriving in Malaga we had to cross a river, we came to a roundabout with two motorways converging, but no road for local traffic. We spotted a rural route across the roundabout and headed for it. It took us on to the motorway. We took the shoulder behind the crash barrier, to get over the river and then we were able to follow a track until we were back on a normal road again.

As we were coming around a roundabout a young man asked Ralf if he had an allen key. The young man had found his bike in his grandfathers garage and rebuilt it, finding the original paint and logos. He bought the new Brooks Cambian saddle and was very happy with it. After Ralf helped him out we carried on and found the hostel we are staying at tonight.

Ralf at one point went ahead of me and left me behind. I saw him make the turn, but I had to stop at the traffic lights. By the time I got to the turn, he had gone. Unfortunately there were three roads he could have gone down so I stopped and waited for him to come back. It took a while, but eventually he came back!

After we had settled in to the hostel we went to the rail station to find out if we could get a train further up the coast – No there are only AVE trains – the fast train and we cannot put our bikes on the fast train. We then went to the bus station, we can put our bikes on the bus, but they have to be packed and wrapped, 11 hours on a bus to Valencia. If we wanted to break down the bikes again we might as well fly.

The hostel has a nice kitchen, we ate and chatted to some nice people in the lounge.  An early night.  Tomorrow we are going to the Consultate to see what advice they can give us and then heading up the coast, as far as we can go.