Heat, an experiment, good friends and the ascent of Arcos de La Frontera

Yesterday morning I had another walk around Ronda and then took a "green edged road" in the direction of Algeciras, this had been recommended to me as a famous motorcycling road, deservedly so – because the views were splendid and the curves were nice constant radius curves ideally suited for a bit of fun. There were a couple of flies in the ointment being a bit too much traffic and the appearance here and there of the Guardia Civil who were stopping traffic now and then at junctions. The road was also undergoing repair in a few sections.

As I descended from the mountains the landscape came less interesting and more populated until finally arriving at Algeciras, I was confronted with the inevitable industrial landscape of a refinery and various factories plus of course lots of shops and housing plus a confusion of roads in all directions. I thought that since I was now close, I might well visit Gibraltar just to be able to say I have been there. Plainly the map in my head did not correspond too well with reality as I thought that I needed to go into Algeciras to get to Gibraltar, duh.  Realizing my mistake, I fought my way through lots of traffic to escape the confusion of the town and remedy my route by heading for La Linea. Nearing Gibraltar, I had the benefit of a nice cooling breeze from the sea and also had very good views of the Rock itself.

However a little further on and I could see an enormous queue for customs and passport control. I decided that I could do without visiting Gibraltar on this occasion and set course for Estepona where I was to stay the night with my friends Mercedes and Antonio. 

Because I was a little early arriving in Estepona, I decided to stop for a drink at one of the many watering holes near the beach. I followed a car heading for what looked like a bar surrounded by a collection of umbrellas and beach chairs. Suddenly the tarmac which had a light coating of sand turned into the beach and I was riding on sand, uh ohhh! Well you can guess what happened next, with both the back and the front of the bank squirming around like mad, I tried to make a big circle back to the tarmac and I almost made it but then dropped the bike in front of a sizeable audience. As a place to conduct an experiment into just how many people are required to lift a fully laden GSA with a full tank of fuel, I could not have chosen better for there was no shortage of willing helpers. The answer is that it takes three people to lift the bike, and two to hold it while I get on again. I must pay tribute to my Spanish helpers, they didn't laugh – only expressed concern, and in response to my "¡Muchas gracias senores! only said "De nada", although one chap riding a scooter pointer out that it was a vehicle better suited to la playa.

I arrived at my friends' flat covered in sweat, so the first order of the day was to bundle my clothes into the washing machine which Antonio kindly took charge of and then I had a much needed shower. After this, a cold drink and a lovely lunch prepared by Mercedes, and, feeling much more human, I passed a very pleasant afternoon and evening. It was a joy to be with Mercedes and Antonio again, to chat and then to bu guided around the town with them seeing the very attractive older part of what is mainly a heavily developed town catering for people who like sun and the sea, as do many well heeled Russian apparently.

Antonio had given me various suggestions for places to visit and when I bid them farewell this morning I set off for the first of these - a small town called Vejer de la Frontera. The day warmed up very quickly and by the time I left Vejer, the  temperature was already 33°. I decided to head back into the hills in the hope of finding cooler air. Well it was a little cooler but not much and at the bottom of hills the temperature had climbed to 35°. The roads I followed demanded the utmost respect. They were very narrow and although not unduly twisty,  at each side of the road there was a ditch 2 to 3 feet deep or simply bare  mountainside. It was mostly second and third gear work, frequently dropping into first.  The surface of the road had frequent longitudinal cracks with patches of shiny black tarmac that were very slippery, also the levels changed considerably across the cracks with the result that both the back of the front of the bike could be pushed sideways. It is Sod's law of course, then ensured most of these lateral excursions occurred in the corners - often when a vehicle was approaching from the other direction.

By the time I had been riding six hours, even though it was still early in the day, I decided that I had had just about enough. The level of concentration required and the heat made it a very tiring ride indeed. So I telephoned the Parador in Arcos de La Frontera and booked a room. I entered the address in my Garmin and headed for the hotel. Do not, do not repeat my mistake of following the lady's instructions, if you ever visit this place. The Parador is on top of the hill on which the town is built and the GPS had me climbing near vertical, extremely narrow, cobbled streets. The cobbles were shiny, slippery, smooth, round river stones. An instruction to turn sharp right or left, did not involve a hairpin bend but a street that doubled back on itself instantaneously. I was having to make multipoint turns in the steeply angled corners. Eventually I gave up and decided that I was bound to drop the bike again if I persisted. I managed exit the town with the intention of calling the hotel and cancelling my booking. Back on level ground and a few moments of reflection however, and I realised that there must be another way to reach the hotel. There is and I eventually found it in the bike is now parked outside in  the plaza. I have again washed my sweat soaked clothes, drun copious amounts of cold water and am relaxing in another lovely hotel (these Paradors are the bees knees!), waiting for the air to cool somewhat before I venture into town. I have taken a couple of photos that show the hotel to be a little like the one on Ronda - on the edge of a cliff.

