Saturday October 18, 2014

A complete change of plan!! I hadn’t been completely happy about the decision to go to Morocco, but was ready for the adventure. However, last night there was a comment on the Blog from my sister Joy, which made me think twice about our decision (Comment Gibraltar to Castilla la Duquesa). This morning I received a comment on the Blog from my friend, Celeste about the Ebola crisis in West Africa that made me think again about the decision (Comment Malaga).

I asked Ralf where he would have chosen to go if Vincent (the English fella) hadn’t picked Morocco. He said he would have chosen Cuba and then the southern tier of the States. I would have picked the same thing.

We decided then and there to get a refund on the ferry and work out how to get to Madrid and fly to Cuba.  We only had 6 minutes to make it to the booking office to get a refund.  When we got to the booking office, we marched in with a purpose and told him we needed to cancel our tickets.  He called the ferry company and I could hear him saying something about the bicycles and then said No Cancellation.  I thought we may have to forfeit 20% of the fee but no refund at all was going to be a bit much to take.  I told him and showed him on the ticket two hours before ferry  we can cancel.  No cancellation, he said and then proceeded to get the 42 Euros from his cash drawer and give it to me.  A full refund, very confusing, obviously something lost in translation.

We went to the train station – we could get as far as Granada on the slow train tomorrow and then cycle the rest of the way to Madrid, which would take us about 8 days, we only have 10 days left on Ralf’s Shengen visa. (What visa Ralf says.)

We could get a fast train to Madrid tomorrow, but the bikes need to be boxed. There is no specialty bike shop in Algeciras and the only place that sold bikes was a SuperStore and the lady we spoke to didn’t have the authority to sell us empty bike boxes.

We can’t get out of the southern Spain for trying.

We decided to sit and have some lunch and review our options. Our staple lunch choice has been ham and cheese sandwiches, mainly because we know how to say ham and cheese in Spanish! However, today we were sitting at a Moroccan restaurant (in Algeciras) and Ralf ordered ham and cheese. The look on the waiter’s face was one of pure horror. No ham he said and then pointed to the restaurant, Moroccan. Ralf looked at me and then it dawned on him – Moroccan – muslim no pork! He always gives me good writing material.

We rented a van and will be driving the 668 k\’s to Madrid tomorrow. We will spend a few days in Madrid to arrange flights and pack the bikes into boxes.

Throughout our travels through southern Spain we have been unable to stay at a warmshowers host, no responses from our email requests. As soon as we head north again, we have responses from two warmshowers hosts and tomorrow we will stay at a warmshowers who will allow us to stay for the few days it will take us to arrange our flights etc. Thanks Jess.

Friday October 17, 2014

A long day of cycling, but not too bad. We cycled for about 20 kms on the highway to Estepone then after following the signs to the A7, we somehow found ourselves on the AP7 – the motorway. We came off at the next exit and followed the coastal road for about 10 kms. As we cycled along this section, seeing all the holiday makers, I wished we could spend a week on a beach relaxing.  Although I really enjoy the cycling, seeing all these people on holiday made me want to take a week of, lie on a beach, drink sangrias and not have to think about visas, routes, where we are going to sleep the next night or  anything else.  I could even read a book.  Take the time to build sandcastles!

We have cycled this way before going in the opposite direction, but on this side of the highway it seemed as if the shoulder was wider, it was easier going in the opposite direction. It wasn’t too bad, but it did get very hot. I remembered the service road from SotoGrande into La Linea, but we definitely had more climbs going this way.

When we arrived in La Linea we tried to find the coastal road from La Linea to Algericas because I didn’t want to cycle over the hills again.   We couldn\’t find it and when we asked for directions, we were told it was all motorway and we had to go over the hills. As we came into La Roque we stopped into the train station and discovered we could take a train into Algeciras. We had to wait for a couple of hours, but it would have taken us an hour and a half to cycle, and at least we were out of the sun. When the train arrived it had a ramp that came out that matched up with the platform and we could wheel our bikes onto the train, no lifting our bikes up two big steps.

We arrived into Algeciras and booked the ferry to Morocco, we leave tomorrow at noon. We ate out last meal in Spain at a Moroccan restaurant and learned how to say thank-you – shukran and hello – Salam.

We are staying at the same hotel as last time. The owner recognized us, we are in the same room.

We have registered on the Canadian and UK travel alerts, so we will know if we should leave the country, due to the ongoing Ebola crisis or national elections which can get violent.

