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!

Tuesday October 7, 2014

We were up and away before first light today, 8:00 am. We had our lights on and headed out of Arcos.

We had a bit of a hill to climb out of Arcos and then headed down hill into the valley.

As we crossed the valley area, we could see a grey cloud hanging over the valley.  We cycled faster hoping to outrun the rain, which never materialized.  Was it a rain cloud hanging over us or pollution.  The Spanish farmers still burn the stubble on their farm fields and there was quite a lot of industry in this area.

It was a great ride today made even better by the fact that we could outskirt some of the typical Andalucian towns. These towns with their whitewashed houses are very pretty, but they are built on hill sides. We had lunch just outside of Medina and realized that we could outskirt the Town, the climb through the Town would have been a good test on the legs, but we decided we didn’t need to cycle up a hill and onto cobbled streets again.

After we had left the Medina area, the sun came out and the cloud disappeared.

As we came towards Vejer, another typical Andalucian Town built on a very large hill we discovered we could outskirt this Town as well and headed straight for the campsite.

The campsite was very quiet, we saw one other couple. It was strange getting used to the noises again, but as we snuggled under our sheet we listened to an owl hooting in the distance. At about 9:30 pm just as we were about to fall asleep the local village band started their band practice – half an hour of banging on drums and blowing on trumpets and then another half an hour of attempting to play together, before it stopped at about 10:30. Lovely peaceful campsite!!

We checked out other campsites for tomorrow in Tarifa, again there are about four or five along the coast.

Monday October 6, 2014

Not much to write about today. It was a nice ride, rolling hills of farmland with cows and cotton fields dominating the landscape.

We arrived in Las Arcos another pretty Andalucían town and found the Tourist Information office who gave me a list hotels, but no campsites. The tourist offices do not call the hotels for you to see if there are any vacancies, you have to do it yourself. It can be very interesting, if the person at the hotel doesn’t speak English. However, I am getting quite good at asking if they have any double rooms available and how much it costs. Ralf was stunned into silence as a I chatted away in Spanish to the woman on the phone and reserved us a room at another cheap hotel. He was very proud of me and told me several times how impressed he was with my language skills.

This hotel has a terrace where we could cook our dinner.

Although it was an easy ride, for some reason we were both tired and had a siesta. As we are now headed for the coast, we are hoping to find some campsites. Tomorrow in Vejer, there are supposed to be five campsites.

Sunday October 4, 2014

We were up early and tried not to disturb our room mates in the hostel as we carried our panniers downstairs and loaded our bikes. We were on the road by 8:30 am. We passed an empty Cathedral square and Ralf got this lovely photo of the Cathedral.

JP2 is in the square as well, and I liked him as a pope.

As we made our way out of Seville on their excellent cycle routes we noticed a tremendous amount of women dressed in pink and heading towards the Plaza d’Espana. It dawned on me that this Sunday is the first week-end in October and the week-end for the Run for the Cure (breast cancer) in Barrie and obviously around the world.

We went to check out the start and the highest number that had registered was in the 9,000 range. Well done Seville over 9,000 women running for the cure. I asked a group of Spanish ladies if I could take their photos, but I wanted a picture of the slogan on the back of their shirts first.

It was quite funny trying to explain to them that I did this in Canada every year with a group of ladies. “Oh Canada” was the response.

Deb and the rest of the Curling Connection group I hope you had a good run and raised lots of money again. – Miss you.

We carried on heading out of Seville on the cycle lanes, as soon as we hit the “border” of Seville the bike lanes stopped.

Today was a flat ride through rural farmlands and cotton fields as far as the eye could see.

We arrived in Las Cabezas and once again could not find a campsite, we found a small hotel which was quite expensive. We have to stop this, it is getting too expensive, but it is difficult for us find any enthusiasm to wild camp. Our version of wild camping is cooking in a hotel room.

Friday October 3, 2014

Not used to these late nights! We got up late and had breakfast at the hostel, it is included in the price and had quite a good choice.

