20 years ago today – Day 46

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April 18 – Almeria to Villaricos, 2273 km

There are plenty of goodbyes and promises made between us over our breakfast meal to set us on our way this morning. We are feeling very blessed. Mike stops to change money on the main street before we leave.

The beach road takes east past the Almeria airport to a local highway that leads us north-east up an inland valley called the Rambla Morales, between the Sierra de Gador and the Sierra de Gata (Cat Mountains) which form the rocky Cabo de Gata (Cat Cape) to the south.


Our first target is Nijar, a scenic town set in the hills to the north of the valley. We go out of our way, climbing 350m, because Ricardo has recommended that we see it. Thankfully, we have a tailwind again, which eases our climb. From a distance it looks like a New Mexican town might with its barren backdrop of brown hills. When we enter the town we find the buildings are whitewashed, newish and fairly plain. Its economy must depend on tourists as most shops are selling souvenirs and hand-woven carpets. The scenery isn’t spectacular. We climb to a church at the highest point of the town but there are no vistas over the valley. We meet a friendly Swiss couple there on their way to the Cabo de Gata. They have been cycling through Andalucía for three weeks and they invite us to stay with them at their home on the German border near Zurich when we get there.

We have lost our tailwind but at least it is downhill from here. Then it is flat for several kilometres until our turnoff on the road to the coast and the town of Carboneras. We cross two modest ridges about 200m each before dropping to the coast. We stop for a lunch break on the roadside half way to Carboneras, before continuing on to the town.

Just outside of Carboneras, across the Rio Alias, the highway is closed for construction. Two sizeable graders are parked side by side to prevent cars from getting by. Just our luck, I mutter to myself as I check my map for alternate routes. There are none. The only reasonable solution is to return to the highway we left an hour and a half ago and continue north from there.

As I am explaining this to Mike, he throws his leg over his bike and inches his way between the graders into the construction zone. “What are you doing?” I cry out to him.
“You don’t expect us to go all the way back, do you?” “It must be closed for a good reason,” I protest but he has made up his mind and is already cycling away without my agreement. I hop on my bike and follow him, for if I don’t there will be no way of finding him again.

The road surface is gravel, but it has been freshly graded and packed in preparation for paving. At first it is straight and flat as I race to catch up with Mike. Without traffic, it is like a perfect cycling trail, only wider and less bumpy. I realize he is probably right, that this route will be excellent. I pause to take pictures and lose Mike in the distance again.

The road begins to climb as it approaches a wall of low mountains, but the grade is not too steep. It begins to spit rain, an ominous sign. Then I begin to see rocks on the road the size of my fist. There are not too many at first but soon they are all over the road and getting much larger. They grow to the size of boulders taller than my bike. Mike has not paused here to wait for me so I keep climbing, weaving between the boulders. Now light rain is falling. High above me I can hear drilling.

The boulders and smaller rocks disappear and the road is almost clear again as it winds around a rocky point further along. About a kilometre past the boulders, about 80m higher, I round a switchback and find Mike waiting for me. The road here is completely blocked with four to five metres deep of crushed rock, the obvious result of serious blasting. So that is where that drilling sound is coming from.


I feel at a loss of what to do here. Continuing on looks impossible and returning the way we came to the highway, now two hours behind us, seems both dangerous and unreasonable. I want to discuss our options with Mike but once again he isn’t waiting for me. He unloads his panniers and bags, hoists his bike onto his shoulder and starts climbing up and over the broken rock. “What are you doing?” I ask, sounding like a broken record, and a stupid one at that, since it was obvious what he was doing.
“Well, I don’t know about you but I’m not turning back at this point.”

I am somewhat relieved that he has made the decision for me. “Just be careful. We can’t afford a broken ankle in the middle of nowhere.” I push my bike up to the edge of the rocks and remove my panniers. My cycling shoes are a bit slippery and the rocks prone to moving as I climb over them. The mounds of broken rocks continue for about 100m. I meet Mike returning for another load. We each make three trips to get all our gear to the far side. We load up our bikes. Mike waits for me before we ride on together.

The road from here is clear of rubble. There are no cliffs above us and no worrisome drilling sounds. We are near the pass and the road is leveling out to a more gradual grade. Ahead we see a dozen or more construction workers building the frameworks for concrete curbs on either side. “Now what will we do?” I ask Mike. “Construction workers aren’t going to try to stop us,” he comments confidently. And he is right, but they do stop working and have a good laugh when they see us, shaking their heads in disbelief as we pass. I can feel myself blush, but it is a relief that they are not angry with us.

Half a kilometre further we reach the pass. To our profound dismay the road is gone, replaced by an abrupt six-metre deep pit and no way around it. In the pit a backhoe is working feverishly moving earth around. We stop a couple metres from the edge. Mike looks over to me with a shrug, a look of defeat in his eyes. He is still considering whether this is as bad as it looks when the backhoe operator spots us. With a big smile on his face, he spins the machine around and lays the great bucket of the backhoe gently on the ground in front of us. He shouts something to us.

“He is telling us to get in,” Mike relays to me with a grin. I cannot believe I am doing this but I roll my bike into the bucket after him, set my bike against his and hang on for dear life as the backhoe lifts us off the ground, turns around and lays us gently on the road on the far side of the pit. We are both laughing and I am tingling with exhilaration as we climb out of the bucket. “Gracias!” we shout to the operator before we mount our bikes. He laughs and salutes us in return.

To our delight, the road on the far side was not under construction. In fact, it is freshly paved and smooth as a baby’s bottom. And the sun breaks through – the universe is smiling on us. For the next twenty kilometres there is no traffic and it is either downhill or flat.

When we reach the coast, we are once again surrounded by condos. It seems the Brits have found this coast too. We follow the coast road north to the resort town of Garrucha but we don’t find anything of interest there, and no accommodation. We continue on ten more kilometres across the Rio Almanzora to the village of Villaricos, a sleepy little undiscovered beach town. Mike a finds a pension there where we each have our own rooms for 1000 pesados. Amazing! What a day! We have covered 113 km from Almeria.

PHOTO 1: cliffs outside of Almeria
PHOTO 2: Nijar
PHOTO 3: road under construction
PHOTO 4: Mike unloading his bike at the blasting rubble
PHOTO 5: the coast beyond the construction
PHOTO 6: Villaricos