As we get ready for the next part of the adventure, we are listening to a fog horn over the Straits. It is quite foggy tonight, hope it has cleared by the morning.

Thursday October 16, 2014

Our hostel in Malaga cost us E20 per night because we were in a 10 bed dorm. Our first and second nights were not too bad. There was only Ralf and I and a couple of other people sharing the room and it was relatively quiet.

Last night however, when we returned to our room after dinner we discovered a pile of clothing that belonged to two very smelly young men, the clothes smelled as if they had not seen the laundry in months. We also had two other young men sharing the room. At two o’clock in the morning the door opened and one drunken young man came back in the room, disturbing my sleep by banging the door and turning the bathroom light on. At four o’clock the other three came in. One of them put a “head light” on – these are supposed to direct the light and not bother room mates. However, when you are drunk you have no idea where that bloody light is shining.  His head was bobbing about all over the place and consequently so was the light, I felt as if I was watching some strange light show.  The second one, opened the bathroom door, the fridge door and opened the curtain so that he could see what he was doing. The third one, his head hit the pillow and he proceeded to snore loudly.

I didn’t get a solid nights sleep. I do have ear plugs, but the constant light show kept me awake. The pay-back is when we got up at 7:30 am and I must admit I wasn’t quiet. Usually we are very considerate of our room mates, if we are sharing a dorm.  However, I opened the curtain and did not worry how loud my shower was or getting the bags packed. Velcro and zips can make a lot of noise, if you let them.  We even went down for breakfast and then came back upstairs to get the bags, what goes around comes around!

We left the hostel at 9:45 rather late, but we had decided to take the regional train as far as Fuengirola and then cycle to Marbella or further. The train was very good, what a shame they couldn’t have more regional trains that we could use.

Fuengirola was the end of the line, we had lunch there and then carried on our ride. Today it seemed as if every time we stopped people asked us questions. At lunch, a very nice lady (Francine) from Quebec/Vancouver talked to us. She had come to Spain for 3 months to learn Spanish. She had such a positive attitude about her time in Spain – she had joined a movie club, to better understand Spanish and had very recently joined a book club, which she said was much more difficult, but she was enjoying the challenge. What a lovely lady and she was really enthusiastic about our trip it really boosted our spirits. Another Canadian stopped and chatted to us for a while.

We arrived in Marbella, around 2:00 pm and I decided to get new brake pads installed.  I figured with over 12,000ks on the old set it was about time.  Last time we were in Marbella we met an Irish fella who told us about a cycle path from Marbella to San Pedro. I asked at the bike shop about the bicycle path and he said there wasn\’t one.  We cycled along the boardwalk for a while and then stopped in at the Tourism Office, he told us there was a cycle trail we could follow.  It was a hard-packed, wide trail, very easy to cycle as it was dry, I don\’t think we could have used it if it had rained recently.

As we cycled along the boardwalk out of Marbella towards San Pedro, a Belgium couple spoke to us. As we arrived in the suburbs of San Pedro, Ralf stopped to take a photo and a group of people stopped to chat to him.

We also got friendly toots from car drivers and a Bravo from an old guy on the side of the road.

I was a little concerned about our decision (or should I say Vincent’s decision) to head to Morocco, but I think with all the positive comments today and the encouragements, maybe it is a good decision after all.

There are no camp sites in San Pedro, so we are staying in a cheap hotel. Early start tomorrow and maybe we will be close to Morocco tomorrow night.

Tuesday and Wednesday October 14 and 15^th October, 2014

Two days in Malaga to try and sort out Ralf’s Schengen problem. On Tuesday we went to the Canadian Consulate, who were not a lot of help. “You have 90 days and then you have to go back to Canada”. There is no proof of when we arrived, – but you know when you arrived, so it is 90 days. You have to prove when you arrived.

We asked about an extension, she told us about the Office for Foreigners. We cycled to that office. Ralf spent about an hour in the line-up and was told that there are no extensions, unless one of us was in hospital. The lady at that office told him he should go to the Comisario de Policia to request a Declaration of Entrada. Off we went to the Police Station. They only opened until 2:00 pm and it was 1:45 at that point. They told him to come back the next day.

It was a very frustrating day for us, with no results. Ralf is annoyed because he thinks we should just keep cycling and worry about leaving when we need to.  I cannot understand why he is taking this so nonchalantly – he could be fined upwards from E600.00, deported, and/or not allowed back into Europe for 2 to 5 years.  I feel as if I am banging my head against a brick wall and he isn\’t listening to my concerns at all.