I also have some video but every time I take of my helmet, I find squashed insects on the camera lens, so I don't know how the vide will turn out. I need to find a way of deflecting them. If I had the SuGru, that I bought following Dave's suggestion, I reckon I could use that to fashion a sort of air scoop on the peak of my helmet - maybe a bit of plastic metal will do the same thing.

Nearly as close as I got to the Rock

One of the many flower bedecked streets in the older part of Estepona

View from the terrace of the Parador

In the opposite direction

Encontré el sol. Vive en Andalucía.

No hay premios por adivinar dónde estoy..

Anoche me alojé en un Parador de Antequera. Es un hotel excelente, moderno, cómodo y el personal era eficiente y amable. Me gustó la ciudad también. Porque había disfrutado de este parador tanto y como yo quería ir a Ronda, reservé una habitación en el parador de Ronda.

Salió del hotel en aproximadamente las 09:00, con la intención de conducir de una manera sin prisa a Ronda, usando algunos 'caminos verdes más pequeños' en el mapa del Michelin. Ingresé unos nombres en el GPS para pueblos a lo largo del camino e hice que Garmin usaría la 'distancia más corta' opción.

Hasta ahora yo pensaba que todos ingenieros de caminos Españoles eran los motociclistas; ahora sé que al menos algunos están cabreros de corazón. La ruta me condujó sobre unos caminos muy estrechos y muy tortuosos en la condición pobre. Podría conducir sólo lentamente y se requirió mucha concentración. Había una gran cantidad de grava suelta y muchos baches - especialmente en las curvas..

Me detuve en un pequeño pueblo de refresco y trató de adivinar lo que hablaban los viejos hombres. Había varios grupos de ellos aquí y allá y me preguntaba también si hay una calificación de edad para unirse a un grupo, o si de alguna manera sólo sabe cuando llegue el momento... ¡Decidí seguir conducir!

Llegué a Ronda en sobre las 14:00 para encontrar que el hotel estaba encaramado en el borde de la quebrada. Mi ropa se empapaba de sudor, siquiera llevaba una camiseta que se llama "Dry Inside". Es una mentira - ¡Estaba mojado dentro!

Estaba muy contento poner la moto en el garaje, me ducha y luego caminar alrededor de la ciudad.

¡El signo no bromeaba!

People, Olives, People

Today has been a simply wonderful day - one of my best ever but before I get to it, here's a pic from last night in a nice bar - a pub really, in Arroyo del Frío. That is not a cardboard cutout, it's a real fire and I was as close as I could get to it without singeing my eyebrows. Yesterday's pictures from North Cape looked warmer than I felt.

This morning when I opened the curtains I was greeted not by solid grey cloud but a blue sky with fluffy bits of cloud adding interest here and there. Yesterdays bikers had promised a change in the weather and they were spot onAt around 08:15 I tried to check out but the only person around was a night porter who hadn't the means to prepare my bill. I was encouraged to have a cup of coffee by a cleaning lady who appeared - I knew breakfast was only served from 09:00 so I thought it kind of her to take pity on me while I waited for the bill to appear. This took longer than I had wished for, but the night porter did his level best to make up for it. After phoning someone who would take action to prepare the bill he bustled around and made me a great breakfast which made me much happier. Then he presented me with the bill which had been prepared and was about half what I expected - with no charges for breakfast either. I asked him if he was sure this was correct as I would have hated for him to get into trouble for undercharging me. "No", he assured me, that was correct. When I cam to pay the bill, my card was declared invalid - uh oh. I paid in cash and asked if there was a machine where I could try the card. I was directed to one in the main street and off I went in some trepidation but no problem, the card worked to withdraw cash. 

As I was mounting my bike again, an old land rover minus exhaust drew up in a cloud of smoke and a horrendous racket. It was the night porter who said, "I thought I might catch you here, you left your rucksack at the hotel" (my Camelbak in fact), "shall I bring it to you?" I thanked him profusely and told him that I was quite happy to return to the hotel to pick it up which I did.

I left the hotel feeling much happier about my stay thanks to those folk and wondering if I would have taken the same trouble for a passing stranger.

Next came olives - I have seen my hundred millionth olive tree today for sure. There must be about a thousand trees per capita for the population of Spain. They covered the hills, the valleys and the plains I crossed today. It seemed as though the Natural Park had been an island in a sea of olive trees. There were though, mountains and hills that provided my kind of road though and I enjoyed a great day's riding. The weather was perfect with blue sky, sun and temperatures between 18 and 27 degrees. Even my helmet cam seems to be working again.

