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Friday, April 19 – Villaricos to Mazarron, 2357 km
Another fine morning. We have a tailwind as we follow the coast road 34 km to Aguilas. At one point, it climbs over 100m but nothing like the adventure we had yesterday. With the tailwind, the drop just increases our speed. In the distance we see Capo Cope, a smaller version 
of Gibraltar a few kilometres past Aguilas. There are several rocky headlands along this coast but behind them the land is relatively flat, making for easy cycling.
In Aguilas the road ends. We stop to buy groceries and pastry snacks. Mike finds the tourist office and picks us a map of this region. We have just left Andalucía, the only Spanish province we have been in to date, and have entered the province of Murcia. It ends up being a half hour stop but it is still only 11:30am.
From here, we set off to Mazarron. The road we must take goes inland. The first 12 km climbs slowly to 200m until we reach the side of an unbroken ridge of mountains that walls in the valley and juts out into the Mediterranean. Here the road begins a climb up to 560m. My energy is strong, now that my sinus infection is fully healed. I am able to keep up with Mike right to the pass, 
at which point I pass him and fly down hill ahead of him. He catches up to me just before we reach the bottom of the drop and here, overlooking a broad, flat valley and a sea of greenhouses, we stop for lunch. 
Across the valley the road climbs again to a smaller pass, perhaps only 150 m, before dropping into the next valley. One of my two plastic windmills that has inhabited my front pannier for the past six weeks, the ones that Mike hates, flies out on the way down. I return to retrieve it before it gets crushed in the traffic. It has lasted 2350 km and I want to see how much longer it will last.On the far side of the second pass, we follow the base of the hills towards the coast and cross a river into Mazarron. We turn away from the centre of town, following another road that leads to the coast. We pass an endless array of condo complexes but see no signs for hostels or pensions. We go six more kilometres to Puerto de Mazarron, where we finally find the Pension Madrid near the beach, which has a room for us at 2500 pts.
Finding a place near the beach was a priority for Mike but now that we are here we haven’t the energy to leave the room for the first hour. We head to the beach together. It is wide and has been freshly graded to scrape off the litter. Mike
tells me that there are no natural beaches along Mediterranean shores, that all the sand has been mined and planted there for the tourists. He passes on this tidbit with total confidence in his knowledge, but I don’t believe him. All the beaches I have seen previously in France and Greece could not possibly be man-made, but there is no point to arguing with him. I am not too happy with him today anyway. He has returned to his old ways. He has spent 2400 pts on another crazy grocery shopping spree, the first time since Priego. We are now carrying three kinds of cheese and five kinds of meat in our bags, not to mention many more unnecessary items for which I have had to pay half. I am 2100 pts over budget. I am a little choked up over it but decide to let it go. I will have dinner in our room to make up for it.
PHOTO 1: coast north of Villaricos
PHOTO 2: coast south of Aguilas
PHOTO 3: statue in Aguilas
PHOTO 4: Aguilas windmill
PHOTO 5: Todosal, a suburb north of Aguilas
PHOTO 6: Cabo Cope
PHOTO 7: looking south at Capo Cope from the pass
PHOTO 8: field of flowers between the passes
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