Andalusia – A Touring Bike, a Comfy Bed, and a Glass of Wine

The calm delights of an Autumn bike ride through Andalucía: Part Three

Since arriving in Seville in early October 2021, I had spent two and a half weeks pushing my creaking yet strangely attractive fifty year old body and my creaking yet strangely attractive eighteen-month old bike along steaming valleys, up and down steep hillsides and now along the madness of the Costa del Sol. The weather had been magnificent: clear blue skies every day. The scenery had been magnificent: orange, lemon and olive groves, stunning mountains and pretty white towns. And the people had been… a mix, as people tend to be… I had had my skin saved several times by a succession of patient and generous bike mechanics. I had been treated kindly by hotel staff, waiters and waitresses. And I had been exposed to COVID several times by unthinking selfish tourists.

But it was time to head back towards Seville, pushing along the coast to Malaga and then inland to Ronda and then down to Seville. And all of this with an unexplained creaking saddle and an equally unexplained mystery bolt that had literally dropped from the blue on the fifth day of riding. Would I ever get to the bottom of that creak? Would I ever understand the meaning of that bolt? Would I ever get on with telling you about what happened on the final stage of my bike tour without resulting to the repetition of threes? Possibly never. Probably never. Oh there we go again.

On with the story…

Wednesday 27^th October: Nerja – Malaga: 56km

The best bits from hour after hour of ugly apartment blocks with hardly a view of the sea.

After two days of trying to rest up in the once restful town of Nerja but had my sleep and nerves jangled by the many different types of noise of building works nearby, it was back on the bike, pushed out the door by the combination of the jackhammering and its musical accompaniment, several kinds of drilling.

Initially, the road was better than I expected: relatively quiet, fine views along the coast – orange crags and breaking waves – and more cyclists in one hour than in the previous two weeks put together.

Looking back away from the ugly apartment blocks with hardly a view of the sea.

But then the drear of Torrox and mile upon mile of apartment blocks as if I were riding through a loop. An hour of ugly apartment blocks with hardly a view of the sea. Let me repeat that. An hour of ugly apartment blocks with hardly a view of the sea. Let me repeat that again. An hour of ugly apartment blocks with hardly a view of the sea. And again. An hour of ugly apartment blocks with hardly a view of the sea. You’re bored already and we are only three sentences in. Imagine an hour of it: ugly apartment blocks with hardly a view of the sea. That is a full sixty minutes of ugly apartment blocks with hardly a view of the sea. Mile after mile after ugly mile of ugly apartment blocks with hardly a view of the sea. And really we are only getting started with ugly apartment blocks with hardly a view of the sea. Well I could try to vary this, but ultimately I had to spend an hour of ugly apartment blocks with hardly a view of the sea. I was trundling along wishing for anything but an hour of ugly apartment blocks with hardly a view of the sea.

Finally a brief lull – albeit through what is called la plasticultura – crops being grown under plastic. And then after a further ten kilometres of ugly apartment blocks with hardly a view of the sea, I actually got to see the sea: a long trek along the seafront of Torre del Mar, again ugly apartment blocks followed by apartment blocks with the odd palm tree and finally a short detour through the fishing boats at the harbour.

A break between hours of ugly apartment blocks with hardly a view of the sea.

But then back to the development, mile upon mile. More ugly apartment blocks with hardly a view of the sea followed by yet more ugly apartment blocks with hardly a view of the sea.

And in the middle of it, Bob the Wahoo seized up. Or rather his screen did, turning completely black, though the electronics sort of still functioned. So I had to navigate my way with occasional looks at my iPhone, coupled with a bit of beeping from Bob.

Where Bob met his end, overlooked by ugly apartment blocks with hardly a view of the sea.

After Rincón de la Victoria, I passed through a brief bit of sandy cliffs before having to walk my bike over a pedestrian overpass and then navigate the entrance to Malaga proper, and this in rush hour. It was a bit crazy and at one point, a bike path abruptly started but was ignored by pedestrians, but finally I was through and over the Guadalmedina to my quiet but classy hotel, close enough to the pedestrian centre but not in the thick of it.

My priority was getting a replacement for poor old Bob. Luckily I found a bike shop less than a mile away that looked as if it stocked Wahoos, and when I went in, the guy offered me a choice of the Wahoo Roam or the successor Wahoo Bolt, both sitting on the shelf behind him. Enormous luck.

Then time for a wander through the crowded maze of central Malaga and up, up, up to the Gibralfaro castle on the hill, watching the sun set, and then down the other side through a shady park. I found Malaga to be a fun place with a real sense of life. I found a cheery tapas bar in the thick of it all and sat outside, ordering a few plates, while watching the world move around me.

Looking down to central Malaga from near the Gibralforo. After being done with ugly apartment blocks with hardly a view of the sea.

Thursday 28^th October: Malaga – Coín: 47 km

Out along the seashore on another amazing morning, cycling along paths and promenades past the joggers, exercisers or people walking their dogs. On a day like this, you think of your colleagues back home, having to sweat away at yet another unreasonable deadline. And I did, and laughed my head off.

And then turning my back to the shore and towards the hills, passing along a sandy path past the airport and then slowly up and away through the craziness of Malaga and neighbouring towns, initially along bike paths of varying quality which would end abruptly without warning but then joining the main road up to Alhaurin de la Torre. At a crossing for bikes over a dual carriageway – who thought that that was a good idea? – a car nearly slammed into me, screeching its brakes and the driver looking sheepishly at me. All in all, a rather tedious 25 km and not helped by the fact that my new GPS had not downloaded my routes, so I often had to turn back and renavigate.

At last, at the edges of Alhaurín de la Torre, my route took me away from the traffic and on a steady uphill to the outskirts of Alhaurín El Grande along quiet country roads with increasingly nice views over to Sierra de Mijas and the Sierra de las Nieves on my left. The occasional tall palm tree alone, like a military watch tower. It was a joyful ride and good to back out in nature.

And then after skirting Alhaurín El Grande, out along a main road and finally up a brutal hill to Coín. In the absence of turn-by-turn GPS directions, and having to rely on the map on my iPhone, I made a bit of a pig’s ear of finding my accommodation, eventually doing a circle of the town before locating the place above a pottery shop run by the owner.