We were going to sign up for the morning walking tour, but after getting so much information on last nights tour, we decided that we would wander around ourselves. We needed to get Ralf’s phone sorted out again – apparently he has no credits. I need my data stick updated and I need a new cycling jersey. One of my merino wool jerseys has more holes in it than material. Ralf says I look like a bag lady when I am wearing it. Every time I wash it another hole appears.

We started our own walking tour of Sevilla and promptly got lost. Heading in completely the wrong direction.

On last nights walking tour Medi (our guide) told us that some streets have more than one name and took us down a street that had five different names in a 25 metre long street. On one side of the street it was called The street of Death on the other side of the street it was called Suzanna.

This is why it is so easy to get lost in Seville and can be a little frustrating. I can’t remember how many times we got turned around.

We eventually found an Orange store, apparently we have been getting messages through our “premium service” that has taken all our credits. I was furious, Ralf managed to keep calm. A very kind English lady translated for us in the store and the shop assistant managed to get us connected to customer service to sort out the issue. We have to block the “premium service”. Which we managed to get done. We have had to add more credits on, if this gets eaten up by some bogus company we will go back to just having the computer and Skype.

The City of Seville is a little overwhelming with the history and architecture. Seville was founded by the Romans, then the Muslims took over in the 700’s and ruled for over 500 years. The first Muslims to rule were from Arabia, the second group were from North Africa – the Moors. In the 1200’s the Christians moved in. There were many marriages between various European Royal families and Spain became very wealthy and influential. However, due to mismanagement and the fact that they lost their colonies in the 1800’s they lots their influence and their money.  The mismanagement is still happening, banks are closing and the unemployment rate in Andalucia is one of the highest in Spain at 34%.

Back to the 1200’s the Christians gave the Muslims and Jews an ultimatum – leave, pay more taxes, or convert to Christianity. Oh but, by the way we need the Jews to stay as we need your expertise with the banking “money lending”. The problem occurred when the plague decimated Europe and because the Jewish population were in their segregated quarters and had better hygiene practices, they escaped the mass deaths that the rest of Europe encountered.

In Seville they killed over 2,000 Jews in the street that is now called the Calle de la meurte – Street of Death.

We walked over to the Plaza d’Espana. A beautiful area with gardens and a stunning building.

After we returned to the hostel we went for our paella lesson. It was good, but Joy did a better job of showing us how to make paella and hers tasted better. After paella and more Sangria and white wine for me, we decided to find the Flamenco bar that the portly Sevillian had told us about.

We had missed the Flamenco dancing, but watched the “poet” and the singer and a group of older Sevillian’s dance Flamenco. At this bar everyone or anyone can get up to dance.

We found the bar quite easily, getting home was another problem. Once you have made a wrong turn in Seville you continue to make wrong turns. After finding the University and the tram tracks, we followed the tram tracks back towards the Cathedral and found the hostel. We eventually got back to the hostel well after 2:00 am.

Saturday October 4, 2014

Not too late up this morning considering how late we went to bed. While we were having breakfast I did a load of washing. We are not allowed to hang the washing on the upstairs patio, so we strung a washing line in the room and hung it in there. It dried quite nicely.

Today we went to the Royal Palace, Real Alcazar. It has some lovely gardens and again overwhelming architecture.

We also signed up for the formal Flamenco dancing show. It included a dance with the male and female dancers – very sensual, a dance with the female which was awesome, the female dancer was very intense, the male dancer on his own and then the guitar solo and the singer solo.

The singer was very emotive and sang a very sad song, which we couldn’t understand, but he looked very sad.

After the show, we cooked our own dinner in the kitchen and planned our route to Gibraltar.

An early night as we are hoping to be on the road by 8:30 tomorrow.

We had a great time in Seville.  Lots of history, lots of wonderful sites, sounds and smells.  Really busy with tourists but lots of fun.