I had vague thoughts of where I might stay for the night and at around 13:00 ended up in Priego de Cordoba which was suitable jumping off point for any of my possible choices. I was very close to the home town of one of my Spanish friends, Mercedes, whom I knew not to be there as she is working elsewhere but I texted her to say I was going to have a look at her town, which I did and it was a lovely small town, very well kept, looking much smarter than many of the smaller places I have passed to date. A little further down the road on my way to another collection of "Michelin green roads" I stopped for a cold drink at a restaurant and when I checked my phone, there were messages from Mercedes telling me that I would be welcome for lunch at her husband Antonio's  parent's house (10 miles back up the road) and various suggestions of places to visit in the area. It seemed churlish to refuse such a kind invitation so I took myself off to make acquaintance with Mercedes' in-laws.

I was received like the Prodigal Son - with overwhelming friendliness and kindness. They fed me so much, I felt in danger of bursting. We chatted about the state of the world, the relative merits of the local olives, places to see and what the younger generation were up to. I felt extremely honoured and tremendously fortunate to have come to know such lovely people. Thank you Joaquin y Carmen, Mercedes y Antonio!

Today will stay in my memory for a long time.

Here are a few clips from today. I sent it to Youtube rather than Vimeo in the mistaken belief it would upload faster from Final Cut. It didn't.. and the quality was degraded. Still, it gives you a bit of an idea  of some of the roads I travelled today. Proper video editing will have wait until I return home as my MacBook Air struggles to run Final Cut Pro.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_r-xXyyqjyI&feature=youtu.be

A Quiet Sunday.

I awoke this morning after a somewhat restless night (thanks mainly to the plank that passes for a bed in this establishment) to find that the cloud had descend practically to my room - only the lower part of the hill outside my window was visible, the top shrouded, not in mist but thick grey stuff.

The cloud saved me any great decisions about my plans for the day - I would head south and see if migratory birds know what they are doing. But first breakfast - competing with a busload of pensioners who haven't been fed for a week (at least that was how it appeared) ensured I got the short end of a not very long stick and although I felt a bit cheated, the food I did have was not something to cause me regret for the lack of more.

Apparently birds do know what they are about, as I headed south the weather warmed and the cloud lifted until I could see real, blue sky in a south easterly direction.There was mile after mile of twisties, followed by many miles of great fast sweepers with virtually zero traffic. It is almost impossible to overstate just how great these roads are for a motorcyclist.

Initially I saw millions of olive trees, all in flower ( I pity the poor sod who suffers from a problem with olive pollen), these later disappeared and orchards of a fruit I think might have been apricot, became abundant. I stopped for refreshment by a spectacular lake/reservoir, the Embalse de Negratin where I encountered a couple of Spanish bikers. They spoke not a word of English but bikes must be a jolly good Babelfish because we seemed to understand each other very well. One of them had, only a few days before, returned from a mammoth trip to North Cape via the Baltic States Russia and Finland, returning via Scandinavia. I asked him how long his trip had taken - expecting an answer in weeks or even a month or two but he said it was done in 17 days. His phone was full of photos of his trip so he had at least stopped somewhere apart from petrol stations.

They were really nice guys and insisted on buying my drink and trying to persuade me to stop longer and ride with them for a while. I was tempted but they were headed north and so I regretfully said cheerio and continued for a little longer in a southerly direction. In a town called Baza, I weighed the benefits of making a bit of a dash for the coast or returning northwards by circumnavigating the natural park (The terms National Park and Natural Park are similar but not interchangeable - I am pretty sure they are different things - although the maps show them in a similar fashion and the posted signs and rules seem similar). The latter route won the toss, as I reckoned if it was to be a grey day  on the morrow, I would go to the coast anyway and I do so enjoy these mountain roads.

The road I took northwards was an absolute delight - it was not edged in green on my Michelin map but if I had mapped it, it would have been double edged in green for interest and beauty. It afforded views over a wild and rugged landscape and as it climbed higher ( I passed 1800 metres at one point), the temperature dropped to 8 degrees and I could see snow in a number of gullies here and there on the hillside above me. I did not totally lose the sun until mid afternoon when it deserted me and I was again riding under complete cloud cover.

Arriving back at the hotel, I found a new receptionist - a nice lad called Alberto, himself an enthusiastic  biker who was keen to show me on my map various routes I could take here and there. He did his best to persuade me to try a fantastic route off-road in the park but, as some of you know, I have ruled out that stuff these days. and as even some of the tarmac roads I have taken have been very lonely,  it was not too difficult to thank him for the notion but also to say "No thanks".

A few more pics - courtesy iPad tethering

Arroyo del Frio

I am in a small village called Arroyo Frio in El Parque de la Sierra de Cazorla. It is an area that forms part of the larger Sierra de Segura where peaks go up to 1800 metres or so. 