Except he was not there and the gates were locked. And he did not respond to calls or messages, even though I had given him a clear indication of what time I would be arriving. And there was nowhere else with accommodation anywhere near. So I called and called and eventually resorted to calling [nameless internet hotel booking site] who then called and did not get through. All they could offer was a place back down the coast at Marbella. I was stuck…

After an hour, he turned up on his motorbike, all sweet and innocent. When I asked him why he had not answered my calls or messages, he looked at his phone, frowned and realised that he had put it on silent.

So he let me in, only for [nameless internet hotel booking site] to call me and say that because he had not got back to them in a specified period of time, they had cancelled the reservation… I explained that all had been resolved and that they could restate it. After 15 minutes of waiting on an international line, they said that they could not and this was my problem. I should rebook for myself. Which I could not as they had blocked the place. So in the end, I paid him in cash the next morning… A mess and a shame as the place was a nice apartment where I was able to wash my clothes, have a decent shower and sort out my GPS, downloading somewhere in the region of 200 routes…

But a decent dinner of boquerones and chips in a nice café on the church square made up for it. On days like this, you have to shrug your shoulders and appreciate the good bits. And I liked Coín: a pretty town in a beautiful setting.

After what had felt like a long ride, it felt like the edge of nowhere, but I was reminded of my closeness to the coast by the sounds of English with an Irish accent and a woman on the street the next morning with a Scouse accent and an endless string of swearwords…

Friday 29^th October: Coín – El Burgo: 32 km

And so the serious climbing begins again. Only 32 kilometres but over 900 m of climbing and most of them packed into the opening 25… It was like being back in the Alpujarras.

And I could feel the change in climate with an autumnal nip in the air.

After a gentle descent along the main road out of Coín to the valley floor, a turn off onto a quiet country road, often badly potholed and a steady climb up and down through olive groves with hardly any cars. The sound of frustrated dogs barking, the tinkling bell of grazing sheep and the odd conversation in Arabic. Fog and clouds and mountains in the distance.

It all seemed rather perfect. Until the road got more potholed and the hills got steeper and steeper, yawning up at 10-15%. Three times I decided to get off and push because the combination of the gradient and the rutted road made it too steep. The last time was the hill up into the white town of Alozaina, reaching 20% at points.

And all the time, a regular squeak, squeak, squeak from my bike seat, a sound that had accompanied me for so long that I had got used to it. And I had never got round to finding out the origin of that mysterious bolt that had dropped out of the seat on my fifth day, but guessed I would ask on my return to Brussels.

I stopped for a break on a mirador at the top of Alozaina. A spruce old gentleman beckoned me over and saluted my ride, warning of the hills ahead. “Fuerte duro!” He winked and moved on.

In truth, the main road out of Alozaina was fine: much less steep and with little traffic to bother me. If I were to ride it again, I would have stayed on the main road the whole time. It was a steady 5% for 10 kilometres but with the scenery rewarding me by getting better and better, with wonderful views as I climbed to and past Yunquera. Outside Jorox, I took a few minutes to simply stop and admire. A British car pulled in, the driver did not get out, and then moved on again, missing it all. So much better to experience it by bike.

Finally, the hill crested and I had a quite fantastic – mostly – descent to my overnight stop in El Burgo, a hilltop farming town with narrow white streets and tremendous views over to crags in the setting sun. Mud-caked Land Rovers charged hither and thither.

This time I really felt that I was away from it all, though the shine was somewhat taken off by a waiter who deliberately overcharged me for an overblown glass of wine, the most expensive in the house. A shame because my gazpacho and Argentinian steak was rather nice.

I knew that I had a tough ride ahead and with a forecast of wind and rain, so headed off to my rather basic but pleasant hotel room for an early night, with the wind picking up.

Saturday 30^th October: El Burgo – Ronda: 28 km

An early night but a massively disrupted night. I woke in the early hours to howling wind and rain and the noise of a door banging repeatedly in the room next door. After trying and failing to get back to sleep, I slung some clothes on and crept out onto the open air balcony overlooking the courtyard to investigate. A locked storage room. With an open window. Banging in the wind. Marvellous.

And then a meagre breakfast in a room full of people not bothering with masks, including a fellow coughing desperately on a nearby table. Marvellous.

And with a rotten weather forecast for later on, I figured it best to get going up the hill before the rain started again. So off I went on an overcast morning, straight uphill for over 7 kilometres at a steady 5-6% but with regular kicks of 9-10%, accumulating 450m or so. Warm but with the wind picking up, and only minor sprinkles of rain.

Was it bad? No, it was oddly wonderful: that meditative feeling that you get on a quiet and steady road as you climb a long hill, just listening to your breathing, feeling the slow energy in your legs, and at peace with the world.

And let us be honest, I was also listening to the slow creak, creak, creak of my leather saddle. But I was rather used to it after three weeks of riding, a constant whining accompaniment to my long slogs up hills. I would get it looked at properly when I got back to Brussels, and try to uncover the mystery of the metal bolt that had dropped out on the fifth day of riding, just shy of Jaen.

I stopped at the Mirador de la Guardia Forestal, a rocky outcrop with a large statue of what I assumed was a fire watch overlooking the valley down to El Burgo, glinting in the sunshine. But the wind picking up and becoming quite fierce. A family of two cars also stopped and made the walk, also in thrall to the austere beauty of the place.

Then back onto the main road for a final bit of that first climb and then after an all too brief descent along a narrow road with some tight corners at 20 kph and the sudden awareness of the possibility of rockfall, I was out onto a plateau with the wind really picking up. It was stunningly bleak: an ochre brown landscape dotted with granite crags and the odd delicious orange rock and the wind howling around me. Ah, the elemental power of nature!

I was mostly out there on my own, but saw the odd convoy of motorbikers stream past. Smugly.

Then up, up, up, and thank you, yes a bit more up, the clouds getting more and more ominous. Fierce wind in my face, rain in my face, steady uphill to the pass, the aptly named Puerto del Viento (Wind Pass). I wanted to take it all in in its magnificent destructive empty glory, but the truth is that in that fierce wind, that harsh rain and that biting cold, those 3-4 kilometres felt like torture: my head down, just counting off the metres to the top. The great comfort of modern technology though is to see the profile and to know that at some point that hill would end.

I stopped briefly at the pass, but in that wind and rain, it was no time to linger or take photos. Just time to put on a fleece under my rain jacket so as to not get too cold on the descent. As I started the descent, I passed my first cyclist, a bearded fellow, slowly grinding his way up, but giving me a big grin: that flash of acknowledgement between two cyclists out in foul conditions.

There is a mathematical equation for all this that it helps to remember at such times:

Unpleasant situation in which you might actually die + Time + Not actually dying = Wonderful anecdote to tell over dinner later

And this was the case here. Looking at that video above, it all looks wonderful, though I decided to leave the natural noise to give you a better sense of it. And in some respects it was magnificent. But it was also bloody cold, extremely windy, and I was out there on my own.

Would I do it again? You already know the answer. Of course, I bloody would. And so should you!

The other side of the hill was rather disappointing: a boggy and rather flat moor, dotted with boulders and then rather bland countryside as I got closer to Ronda.

On the outskirts of Ronda, my GPS abruptly directed me off the main road, over the train tracks that I had been riding parallel to, and down a muddy slope: a pointless diversion. So as I examined it all on my iPhone, I concluded that it made more sense to follow the main road, so started to turn my bike around to face the main road, and snagged my bike shorts on the nose of my bike saddle.

I heard a clanking noise as two metal bits dropped out – a short bolt and a strange twisted metal fitting – and the nose of my saddle abruptly bucked upwards. I picked them up for later examination and struggled into town in the wind and rain, my bottom squelching on the unharnessed leather of the seat.

I tried to find a bike shop to fix it, but here my luck finally ran out. I arrived in town at 1.40 on a holiday weekend and every bike shop in town was closing early, the shutters down well ahead of their usual 2pm closure and not reopening until 10 am on Tuesday… by which time I needed to be 30km away in Grazalema… And no ironmonger either. And just to compound it, Fate threw in my path one of those awful people who want to do good but have no clue how.

“You… er… need a what… a bike shop… yes, now let me see. I am sure that there is a bike shop in this town… Maybe there is one on the other side of this town.”

“There’s a bloody bike shop a few streets away. I can see it on Google Maps. Now please get out of my way.” Was what I did not say.

“So, er… yes… if I take a look… mmm…. yes, I am sure… Now is possible that….“

And with that, the Foul Halitosis of Fate snuffed out the Candle of Misplaced Hope. So I checked into my hotel and considered my options and whether my trip had just abruptly ended.

And in my dark hotel room, I made a quite interesting discovery.

That the mysterious bolt that had dropped out on Day Five of my trip fitted the short bolt rather well. Indeed perfectly. And together, they would have held together inside the metal fitting, itself holding my seat together…

So let me tell you what had happened here. The bolt had snapped in two. And for roughly six hundred kilometres, up and down countless hills, through rutted tracks, sand, cobbles and you name it, through the great cities of Granada and Malaga, and over the course of roughly twelve days of riding, that little snapped bolt had quietly sat inside the fitting, ready to break out at any moment, miles from anywhere.

And you can react to that in different ways.

You can sit there and think “Well, wasn’t that incredibly dangerous of you and imagine if that had happened earlier”.

You can reframe the situation and say “What enormous luck that it held all that way”.

Or you can do what I did and go “Oh giant jiggery bollocks, what am I going to do now?” And head off to the nearest supermarket for a sandwich, a bag of crisps and wine, and then consume it and head to bed in a stinking temper…

I had plenty of time to mull and stew in my own acidic juices. And most of it indoors.

The wind and rain stayed all afternoon and evening. As I sat inside the most sophisticated laundrette I had ever come across: all remote controlled, card paid, multilingual options and automatic soap, I could see people struggling outside: umbrellas and hair all blown away, and in one case a group of four girls dressed up for Hallowe’en in matching black dresses, black lipstick, devil horns on their heads and dainty silvered wings which threatened to fly away… It was more like a grim coastal resort in the north of England than the hills of southern Spain.

My mood was not helped by my room: perfectly fine but very dark and basic. Nor by the news that my neighbour’s house in Belgium had been burgled. And my legs were feeling all the climbs of the last three days.

I was tired. I had been on the road for three weeks. It was time to head home.

I ate a decent meal of croquets and cazon en adobo in a strangely empty restaurant and one that remained empty even when I left, and retreated back indoors out of that foul wind and rain.

Sunday 31^st October and Monday 1^st November: Ronda (rest days)

The next morning, I resigned myself to the inevitable, cancelled my hotel reservation in Grazalema – which they kindly did not charge me for – and booked a place around the corner as my hotel was fully booked. I had worked out that I could make it direct to the next destination with only a few extra kilometres added.

Leaving the bike at the hotel, I set out early, determined to take advantage of a break in the rain, and headed over the famous bridge and into the old part of town and down a track to where I had a magnificent view of the bridge and river. Then along through the old town before taking a breakfast in a nearby café, and one of the best cups of coffee of my life.

Otherwise a dreary day of dodging rain showers and with the air always full of moisture. I had lunch in a crowded bar full of maskless people: a shame as the food was rather nice: fried squid and a pleasant glass of white wine. As I walked around the town, I had to regularly flatten myself against buildings to dodge cars going round narrow streets at top speed.

And the same on All Saints Day, despite a visit to the Arabic baths and a pleasant evening stroll on the edges of the town.

All in all, my spirits were rather low. Even my nights were not brilliant, disturbed by a mosquito, dripping pipes, a TV in the neighbouring room and people shouting in the street at 5 in the morning…

Tuesday 2^nd November: Ronda – Montellano: 71 km

Yes…

After two days of being cooped up in dark rooms by wind and rain, I was desperate to get out. So after a poor breakfast in another den of masklessness, I headed to the local ironmonger, explained my problem and picked up a long 8mm bolt and plenty of screws, and then after failing to fit it myself, took it to the local bike shop who just about fit it, though with the screw slightly protruding from the nose of the bike.

It would get me to Seville but not ideal.

Then out, out, away from Ronda in more spitting rain and scowling wind and onto a busy main road for a fast descent. Then back up again… a long and slow 200m climb through a rather featureless valley with traffic passing every 15-20 seconds.

Finally I turned off onto a quiet back road… and thick fog. The temperature was supposed to be 16-17C but I was freezing even in my rain jacket. It was too wet to even contemplate stopping to put on extra clothes. A time to pedal away with lights on, with only my GPS giving me any sense of direction or where I was, peering nervously through the wet grey ahead of me and trying to spot any oncoming vehicles – mercifully none – and any potholes in the road.

At last the fog cleared and I picked up the road that I would have taken down from Grazalema and along a big artificial lake created by a dam. Nowhere to stop and initially not many views. When they did come though, they were stunning: a luminous turquoise blue shining through yellow and brown uplands. Even with an artificial lake, I was surprised that they did not make more of it.

And then I pass the hillside village of Zahara de la Sierra, with its hilltop castle looking quite austere and stunning on this bleak grey day. I stop at the dam to admire, all alone…

Then away from the dam and a gentle ride down and up to a rather grim main road, up and down with cars whizzing past, mostly giving space but still… Lots of litter as usual on the road side: broken glass, beer cans and at one point, a plastic tube of “Liquid Magnesium and Potassium” written in English… An afternoon of slowly grinding away the miles, up and down, up and down.

As I turned off to Puerte Serrano, much better scenery, brown fields, burnt Saharan dunes turning purple in the distance.

Then a steady final climb to the town of Montellano. My hotel on the outskirts would have been perfectly pleasant in ordinary times, but in the pandemic, with staff and guests wandering around without masks, rather scary. And another hotel with very poor Wi-Fi. How addicted to these things we become.

But a magical sunset: the sun finally coming out with a few clouds: gold then pink then deep, deep red.

Then that Spanish experience: the only restaurant in the town only opened at 9. So I sat at a local bar eating peanuts and drinking wine, desperately hungry. At 9.01pm precisely, the restaurant had three tables of foreigners, all staying at the hotel.

I order taquitas de pollo and albondigas, followed by an indulgence: a rich creamy dessert called tocino de cielo. By the time I leave, only 10pm, I am the only one there. The barman comes over and makes friendly conversation, trying to explain on the white paper tablecloth how the tocino de cielo is made. My Spanish is not really up to it, but I engage and he engages back to me. He is not remotely fazed by the foreigners. “But you should have been here yesterday: full, full, full”.

Or at least, I think that he was saying that.

As I reach the hotel, I see the glinting lights of Seville far away in the valley… Time to go home.

Wednesday 3^rd November: Montellano – Seville: 75km

I wake up to a beautiful but foggy morning and away from that nice but COVID-friendly hotel. I braced myself for a cold descent into the Guadalquivir valley but was pleasantly surprised and quickly stripping off my layers as I settled into a mass of slight but long hills followed by quick descents, following the main road – the A375 – as far as El Coronil. The winds were picking up again and buffeting me, and with the long climbs of the previous day, I was feeling a bit toasted.

Still, the autumn sun was out and the views to distant brown and purple hills were wonderful.

The road from El Coronil to Utrera was a lot quieter but less interesting: flat farmland on both sides. Starlings on electricity wires. Even a ‘farm’ of solar panels, yawning out in the midday sun, like those sun loungers in Nerja.

Then after Los Molinos, the landscape became more green, though with the odd cactus here or there, and olive groves from time to time.

I had a long grim ride through the ugly town of Utrera, followed by ten long kilometres on a service road to a motorway from Utrera to Seville. Finally a turn off back into hills, past abandoned houses and factories, with dead animals along the edges of the road, and to Alcala de Guadaira.

On a roundabout on the edge of the town, I connected up with the route I had taken three and a half weeks earlier. It was like a homecoming of sorts as I picked my way down to the jolting compacted mud bike track, thumping my poor injured bike along. And then as I cleared out of the banks of the Rio Guadaira onto easier track, I was exposed to the full force of the wind, up to 25kph at times. A small diversion as I passed through a herd of sheep, grazing on what little grass was still left at the end of the season.

As I strained along ungracefully, a gravel biker came to overtake me. “Are you riding all the way to Santiago de Compostela?” he asked, expectantly. “No, I am just heading to Seville” was all I could manage in my weak Spanish. “Oh” he said, clearly disappointed and disapproving.

I wanted to say “But I have just ridden a thousand kilometres. I have gone up and down through the Sierra Nevada and the Alpujarras. My bike has nearly died on me five or six times. And I have seen the wonders of these parts.”

But my throat was dry, my Spanish was rusty, and the gravel biker had sped off, literally leaving me for dust.

Even the flies had deserted me, deciding that the game was over and that they had faster transport available. On the sheep. On the snails.

And as I trundled back into town, getting closer and closer to the Torre de Seville and retracing my pedal strokes back through the empty landscape, then the grassy paths by the motorway, and then finally, the thick of the city, back on the banks of the Guadalquivir, I had the time to reflect on that conversation with the waiter the night before.

I thought of the quiet magic of it: a small moment in an empty hilltop town, fumbling around in another language but engaging.

That small conversation summed up so much of what had made my little trip through Andalucía so wonderful and memorable: the kindness of the Spanish and their willingness to engage. I thought of the numerous bike mechanics who had helped me on my way, never accepting payment except for parts, the kind hotel staff or apartment owners and the random strangers who would engage with me when I pedalled into their small town. I thought of an elderly couple in a village near Cordoba who had gently asked me about what I was doing on my bike, and why I had ended up there. “I hope that you are not looking for anything in this place, because there’s nothing…” (No hay nada) he said, with a laugh.

I thought of the good food and good drink. I had worked my way through most of the Andalucian repertoire: game, beef, fish fried or marinated in any number of ways, aubergines in honey, dozens of bowls of gazpacho or salmorejo, and of course slice after slice of ham and goat’s cheese.

And I thought of the wonders of the landscapes, constantly changing, though with olive groves a steadying presence. I thought of the small white towns and the big cities with their wonderful Moorish heritage. I had had the time to appreciate. Sometimes too much time, as I slowly trundled up an endless hill. I had biked through landscapes of every possible hue: deep red earths, dusty yellow emptinesses, verdant groves, blue, blue ocean and distant purple mountains. I had swum in the ocean and hiked in the hills.

All of this had been open to me, because I had left my comfort zone far behind, pushed myself and got on with it, savouring the moment. I had done it all under my own steam.

But back to reality: over the river to Triana and the hotel where I had started. I took my bags off, quickly locked my bike against a lamp post and was rushing into the hotel when a hotel employer rushed out “Don’t leave that there, sir. It will get stolen” so he ushered me into the hotel car park.

After packing my bike up as carefully as I could, I took a leisurely day to walk around Seville, ending with sunset on top of Las Setas, a bizarre mushroom-shaped structure rising above the skyline.

The next morning, a taxi came to pick me up to take me to the airport. To my delight, it was Mauricio, who had picked me up from the airport four weeks earlier. “My friend said “I have to pick up a guy with a bike box” and I said “I know that guy. Let me take him.”” So over a too-short ride to the airport, I told Mauricio all about my adventures. What a wonderful way to end.

“Loco. Absolutamente loco”…

A small postscript

A few weeks later, I took my bike into my local bike shop and had it looked at, especially the gear wires. “Nothing wrong with it. Superficial damage” said the mechanic. He recommended a bike shop across town to order the replacement bolt for my saddle. When I picked it up, they tried to hand it over to me. “Can you fit it?” I asked innocently.

So the young mechanic shrugged, went replace it, was surprised that it would not fit, so pulled a bit. And then tried another tactic. And then another.

For twenty wonderfully satisfying minutes, he plugged and strained, and yanked and hammered, his face increasingly red then puce, then purple, and using more and more tools and holders. At one point, I thought that he would bust the leather of the seat entirely. I was grateful for my face mask so he could not see how hard I was laughing.

Finally, he wedged it in and returned triumphantly.

And there it remains. Though I keep the spare bolt that I bought in Ronda just in case…

March 21, 2022March 27, 2022

Crisp5 Comments

The calm delights of an Autumn ride through Andalucía: Part Two

As I wheel my bicycle through the nearly empty streets of Úbeda, it is not yet nine on a Sunday morning and only just daylight.

I am up at this time because I have over a hundred kilometres to ride to the next town with accommodation. I am up at this time because there is over 1500m of climbing to go. And I am up at this time because I have just passed fifty and frankly my old body just won’t crank it out like it used to and I’d better get going pronto or I will miss dinner…

I am doing this in the name of ‘fun’. I am doing this in the name of ‘adventure’. And above all, I am doing this because I am deeply stupid and tight-fisted person who could have booked a rental car instead and stayed in bed two more hours….

I have to do this because I need to get to Granada the following day. I have to do this because it is the logical next step on a four-week circular trip by bike around Andalucía beginning and ending in Seville. I have to do this because I have set up a rhetorical structure based on a repetition of threes and I have run out of inspiration for the final phrase. So anyway…

This is Part Two of my… ahem, three part account of my trip round Andalucía in Autumn 2021. If you missed the other bits, then I think that there’s a link somewhere, I mean don’t ask me, I merely run this site, it’s all too techno for me, anyway, you’ll find it because you are super clever and cultured. And techno. I hope that you enjoy it and are inspired to take up comfortable bike touring and step outside your comfort zone.

Sunday 17 October: Úbeda – Benalúa: 103 km

Out at the crack of dawn, the town still largely asleep and deserted as I wheel my bike over the cobbles to the city walls of Úbeda, an autumnal coolness in the air.

Then down, down, down and out a steep track and onto an almost deserted main road, the hills blue and purple in the distance, serenely beautiful, the odd lonely car passing by. Chilled to the bone but determined to extract every last metre of advantage from my descent down the hills so painfully climbed two days earlier.

For twenty kilometres I descended and then climbed gently as the sun rose over the olive groves, with mountains ahead of me. There was a quite transcendent peace on that road. And it even smelt good, with the odd autumnal bonfire in a distant grove wafting towards me.

I stopped to put an extra layer of clothes and gloves on. Gone were the hot days along the Guadalquivir. I would happily have lingered but it was a day for distance.

I was nervous. I was outside my comfort zone. I had no choice. The route was locked in, accommodation booked at the other end. Nowhere else to go, but just get out there and do it… somehow…

I stopped briefly at the town of Jodiar but then off into the rocky formations of the Parque Natural de Sierra Magina, again cursing my poor understanding of rocks and geology. If only I could have understood the majesty in front of me.

In planning the route, I had the choice of the main road – the 401 – fast but possibly full of impatient and noisy cars, or a quieter road, but not clear whether it would mean more rutted tracks: bad enough on a short day but torture on a long day. Taking the former meant adding a few kilometres but reducing some of the steepness of the climb. So I took it and did not regret it. The relative narrowness of the roads combined with it being Sunday meant that the traffic never seriously annoyed me.

For forty long kilometres, I slogged up and down. I never got bored, with the landscape changing regularly: now narrow red cliffs, now wide open sandstone formations… It was only when I passed the sleepy farming town of Guadahortuna in early afternoon with sixty kilometres under my belt that the climbing got tedious: a tough long ascent of nearly 250m in seven kilometres to Torre Cardela, with the coolness of the dawn replaced by the now-familiar temperatures in the low thirties.

But after stopping briefly on the edges of Torre Cardela to have a much needed ‘lunch’, I came across that most magnificent of things: a freshly retarmacked road, so fresh that there were no lane markings and it was still black with youth, slithering mostly downhill over twelve luxuriant kilometres with almost no one: car or cyclist, passing me. And through a wondrous almost lunar landscape baked almost white in the afternoon sun.

I was out in the middle of nowhere and I was loving it.

And after riding through the hardscrabble town of Pedro Martinez, another beautiful bit of riding, a glorious descent into the valley of the Rio Fardes before turning off onto a quieter road towards Benalúa. Just after the turning, I passed a forest of gleaming yellow trees in the late afternoon sunlight. It was a day in which autumn was there for the first time.

But those last ten kilometres were a little too much for my tired body and by the time I reached my accommodation at the Cuevas Grande: decorated caves in the hillside, I was absolutely sapped.

Luckily, dinner was onsite: partridge salad followed by lomo baja de ternita lecha Gallega. Not even the presence of a boorish table of German bike tourists could disturb my good mood. I pitied them: everyone served the same thing and no chance for them to absorb the local atmosphere or culture. So much better to experience it all to myself.

So a day that I had feared and worried that would be too much for me turned into something rather marvellous. A wonder of colours and landscapes.

I was exhausted but it was worth it. Who needs comfort zones when there is so much more to discover?

Monday 18 October: Benalúa – Granada: 56km

Another glorious morning. After breakfast, I went for a gentle warm-up walk and ended up on a small rise – a mirador – with a 360 degree view of the surrounding area as the sun rose and the landscape came to life. In the distance, dogs barking furiously, birds tweeting, cockerels clucking and geese cackling. It was almost a battle of the banjos between the dogs and the cocks. And then a donkey stole the show with a plaintive cry…

And the scenery was a treat: red rocky buttes and plateaux purple in the distance, a sense of space that made me feel that I was almost out in Idaho or Montana. But recognisably European all the same: small whitewashed farms, olives, lemons and oranges.

How wonderful to be here and to have done it under my own steam…

I took my own sweet time. Not for me the rigid 9am departures of the guided tour. More the luxury of the leisurely kit faff.

It was an up and down trip: literally… Up for the first 26 kilometres and down for the next 26.

But what a splendid ride. As I crawled up the hill, I bathed in the first autumnal leaves, fires in people’s homes, stark golden canyons and then up and away from La Peza on a slow a twisty rise – rarely more than 6% and usually a steady 1-3% – to the Puerto de Los Blancares, the sweet smell of pine, the regular shade of trees and the cliffs around me, and the regular sound of babbling brooks and rustling leaves. In that long two hours or so of climbing, hardly a car passed, and my only ‘company’ was a female rider on a road bike who calmly eased past my lumbering body and shot off into the distance before returning back down the hill later with a cheery wave. The landscape was a balm to the soul and again I felt very lucky indeed.

The way down was also beautiful, gently skimming down and predictably somewhat faster… But my brakes felt soft and I was having to put more and more effort into them, so my hands and wrists were somewhat shaky by the end. It took the shine off what should have been a great reward for my quiet – and monumentally slow – exertions.

And then out into the valley of the Rio Genil and the usual long grind through city streets to my accommodation in Granada, only temporarily pulling away from it all up a steep hill and then down again through narrow twisty lanes and then up a savagely cobbled hill to the… oh crap, I’m not attempting to ride that… So off I came and with reason as the road up to my accommodation veered up at nearly 20%… on irregular cobbles. So up and up I walked.

But the views from my rented apartment were worth it, especially the rooftop view that I could access, sitting and having a quiet evening beer and crisps with views over to the Alhambra and down into the city. Magnificent.

Tuesday 19 October: Granada – rest day

Ordinarily I would not take another rest day so soon, but after a solid 160 km and nearly 2400 m of climbing, and well, it was a day in Granada. My third visit, but still good to be back.

But first I had business to attend to: taking my clothes to an automatic laundromat and then wheeling my bike down that steep, steep hill and over to another bike shop – Pancracio Bicis – to look at the brakes. Not only did the guy take my bike straightaway, but within an hour, he texted me to come back. New brake pads fitted and good thing that I had come to see him: he showed me the old ones and they were completely worn through. This super nice guy only charged me cost of the pads and waved me on my way, refusing costs for the labour… Another lucky escape. He asks about my trip. I tell him that I am heading up into the Alpujarras. He looks me up and down and says “Difficil pero poco a poco… Poco a poco…”. Again, I marvelled at the quiet warmness of the Spanish.

But again, I forgot to ask about that squeaky seat and the mysterious bolt… Still, everything seemed to be working and I was in good shape for the mountains, so why worry?

All done, I had a super meal of dogfish in adobo sauce on another splendid sunny day before heading over to the famed Alhambra, the palace of Nasrid kings. Wisely I had booked a slot online to see the Palacios Nazaries.

This was not my first time. Over a decade before, I had had a wonderful time wandering about the place and admiring the exquisite architecture and Moorish carvings. I didn’t exactly have the place to myself but did recall having the time and opportunity to wander slowly and take in its magnificence.

But this time we were funnelled in, in twenty-minute slots, and crowded, all social distancing rules out the window and the usual mass of idiots either not wearing a face mask or doing that childish thing of having it half on half off, and a persistent feeling of rush, rush, rush amid the crowds. It made for an experience both scary and underwhelming, with little opportunity to appreciate the splendour and sophistication, and this was a Tuesday… It was so massively different from the unhurried reflection of the mezquita in Cordoba.

This was not the only area crowded with tourists: the Calle Elvira at the bottom of the hill was a mass of cheap restaurants, vaping shops, and shops selling carpets and cheap tatty fabrics. I missed the Granada of old, the one that I had wandered about in with hardly a care in the world.

Wednesday 20 October: Granada – Órgiva: 58 km

It was with some relief that I walked my bike back down that horribly brutal cobbled hill – but my, how the brakes grip nicely – and set off across town and out through the commuter belt to the hills of the Sierra Nevada.

But not without the usual rumbling presence of more sleeping fascist policemen to trouble the wheels of my bike…

For the first half of the ride, I was often close to the A-44 motorway, but it rather complemented the arid starkness of the valley and the purple mountains of the Sierra Nevada to my left, and did not bother me: granite bike tracks pulsing up and down with the odd horror of a short and steep climb.

After a brief stop in the town of Padul, where I heard English voices and parked my bike opposite a butcher’s shop with a vending machine for cured meat – embutidos – there was an annoying and rather tiresome drag along a busy road, the N323a to Dúrcal. My legs felt sluggish and I was hot and sweaty.

After Dúrcal though, there was a glorious descent down and over the dry basin of the Rio Torrente and then cutting through and up to the Puente de Tablate – a magnificent modern metallic white bridge – followed by a slow snaking ascent up into the hills.

The weather was sunny but much cooler, the traffic not too busy, and the gradient quietly forgiving. I rather enjoyed my slow rise up and past wind turbines and along the contours marking the start of the Alpujarras. I felt that I was rising up and above everything, though a look at the height map showed that even at the top of the hill, I was still lower than Granada.

I passed through Lanjarón, proclaiming itself the gateway to the Alpujarras and cruised gently downhill to the town of Órgiva, my stop for the night.

I wasn’t expecting much, but Órgiva still disappointed: an ugly market town which seemed to have no redeeming sights but plenty of hardware stores and plenty of Brits out drinking at 5 in the evening. Even the graffiti and beggars were British. I came across one old man rattling his tin for coins. Poor sod.

For whatever reason, Wednesday was clearly not the night to visit with most of its very few restaurants shut. So on the grounds that sometimes it is better to bank something, I opted for the local pizzeria, sitting outside in a beer garden gated off from the main road.

Surrounded by Brits. Across from me, there was a large gathering for what was clearly a birthday party for a man in his forties with silvered hair and a long brown leather overcoat with felt lining. There were a few Spanish wives and husbands scattered around, but mostly it was Brits.

Who were these people? What were they doing here and how were they making their money? I had been reading Chris Stewart’s wonderful “Driving over lemons”: a memoir of setting up a sheep farm not far from here, but even Stewart admits that he only survived from the profits from the book. Other lives…

And I learnt a valuable lesson that night. When ordering a pizza in a country town outside Italy, never ever go for the intriguing item on the menu. I ordered an intriguing pizza promising ham, bacon and ‘verduritas’ and was rewarded with over-salty ham and bacon, and overcooked carrots and courgettes, two vegetables that should never be allowed anywhere near a pizza…

But my B&B, up the hill from the main area, was a quiet treat. The furnishings were basic and there was no A/C – though none was needed, but the owner was welcoming – a sort of Spanish Miriam Margolyes if that makes sense – and the place was a shady oasis with a pool and fountain. Wonderfully peaceful.

Thursday 21 October: Órgiva – Trevélez: 36 km

After a night of having to drink, drink, drink to deal with the salty after-effects of that awful pizza, I woke to another splendid blue sky and a delightful breakfast out on the terrace of the B&B. Juice, coffee, cake, yogurt, fruit: bliss.

As I say my goodbyes to the owner, she asks me where I am heading. “Trevélez”, I say, indicating the town only 36km but uphill all the way. “Loco” she says, shaking her head with a bemused smile. “Absolutamente loco”, she adds for emphasis.

And I admit to trepidation. Together with the big stint to Benalúa on Sunday, this will be one of the toughest rides: its shortness meaning that I am packing a steady 4-5% incline the whole way. Am I taking on too much? Loco indeed….

But again the comfort zone is firmly closed and accommodation at the other end waiting for me. So there is no choice.

In early November 2014, I had driven up the Alpujarras, passing through Lanjarón and Trevélez and had even taken the time to paint a rather poor watercolour of Trevélez in the autumn light, before staying halfway down the valley. Most of my drive had been in rain and wind, and indeed the next morning after a belter of a storm, I woke to find that most of the hotel had been flooded… I resolved to come back and see it at slower pace and in better weather…

I definitely managed the slower pace, working my way along the sinuous inclines at my own sweet time and snail-like pace and swapping for water and chocolate whenever the mood took me.

And let me let you in on something: I enjoyed nearly every single damn minute… It was FABULOUS.

The sun was out but it was a gentle reassuring warmth, only rising to mid-20s and with a refreshing gentle breeze. Perfect cycling weather. I worked my way up to and past white town after white town. And the views were both stunning and changing with every new hundred metres of altitude.

The climb might have been a long one, but it was rarely steep apart from a brief section into and out of Pampaneira. The traffic never bothered me or was frustrated by me, and the flies… Ok, the flies were really annoying as ever.

Poco a poco, poco a poco, each successive climb taking me way up. One of the beauties of a ride like this is that houses or hills that loom above you at one point become the small specks that you look down on later.

And there was the odd delightful oddity: the signs to a Buddhist temple, the bus stop on a hilly outcrop with post boxes testifying to the arrival of the British and Germans, a Swiss man in a camper van playing calming music.

There are lulls of course, lines and lines of trees, times to just put your head down and grind out the climbs. With every kilometre and town, the road becomes less and less busy. 5km out of Trevélez, the road opens out into a wide mountain valley with magnificent views of bare hills dotted with white houses.

And then, a final steep rise and along into the sleepy town of Trevélez, greeted only by a barking dog. How amazing to think that I have climbed nearly 1400m so quickly and all under my own slow steam. My average speed is a risible 9.6 kph but I have done it. How magnificent! I gained so much more than I did when I drove up, able to savour each turn and able to stop when and where I wanted. Things that can scare us in the abstract turn out to be rather wonderful when we put aside our fears and force ourselves to carry them out. Comfort zones are for boring people.

I settle into my rather basic hotel room for an afternoon nap before enjoying a wonderful sunset from my balcony, looking down the valley and savouring a restorative glass of beer and wonder of wonders, salt n’ vinegar crisps before heading over to a local restaurant for a very filling meal, the place full with British, French and German hikers, all sensibly kitted out.

Friday 22 October: Trevélez: day off

A day off in the hills to do a hike.

Let’s be frank about this: with my casual city walking shoes, easily foldable rain jacket and drawstring bag on my back, I was no match for the click-click brigade, marching uphill with their stiff rucksacks, sticks, waterproofs and other top grade hiking paraphernalia.

But I did not care. I set off gently on what was supposed to be an equally gentle loop around a local hill but turned out to right to the top of said local hill.

Still, it was worth it for the peace and views. I hardly saw a soul and could breathe in and admire its majesty.

Though slightly marred when having just descended halfway down the other side, I had to turn back because the route was blocked off with wire. But it was good to breathe the mountain air and strain my legs in a different way.

And it gave me an excuse for another nice supper in another small restaurant: gazpacho followed by migas con longaniza: meat and beans on a kind of couscous.

I enjoyed Trevélez: with its narrow pedestrian streets running higgledy-piggledy up and down the hill. It had a convivial atmosphere, locals stopping each other for a chat, and a wonderful quietness. I wasn’t quite off the beaten track, but I was on a much less visited section, and the tourists there were there to appreciate the calmness and nature. Even with their click-click sticks.

In the late afternoon, the first rain of my trip, after two weeks, a thunderstorm rolling through the hills. Even that had a beauty to it, clearing the air marvellously. I sat on my balcony until the rain forced me in.

Saturday 23 October: Trevélez – Salobreña: 79km

What goes up, must – usually – come down, so it was finally time for me to reap the benefits of all that climbing and descend to the sea. Amazing how close it was yet here I was up in the mountains.

I was a big contrast with the other bike tourists staying at the hotel, a pair of Germans who set off punctually at 9.30 with front and rear bags, backpacks and sleeping bags held in place with bungee cords and a huge handlebar bag, and dressed in the same gear that they had arrived in: baggy shirts and shorts, sandals and bandannas.

I rolled out an hour later after my usual morning kit faff, a vision in clean lycra, fleece, luminous rain jacket, leggings and gloves, but with three tightly packed rear panniers and a small handlebar bag, knowing that I had plenty of time to reach my booked destination. The benefits of comfy bike touring!

And another wondrous – if chilly – morning: the first snows on the mountains above the town, the autumn colours bright and sharp, and the regular smell of pine cones or burning log fires. I was expecting a gentle cruise downhill but to my surprise, for the first four kilometres, I was actually going uphill and at a constant 5-9%: hard going for legs which were feeling the after-effects of my mountain walk.

But the scenery was amazing: the mountains of the Sierra Nevada speckled with white flecks of lonely farm houses. Having read Chris Stewart’s “Driving over lemons” on farming in the area and Gerald Brenan’s earlier book “South from Granada” had given me a real sense of the hard lives of these farmers.

Having designed two possible routes, I ended up taking a third, descending on the other side of the canyon that I had come up, and then turning off down to Torvizcón via Almegijar, mostly on a staggeringly beautiful descent marred only by one impatient driver yelling at me. Just before Torvizcón, I climbed up a stiff 100m hill and then turned back on to the main road and more of an up and down affair, descending opposite Órgiva and then an artificial lake created by damming the Rio Guadalfeo. In truth, it was a rather busy road, with successive rallies of first convertibles, then Audis and then finally motorbikes storming past smugly. On roads like those, you have to keep relatively tight into the side of the road and listen out for passing cars. I was glad when my GPS pushed me off the main road leading to Vélez de Benaudalla, a marvellously Moorish name.

It was about this time that Bob the Wahoo, my faithful GPS and star of many videos, started to go wrong on me. I had had him for four years and many adventures in Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey, Greece, Albania, the Baltics, Italy, and many other countries. He had guided me – often grumpily, beeping loudly at my mistakes – through Tallinn, Paris, Tirana, Milan and now Seville and through more than one torrential downpour.

But as I left the main road, and punched the right-hand side button to change the page, Bob broke on me, the button no longer responsive. And in trying to fix him, a glitch appeared on his main screen. This was somewhat trying as my iPhone was also dying a death, its battery draining at an enormous rate when not in flight mode. Luckily, he was showing the map page, so I was able to navigate, but it was worrying.

So on I rode with my wounded pal, the landscape gradually flattening out but still undulating gently as I followed what was largely a service road for the A44 motorway, but largely kept the motorway out of view, a long slow rise up over the final hills separating me from the Mediterranean, and the wind picking up: a tell-tale sign of the coast.

Then through a short tunnel and my first view of the Med. How exciting! How incredible.

I slowly slalomed down to the outskirts of Motril before hitting the coast at El Varadero: the sandy palms so different to the clay pines of only a few hours ago. Back in tourist land…

I checked into my rather lacklustre but fine hotel in Salobreña, and took the reluctant decision to prise Bob’s plastic panelling open with a knife, seeing that at least the electronics were still basically responsive even if the button was broken.

And then off to the beach and the Costa del Sol at last: apartment blocks, sea smells, squabbling families, cynical locals and grey sand.

It was lovely to hear the waves – always a sound that takes me back to my childhood by the coast – but I was already missing the hills. It all felt a bit of an anti-climax. A whopping 2,360 metres of descent but also 830m of climbing. Not that I notice these things.

Sunday 24 October: Salobreña – Nerja: 36 km

Another crisp beautiful morning and what I hoped would be a short but beautiful ride along the coast. I warmed up by walking over to the Peñon de Salobreña, a big rock sticking out from the coast, looking back at the town and its castle.

It certainly started well, the road passing under the towering presence of the castle and then following quiet roads to the small town of Caleta La Guardia before a brutish climb up onto the main road: the N-340.

But even on a Sunday morning, the N-340 was unpleasant to ride along: a narrow hard shoulder and a mass of traffic and a constant up and down, sometimes giving decent views of the sea and often not. It was all rather unsatisfying and my energy just wasn’t there. Some days you just don’t feel up to it and this was one of those days.

I dropped down to Almuñécar to pay a short homage to the writer Laurie Lee who had stayed in the town at the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War and writes memorably about the tension and savagery of it in his excellent memoir: “As I walked out one midsummer morning” and who then revisited the town in the 1950s under the Franco regime to find it vastly changed but haunted by ghosts of the past.

Calling it “Castillo” but admitting after Spain had become a democracy again that it was really Almuñécar, he writes:

“I saw this poverty-stricken Castillo lift its head out of the smoke and clamour of those days and feed, for a brief hour, on sharp hot fantasies of a better world. I had come back now, as I knew I must one day, to see what the years had done to the town. I found it starved and humiliated, the glory gone, and the workers of the sugar fields and the sea hopeless and silent.”

I sat for a few minutes by the dilapidated monument to him in the town, but the truth was that in the rush to mass tourism, little seemed to remain of what he had seen on either occasion apart from the castle up on the hill. Nearly 80 years had passed. Nature is eternal. Mankind less so.

And then another savage ride uphill and back onto that busy main road. There were a few tunnels but all well lit and with the booming traffic giving me decent space. With tunnels, I stop before the entrance, put my lights and reflective jacket on, wait for a clearance in the traffic, and then pedal like Mark Cavendish trying to get one last Tour de France win…

On one slow hot hill, I passed another bike tourist, a lady walking her bike up a not too steep part of the hill. I offered help but she insisted that she just wanted to walk the bike.

About an hour later, I stopped to admire a coastal view in a small parking area and after a while, she pulled in. She was from Freiburg and had ridden from some part of the Italian Alps, nearly always along the coast. “I am tired of the hills…” “I am 66 years old. I sold my house thirteen years ago and I have been travelling since.” She was not travelling continuously but taking long trips, camping most of the way, though without front panniers, and looking to rent somewhere for the winter. She had heard that Nerja would be an option.

I found her an odd mixture of improvisation and organisation. She was on her own and proud of it but seemed wrapped in her own thoughts and showed no interest in anything else.

I often wonder about the strange psychology of the long-distance cyclist, the people who set off for years on end, eking out their budgets by sleeping wild or in the houses of strangers, giving English lessons or stopping here and there to do freelance IT work.

When bike touring, you come across them from time to time: dusty bikes fully laden with battered and sun-faded bags strapped on with bungee cord and all manner of improvisation. They are usually cheery souls, halfway to somewhere… and maybe from there, they will go on to somewhere else… Some though seem completely miserable, trying to find themselves or stuck in a challenge that has ceased to be pleasurable. Carried by the wind direction, chance encounters with other travellers, or most likely visa requirements or difficulties.

Over the years, I have read a number of their memoirs: Alastair Humphreys, