Dusk and a cool descent ahead... what a day, along the rattle track.....
... past all the camping cars, parking in campsites, camping in parking bays and wild parking in the wilderness..... camping is the new parking!
Bolnuevo, a little glimpse of unspoiled mediterranian, a couple of beautiful and bumpy kilometres...
... until - bwop! you´re in amongst this! Spanish vegetables....
... the entrance to the most hazardous garden shed we´ve ever seen.....
We avoid buying Spanish vegetables wherever we can... which makes cycling in Spain a bit tricky...
aaah and then up up up.... the local guy on his little evening training run overtook us twice climbing this here hill.... the views are fantastic... except those aren´t lakes, that´s plastico.....
Ooops!
A little bit of cycling infrastructure to entertain us..... there´s plenty of entertainment in Spain....
Idyllic wild camping spots abound along the coast, unfinished abandoned building projects.... five star hotel that is! Kept away the wind, comfy sand as bedding.... perfect....
Now the real beauty!!! Cabo de Gata, ssssh... is definitelly still unspoiled... for the time being at least.
Plus we stayed in a real windmill ! With a gale blowing... luckily it´s not a working mill any longer. But almighty was it windy when you stepped out the door...
Beaches, coves, whole villages only accessible by foot, boat or beasts...
spring....
wild camping in the wild....
... the road out is a tough one... closed to vehicles, gravel and cliffs, innertube melting steep descents. It really feels like we´d been somewhere different, a little Shangri la.
If you go, visit on foot or on bike!
The other site of paradise lies Almeria, a fun, friendly and real city! We really enjoyed our stay!
Much thanks to La Oficina, a creative place where things happen... soul brothers and sisters!
And then of course surrounding the city of Almeria the garden of Europe where tomatoes get delivered from heaven by the skip load, cucumbers grow in big holes in the ground, already shrink wrapped in plastic... and funky bike culture is betrayed by over priced campsites.... it is a real garden of Edamn....
Ups and downs, here we go to Malaga. At last the motorway is free now and we have the road to ourselves. A lovely cycle into Malaga, apart from the actual entrance into the city.. as usual... and then some real genuine bike culture... Yeaaaaaah! Recyclo! A very funky, cosmopolitan place with some lovely lovely bicycle folk! Soul brothers and sisters!
On the way out of Malaga we decided to camp in the parking with the other campers and parkers at El Chorro! The campers were asked to move on... the parkers were not, they´re only parking, or are they? It´s difficult to tell these days.... The Camping el Chorro, in the village is a ruin, the nearest campsite is 12km up the hill. Climbers paradise...
We got rescued by a fellow cyclist, just returned from cycling in India that same day. He put us on the right track, a less bumpy road, invited us to his house for the night, fed us delicious food, packed a lunch for us for the next days ride... a cycling soul brother! And the Via Verde from Olveira to Puerto Serrano was magnificent, too!
Another little bit of entertainment and truth... decontaminate the planet!
Overnight stay in an Aerodrome in Gibraleon. What a night, full house of cycling vagabonds!
Soul brothers and sister!
We got there! We got to Portugal just in time for.....
.... and not just one carnival but two! Loule and Armacao de Pera and us turning the N125 in between into a mini cycling carnival parade with sound system at full volume and all the car horns beeping. We´re dressed as "Parkers" Yo!