I left Valencia this Saturday morning in bright sunshine and at 08:30 or thereabouts, the temperature was a balmy 20 degrees.  At this relative early hour, the city was quiet and the streets almost deserted, it made for a very pleasurable and leisurely exit of the lovely city. A few miles later on the autovia and I had ascended a plateau at around 700 meters in altitude and the sky was covered in cloud. The temperature had dropped to 12 degrees and I stooped to add another layer of clothing. The temperature and altitude haven't changed much during the day and although there were brief sunny spells, it felt like a mistake leaving the coast. 

After a bout 40 minutes I left the autovia and changed to a lightly populated  N322 .  For many mies the road was arrow straight and  passed through obvious wine country with vines growing on the plain as nearly as far as the eye could see. Later, the vines gave way to olive trees and slowly, the topography became more interesting and there were a a few great sets of tightish but fast sweepers to enjoy.

I followed the N322 through Albacete and on to Puerto de Segura where I turned off into the park and then ambled south to Arroyo del Frio (well named for today!). The road, initially a bit rough with sign after sign apologising for its condition (they should see our roads in Kent!), became smooth as silk and the whole environment felt a little too manicured. There are lots of little camping resorts and umpteen casas rural catering for this tourist area - alongside places offering 4x4 excursions and canoe trips, guided walks, fishing etc.

I am staying at a hotel that claims to have four stars although I suspect it is like calling oneself "Prince", either that or the awarding body were well-oiled when they presented the stars. Still, it is clean, and the staff are friendly and as helpful as the facilities allow them to be.

Unfortunately the claimed wifi internet is neither wi nor fi and if this gets posted in the next 36 hours, it will be courtesy of my iPhone and the telephone network.

I have walked the town and stopped for a couple of beers in a bar where I practiced my Spanish with the very plasant owner who, each time I ordered a beer, made me a little dish of food. I have had caracoles (small, very tasty snails) and salmorejo - a delicious tomato puree with bread, oil, garlic and vinegar.We chatted about the economy and the fact that there seemed to be very few people in town, despite this being a popular tourist area. Depressingly the word "crisis" gets used a lot.

Just about walked my legs off!

I spent the morning and early part of the afternoon wandering the older part of the city. It is attractive but quite confusing to the first time visitor and sadly the "improvements" to Google maps have rendered the app useless to me on my iPhone. This coupled with a map that had no indication of where north was,  ensured that I practiced my Spanish for asking directions! I found lots to see and here are a few of the pics.

There are quite a few of these large Banyans offering welcome shade.

I have never seen this before. It is one of a number of models in brass of various buildings together with  information in Braille  so that blind people get a virtual tour.

All the pigeons sitting on this sculpture reminded me of the old story about the statues of Adam and Eve.

One aspect of the cathedral. It is so built around that it is hard to take in without looking at a plan.

Part of the old river bed, turned into a park after the river was diverted.

They've got this right!

Paella time! Mary doesn't want one apparently.

The central market is food heaven, I don't know why we can't have these in the UK

They sold tee shirts!

¡Cuidado!

Before I forget, I need to relate the story of the man with the Can-Am trike shown in the pics for Wednesday 5th. He was a friendly Frenchman and quite happy to talk for ages. I first asked him about the trike (thinking of my advancing years, there will no doubt come a day when one of these will be a more practical proposition than the GS).  He said he liked it a lot and although it was not very powerful, it was extremely comfortable and handled well. He told me that he would have preferred to be on my GS but then pulled up his trouser leg to show me that one of his legs was artificial and then said that he had about 3 kilos of metal in his back all of which made the GS impossible but as he loved biking, the trike was the answer.

He told me that his bionic additions were the result of an accident on his bike. He didn't explain how but he had been in collision with a pickup truck, the truck had overturned and dropped its load on him. The truck in question was with a travelling circus and its load at the time was a camel which had an act in the circus. I hadn't the heart to ask him if the camel was injured too!

So guys, it's not just the diesel spills and the SMIDSYs - watch out for the camels!

Antes de que olvide, tengo que relatar la historia del hombre con el Can-Am trike se muestra en las fotos para el miércoles 5. Fue un simpático francés y muy feliz de hablar. Primero le preguntó sobre el trike (pensando en mi paso de los años,  no cabe duda de que llegará un día en que uno de estos será más práctico que el GS). Me dijo que lo gustaba mucho y aunque no era muy potente, es extremadamente cómodo y manejado bien. Me dijo que hubiera preferido montar en mi GS pero luego levantó su pierna de pantalón para mostrarme que una de sus piernas era artificial y luego dijo que tenía unos 3 kilos de metal en la espalda todo lo cual hizo imposible la GS pero como amaba a montar en moto, el triciclo fue la respuesta.

Había un accidente y el tipo golpeó un pequeño camión que volcó. Lamentablemente, el camión llevaba un camello para un circo ambulante y el camello se cayó en el hombre y gravemente le hirió.

Por tanto, es necesario mirar no sólo a las idiotas pero también, ¡a los camellos!