20 years ago today - Day 44

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April 16 - Castell de Ferro to Almeria, 2160 km


It's a second day of fine weather and a delicious tailwind. We are on the road by 10:30 after grocery shopping. Leaving town to the east, the road climbs 100m. From there we make excellent time flying along the winding cornice road above the plastic-covered greenhouses along the coast below us. The greenhouses, for producing vegetables in this desert environment, are stacked up from the sea in terraced tiers. The result looks an industrial or military compound. There a large collection of them at La Rabita, about 45 minutes into our ride. There are also a couple dark tunnels along this stretch of road but at the speed we are traveling we breeze right through them.

We reach Adra around noon, an ugly town on the edge of the Campo de Dalias, with particularly bad paving on its streets. Beyond Adra, the road straightens out as it crosses the delta of the Rio Chico. Now it's a pretty tree-lined avenue with metre-wide paved shoulders, perfect for cycling. It continues on past the delta and across a coastal plain further east, covered with more greenhouses.

Past the industrial town of El Ejido, we switch onto a quiet side road south of the highway. It’s free of traffic but no longer tree-lined. We stop for lunch a few km later. When I look north-west, I can still see the Sierra Nevada rising high above nearby hills, but by the end of the day we will be well beyond them.

After eating I decide not to put on my helmet for a while, to let the sea breeze blow through my hair for a change. Mike doesn’t approve of this. He’s so anal. He ignores my defense that it isn’t needed when there’s no traffic. To piss him off further I take off my cycling jersey to work on my tan. He deliberately races on ahead without me, either as a punishment or not to be embarrassed to be seen riding with such a skinny guy.

I find him waiting for me at the end of the coastal plain, at the edge of the town Roquetas de Mar. I don my jersey and helmet again, and we ride into the town. We become hopelessly lost in a tangle of the town's erratic streets. "It hasn't been a good day unless you've been lost at least once," he muses. He is full of these philosophical gems that make me smile.

We find our way back north to the highway 2 km from Aguaduce. Past this town, the mountains meet the sea again and the coast road hugs the shoreline at the base of 200m cliffs. Buses and trucks cram the highway to our left and to our right the road drops off 20m to the waves and rocks below. The riding is stressful but we can see Almeria, today's destination, peeking around the cliffs in the distance.

The highway passes through two narrow tunnels before we get there, tunnels too dangerous for our bicycles but in both cases there is a narrow old road from earlier times hugging the cliff face. It is abandoned to road traffic now, but still safe for bicycles although they are missing their guard rails. The third and shortest tunnel is unavoidable.

The city of Almeria, which has been hiding from us for the last few kilometres, suddenly reveals itself in its entirety. The first city streets start on the exit from the tunnel. It is a beautiful desert city with a Moorish fortress perched high on the western cliffs above the city, not far from the tunnel we have emerged from. Most of the city is on the west side of the delta of the Rio Andarax.

We follow signs directing us to the tourist information office, but they disappear when we reach the centre of the city. After cycling around a triangle of one-way streets twice, Mike finally relents to asking for directions. It takes several tries as locals never use the office. Eventually, we find the ill-marked office a couple blocks up a side street. We wait 20 minutes for the office to re-open at 4, sitting by our bikes on the sidewalk. I take off my shirt again and roll up my cycling shorts to soak in the sun. Locals stare at us as they pass.

When the office opens we each take a map of the city and Mike calls Ricardo and Nuria, our Servas hosts who are giving us free accommodation for two nights. We have located their address on our maps but Ricardo insists on driving down to lead us back to their home. He shows us with Jose-Marie, who we learn is his sole employee of his home-based draughting business. Ricardo leads us to the home of his father, Joe Moya, who is providing space for our bikes in his garage. We load our bags into Ricardo’s car and ride with him back to his home.

Joe and Ricardo have renovated Ricardo and Nuria’s home by themselves, and it is a beautiful piece of work. Nuria arrives home but she is feeling under the weather with a flu and headache so we decide to go out. Jose takes us on a tour of the town. He is a handsome, personable lad with the best English of the lot.

He shows us the Rio Andarax, which is a wide, dusty sunken valley with nothing more that a wet ditch running through it. Hundreds of cars are parked in the valley, which solves the city’s parking needs. He explains that it rarely rains here, but when it does the valley quickly fills up with water, a flash flood of sorts. When it begins to rain in the mountains to the north, sirens sound throughout the city and office workers pour out of the buildings in a rush to get their cars out of the valley before they are swept away. I am secretly hoping it will rain so I can witness the chaos.

Jose leaves us in downtown where we find something to eat and poke through stores that are still open. I buy a map of the coast from here to Valencia which we will use to plan our route for the next week or so. We return to Ricardo’s after 10. Nuria has gone to bed but Ricardo is entertaining another foreigner, Tony, a Brit who is working as a translator in Almeria. We share beer and tapas that Ricardo has prepared. Before he leaves, Tony asks us to meet him for breakfast. He leaves us his phone number.


PHOTO 1: Castell del Ferro sunrise
PHOTO 2: Castell in the distance
PHOTO 3: rock tunnel and greenhouses behind
PHOTO 4: Adra
PHOTO 5: Mike and greenhouses, lunch break
PHOTO 6: Roquetas de Mar
PHOTO 7: coast past Aguaduce
PHOTO 8: entering Almeria
PHOTO 9: Moorish fortress above the city