20 years ago today – Day 50

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Monday, April 22 - Alicante

Burquita insists on providing our meals, though both Mike and I want this to be a two-way friendship. She also put through a load of laundry for us while we were out. I didn’t the heart to tell her that I had washed everything three days ago so it wasn’t necessary to wash everything. She and Jacinto have refused our offer to take them to dinner tonight, telling us to save our money instead. We are humbled, but grateful.

Our first responsibilities after breakfast are our chores. I pick up a city map from the tourist office, then go to the post office to mail home a package of film, maps and guides for places we have visited and my Portuguese/English dictionary. Mike sent home a package too. It was a very long, involved process that I am afraid Mike got stuck doing. There are sometimes advantages for not speaking the local language, and disadvantages for knowing too much.

After the post office, we walk around downtown. We pop into the cathedral but there is a service going on so we don't stay. We stop for snacks at a pastry shop and Mike calls home just long enough to give his family the phone number for the Gonzales'. Then we return to the Gonzales' for lunch as Burquita had asked us to.

Montse, their youngest child, still lives at home and joins us for lunch. She's 20, a full-time student of Arabic and works part-time as a translator. She is fluent in Russian, German, English (almost), French and Italian too. She's also a vegetarian and, as young people often are, is very strict and self-righteous about it. She believes that anything bad for you should never be eaten and that which is good for you can be eaten in large quantities up to 1 kg. I advise her not to try that with almonds.

Burquita sighs that she and her husband are frequently subjected to a wide-range of Montse's criticisms about having fluids with meals, drinking coffee or eating desserts. I feel for them.

Mike leaves to see the city on his own and I go out later. I climb the long hill to see the Castello Santa Barbara that hovers above the city. The climb is steep, up a road with a series of switchbacks. There is an elevator but I prefer to walk and take pictures along the way. I meet Mike at the top. He has taken the elevator and offers me the return ticket but I also decide to walk down. We arrange to meet for dinner at 8 and go our separate ways again.

I only have a couple hours before I meet him for dinner but I use this opportunity to go to the gay sauna in town. I was a little hesitant to spend another 1000 pesados that would lead to nothing, like what happened in Murcia, but I am lonely and feel a strong need to be held by another man, even briefly. This time I am not disappointed. The hallways are filled with reasonable to good-looking young men prowling around. I get a locker and join them. The saunas and steam rooms are dead and most of the cute guys had no rooms, so I sit in the video room. A ruggedly handsome fellow, 30-ish, sits beside me. He has a taught, defined body and my heart starts racing. He casually rests his naked knee against mine and that’s all it takes to get us started. We don’t even need a room. Others stop to watch but he is so tender and personal in his love-making that they keep their distance. Before it is over, I have come three times and he has come once – better self-control, I suppose. I feel so nourished and replenished when we are done. I try to speak with him, to thank him, but he speaks no English. Damn that Genimi side of me that always resists anonymous sex.

I race to meet Mike but I am fifteen minutes late anyway. He is writing an aerogram, something he always saves for the times he is kept waiting. We find a cheap place for a paella dinner (I am hooked on paella) and then walk back to the Gonzales’, stopping for a pastry and so Mike can call a potential host in Barcelona. We already have a Servas host lined up in Valencia for three days from now.

Burquita and Jacinto are watching television when we arrive back. They switch it off and spend another hour asking us more questions about Canada. For some reason they have lots of questions about phone bills and the phone system. I suppose they expect to call home a lot once they are there.

PHOTO 1: Monjas-Santa Faz Square
PHOTO 2: Alicante town hall
PHOTO 3: Basilica Santa Maria
PHOTO 4: Jorge Juan St
PHOTO 5: Castello Santa Barbara from base of mountain
PHOTO 6: part way up the climb to the fortress
PHOTO 7: Alicante harbour from Castello Santa Barbara
PHOTO 8: interesting brickwork on the way down
PHOTO 9: Alicante street near sunset

20 years ago today – Day 49

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April 21 – Murcia to Alicante, 2525 km

We are gradually improving at getting earlier starts most mornings. Sometimes we do our grocery shopping in the evenings, and banking too if we can. Today we leave at 10am, not our best but still a fine start.

We are using local highway N340, the Ctra de Alicante, that leads north-east in a straight line for the first few kilometres. At the edge of the city, we encounter four small hills that the road weaves between. The first, at Monteagudo, is topped by a large statue of Jesus with his arms spread wide staring down as though he is about make a dive to the valley below. Gawd nose, during the next big earthquake he just might.

Past these hills, the highway bends in a more easterly direction but it stays quite flat for a while longer. It is mostly overcast and quite cold today, but that is definitely better than being too hot. We both leave extra layers on all day.

After the town of Santomera, the road follows the south edge of the jagged Sierra de Orihuela, which is pitted with caves. At the end of the 10 km ridge lies the small city of Orihuela. The road rounds a rocky bluff 20m above the palm-lined streets of the town. It’s a brief but lovely view as we sail downhill, across a scenic river into the centre of town. We are now in the district of Alicante, in the Province of Valencia, our 9th district and 3rd province.

On the valley floor east of Orihuela, there is forest of palm trees. We choose a quiet route through the palms and the farmlands to the north side of a marshland called El Hondo. Our route merges with the coast highway 11 km before the centre of Alicante. We arrive in late afternoon.
Alicante is the second largest city in the Autonomous Community of Valencia. The Michelin Guide says the area has about a third of a million. It is very new looking, with skyscrapers and high-rise condos, but its development has not left it ugly like Torremolinos. There’s a lovely pedestrian walkway called the Esplanade Espana with patterned sidewalks, street vendors and tall palm trees. There are several stately and decorative buildings from the past couple centuries and a castello perched high above the city only a kilometre from the city centre.

Our Servas hosts in here are the Gonzales, Jacinto and Burquita. Their line is busy when Mike tries to call them so we wait. It is to damn cold once we’ve stopped cycling. I add a long-sleeved shirt and jeans over my cycling garb and I still feel cold. We check the RENFE (the train station) and the bus depot because our hosts have warned us that they cannot keep them in their apartment. Neither place has storage space available.

We finally reach our hosts by phone and they invite us over. They are a very friendly, middle-aged couple a bit older than myself. Jacinto has found a place in the parking garage for our bikes. They have made a meal for us and we stay in the rest of the evening talking with our hosts. It’s a cold Sunday evening so not much would be open anyway. The Gonzales’ have a hundred questions about our trip so far, our planned route and especially about Canada. They have never been before but they are planning a trip this summer.


PHOTO 1: billboard ????
PHOTO 2: Jesus of Monteagudo
PHOTO 3: Sierra de Orihuela
PHOTO 4: canal through centre of Orihuela
PHOTO 5: Orihuela
PHOTO 6: palm forest
PHOTO 7: beach at Alicante
PHOTO 8: Esplanada Espana in downtown Alicante

20 years ago today – Day 48

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Saturday, April 20 – Mazarron to Murcia, 2436 km

Mike always says that there is little if any breeze late at night or early in the morning. Who knows where he gets these ideas but last night the wind was shaking the door so hard we had to lock it to keep it closed. He also says he never wakes up later than I do, but I was up and ready long before him.

Still, we get an early start and the wind has quieted to a gentle breeze. Today, as in the past three days, I am leading. My energy and strength has fully recovered and it feels good that he doesn’t have to wait for me as he did through half of Andalusia.

Murcia, the capital of this province, is inland on a fertile, flat huerta (irrigated vegetable farmland). Our road passes through Mazarron, climbing gently to just over 200m as it skirts the outer edge of a small sierra that follows the coast between Mazarron and Cartagena to the east, known as La Muela. It reaches that height at the 25 km mark, while we are warmed up and still fairly rested.


After that, our tour is over lightly undulating landscapes. At the 40 km mark, it is either flat or dropping gently as we cross into the valley of the Rio Sangonera. On the south side of the valley, we pass three more small mountain ranges - Spain is sprinkled with many tiny ranges – but there are no other climbs today. We pause for lunch at 12:30, 5 km from Murcia.

Definitely this is an easy day with only 68 km behind us, but we wanted to spend half a day here to see the sites. Murcia is sizable too, just over half a million. Mike has a map of the city he picked up in Aguilas but we head for the tourist office so I can have my own map. We find the office in a colourful, stately public building, but being a Saturday it is closed. Why would there be tourists on a weekend?

Mike’s map only shows large corporate hotels so it takes quite a bit of looking to find a pension. We find one with a large room for 3300 pesados, a bit more than we would like to spend. The owner gladly puts our bicycles in a room where she stores her own. Neither she or her husband speak English, but they speak perfect French. I speak a little and Mike’s French is fluent, much better than his Spanish.

While Mike showers I make a rough copy of his map for my own use, carefully noting the streets I want to go. I stretch out on the bed while he dresses, pretending to be tired. As soon as he leaves on his own to explore the town, I set out to find the Nordic Sauna listed in the Spartacus Guide. It’s ironic that I feel the need to hide my gayness from my gay cycling partner, but he is too anal to share many things with. He is opposed to me taking me shirt off, to me riding without a helmet when there is no traffic or singing to myself. I have no doubt that he would find my trips to a gay sauna unacceptable.

I go to the sauna for the three S’s – shower, shave and sex. Well, as the song goes, two out of three’s not bad. The place is full of leering, groping trolls – no beauties at all. Just bad luck I guess. I do meet a deaf fellow from Cartagena there, but the sign language he uses is different from the sign I know so it is hard to understand him.

I leave and tour around the downtown before returning to the pension. In the evening, Mike and I eat at a Chinese restaurant. The service is good, the host and hostess are friendly but the food is mediocre. It cost too much too, and I am now well over budget. But I don’t want to avoid eating out every night and never going to saunas and clubs. It is my vacation so I decide not to worry too much about it for now. After all, we have lined up hosts in Alicante, Valencia, Barcelona and several places throughout France using Servas and our ad in Gai Pied.


PHOTO 1: statue in Mazarron
PHOTO 2: Ramonete hills
PHOTO 3: olive grove
PHOTO 4: orchard in blossom
PHOTO 5: City Hall where tourist office is
PHOTO 6: downtown Murcia
PHOTO 7: Murcia Cathedral
PHOTO 8: Playa Ayuntamiento

20 years ago today – Day 47

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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

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

20 years ago today – Day 45

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Sunday, April 17 – a rest on Almeria

We get up at nine. Ricardo has made us a light snack for breakfast. Nuria has already left for work. I ask if I can do a load of laundry and Ricardo shows me how to use his machine. It takes forever so it is almost 11 before we call Tony.

We meet him a short distance away. This is a small city of perhaps 150,000, so it doesn’t take us long to get to any attractions. The three of us walk five minutes to the cathedral, the central attraction of any Catholic town. They begin to look all the same ins spite of their varied splendours. This time it is a bit more personal as Tony and Nuria have both worked as volunteers here restoring old paintings. We learn a lot about the process of art restoration from Tony.

According to Tony, Almeria is also the city where “How I Won The War”, co-starring John Lennon, was filmed. This is where Lennon got the inspiration for the song ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ and where he discovered the granny glasses that he became famous for.

Then he takes us up to the Alcazaba, the fortress built by the Moors to subjugate this Spanish city. It overlooks the city and coast with delightful views. It is in surprisingly good shape, as if recently built. Tony explains that it had been extensively damaged by a great earthquake in 1522 and later by looting. It was extensively rebuilt in the late 1900s, a period of historic restoration when other walled cities like Carcassonne were rebuilt. Unlike Carcassonne though, this fortress was rebuilt with respect for historic accuracy. There is has bar inside, as all good fortresses should, so we stop in to share drinks.

Tony takes us back to Ricardo and Nuria’s at 2pm. Nuria has returned home and the two of them have prepared a delicious meal of fried sardines, salad, rice and a vegetable stew. After lunch, Nuria returns to work and Tony has to leave us to teach an English class. Mike takes a walk downtown and I clean my bike and tighten the brakes. I also packed my laundered clothes away. They are cleaner than they have been since the start of the trip and they have thoroughly dried in the hot Almeria sun,

Nuria returns home at 8 and Mike and I take her and Ricardo out for dinner at a seafood place downtown. We pig out on several platters of octopus, shrimp, halibut, sardines and salad. The bill comes to a whopping 6950 pesados, equal to three nights accommodations, but it was worth it for all they have done for us. Nuria tries to contribute 2000 pts but I won’t let her.

Nuria and Ricardo go to a theatre to hear a concert that evening after dropping us off back at their home. We are in bed and asleep by the time they return.


PHOTO 1: Almeria city hall
PHOTO 2: John Lennon in "How I Won The War"
PHOTO 3: Tony & Mike climbing the stair to the Alcazaba
PHOTO 4: view from the restored fortress
PHOTO 5: walls in the hills around the fortress
PHOTO 6: old town below fortress, some houses in caves
PHOTO 7: flowers on Almeria street

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