I don\’t want this Schengen thing to spoil what up until now has been a great trip.  Ralf is ready to get on the next plane back to North America.

Fortunately the hostel is cheap and we spent an extra night in Malaga.

Ralf made a lovely dinner with Salmon and rice and we chatted to a lovely couple from Poland.

Today, (Wednesday) we cycled to the Police Station. Again Ralf spent an hour in a line-up only to be told he didn’t need a stamp. So long as he was in Spain he didn’t need a stamp! No Stamp. 90 days and then he must leave. Keep the receipts from the phone contracts as proof of when we were in France and Spain, that should be o.k. Flimsy none the less.

This doesn’t help us at all. We now have 14 days left in Europe. What to do?

We have a few options:

• Ralf can fly to England, and get a return flight into Spain – we hope he will get a stamp in his passport and then the 90 days could start from that day, as there is no proof of him being in Europe before that point. But Ralf’s concern is that they do not let him back into Spain and I would be here with the bikes having to sort things out.
• We can leave Europe and go to Florida and cycle the Southern Tier of the US.
• We can leave Europe and go to Cuba for 3 months, then go to the US via Mexico and cycle the Southern Tier.
• We can go to Morocco and spend 3 months in Morocco. That would mean that we could come back into Europe and Schengen would be reset. We could spend another 90 days in Europe to visit the places we want to see.

We wrote all these options on four pieces of paper and asked a fella from England to pick one of the options.

…… guess where we are going?

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.

Sunday October 12, 2014

At 12:30 am we were awoken by a crash of thunder and lightening all around us. The storm lasted for about 15 minutes, and 3 other storms moved through the area during the night.

It was raining when we got up, as forecasted, and it looked as though it was going to be in for the day. I did two loads of laundry, and I hung it to dry in our spacious living area.

We spent the day trying to plan our route from Malaga to Valencia. We have discovered there is a Canadian Consulate in Malaga. We are going to visit them to see what advice they can give us regarding Ralf’s “visa” situation. If we cannot get it sorted out we have about two weeks left in Europe!

Saturday October 11, 2014

When we are camping we get up and pack the tent before it is even light. It gets light at about 8:15 and then very quickly the skies brighten and we can be on the road by 9:00 with light skies. We had our breakfast on the patio of the restaurant, the Clampetts have arrived again.

We headed out on the busy N340/A7 towards Marbella. Our destination for today is at another campsite, about 5 ks outside of the Town of Marbella. We have reserved a “Bengali” it is a condominium tent. The forecast is for thunderstorms and rain tomorrow and our tent will not hold up to excessive rain.

The route was not too bad, although along the busy A7, it wasn’t much fun. You have to concentrate too much on the traffic to really enjoy the coastal scenery.

We arrived in Marbella which is a very large resort town. As we cycled through we spotted a bike shop. The first bike shop we have seen in ages, we stopped in and Ralf bought some replacement brake pads. They had some nice gear, and not too expensive.

We overshot the campsite by about 500 metres, so had to cross a pedestrian bridge to get back to it.

Our Bengali – condominium tent consists of an open plan living area, which has a table with four chairs, a fridge, 2 burner stove, a stainless steel worktop and all the glasses, pots and pans for 4 people. The bedrooms (2) consists of a double bed and the second bedroom has bunk beds and a single bed. Very cosy. The “patio” has space for a table with 4 chairs. You take the table from inside the tent to the outside of the tent!

Once we had settled in to this spacious accommodation, I proceeded to clean the bikes. It has been a while and with the rain from yesterday, they definitely needed a good clean.

We set up our tent to dry out and Ralf gave it a good clean. Ralf went to get some groceries for dinner and came back with chicken, some fresh veges and potatoes – we had a lovely dinner with chicken, stir fry veges and potatoes with a mediocre bottle of white wine.

We had a chat to our neighbours (Spanish) and they asked if we had a car? The men were surprised that I was cleaning the bikes, while Ralf was doing the shopping, cleaning the tent and preparing dinner!

We were in bed by 10:30pm lulled to sleep by the sound of the A7!! It is a very busy road and noisy.

Thursday October 9, 2014

Headed out of Algeciras while it was still dark, and followed the cycle route for about 4 kms.

We then had to go on the motorway again – I was just beginning to panic, when Ralf brought us of the motorway and we went the rural route through the hills. We saw so many storks in one field I had to look up what a \”flock\” of storks were called and it is a muster.

There was a good steep hill to climb and I actually had to get off, a roadie coming up behind me asked if I was o.k.

When we left Algeciras this morning Gibraltar seemed so close, but we had a devil of a job actually getting there. We seemed to be going in circles at one point, but we eventually found La Linea de la Concepcion, a grubby border/port town. Once we were in La Linea finding the border to Gibraltar was relatively easy.

We followed the foot passengers on the dedicated cycle lane, I had my passport in my hand and Ralf tagged along behind me. Before we knew it we were in Gibraltar, again with no formal border checks.

We cycled over the runway of the airport, yes I did say we cycled across the runway, with the cars, and foot passengers. There are traffic lights stopping you crossing when a plane is landing!!

We found the hotel easily and got settled in quickly. We decided not to waste too much time and headed for the downtown core.

We weren’t going to go up to the Rock, because you had to pay 10 pound each. After we had a second lunch, and had walked the length and breadth of the downtown, we decided to head upwards to get a better view of the Town.

When we got to the entrance of the Rock National Park, we discovered you could pay 50p each just to walk the Park, but not get into any of the sites. One pound was worth the view and to get to see the monkeys.

The macaque monkeys were probably brought into Gibraltar by the Moors and they have stayed here and are monitored by the National Park. As soon as a bus or car pass by they hurtle up the rock and onto the car or bus. They practically ignored us as we took photos of them grooming their babies and each other.

We ate a pub dinner and then wandered down the main street to have ice-cream. We chatted to the sales lady, who was from La Rocque, a small town, near the border. She said there was about 8,000 Spaniards working in Gibraltar that made the daily crossing. She told us that the British do not want to work in the service industry, but for the Spaniards “Work is work”. She gave us quite a bit of insight into Gibraltar and its neighbours.

We both found Gibraltar to be a bit of an odd juxtaposition of British and Spanish. The majority of the servers are Spanish, but there is definitely a very Britishness about the place. Marks & Spencers, British Home Stores, Nat West Bank etc. Lots of pubs and English pub food available.

What did surprise us was the very large Jewish population. There are four active synagogues. The largest of the synagogues, is usually open to the public, however, it is Succoth at the moment and was closed to the public.

There is also a smaller Muslim community mainly from Morocco, with one mosque.

Apparently Gibraltar is a very tolerant and multi-cultural society.

I am glad we visited it, but wouldn’t come back.

Wednesday October 8, 2014

We were up at 7:00 today, it was still dark and we packed the tent away as it was getting light. We left the campsite at 9:15.

It was an awesome ride today. What was this bird thinking, is this really a good place to bring up your children?

Lovely rolling hills to Tarifa on a good road with a wide shoulder. We were really motoring and passed the campsites that were all on the outskirts of Tarifa.

We decided to cycle into Tarifa and have some lunch then decide whether to carry on to Algeciras. We were both feeling really good and knew that we might have to cycle up a few more hills, but decided to press on to Algeciras.

The few more hills turned out to be one very long hill we started at 11 metres above sea level and finished at 340 metres above sea level over an 8 km stretch of road. Ralf stopped to take photos, I just kept pedaling.

I am a little dot some where on this bridge while Ralf is way behind me, of course he caught up with me.

It was a good climb (6.8%), and we were rewarded at the top by a view of Morocco and Tangiers.

Ralf and I were trying to decide what the land mass was we were looking at when a German fella told us it was Morocco and Tangiers. He said you must be very strong to cycle up the hill.  Did you know about this hill before you started?  (questioning our sanity, Ralf thought).  I wasn’t feeling very strong at that point but soon regained my legs and of we went down the other side.

As we came down the other side we could see Gibraltar, our destination for tomorrow.

We arrived in Algeciras just before 2:00 and found the Tourist Info office quite easily. No campsites, and no campsites between here and La Linea. I had thought about carrying on to Gibraltar but the road from here to La Linea is a motorway. The direct route to Gibraltar is about 27 kms, we may have to do 49 kms up and over the hills.

Once again we are in a relatively cheap hotel after looking at several pensions that were grubby and smelly.

The map that the lady in the tourist office gave me indicates that Spain has an excellent transportation system. Yes, if you are a car, but not if you are on a bike. We spent some time reviewing our route for the next few days and hopefully we can find a not too busy road from here to Malaga, if they let us back into Spain from Gibraltar!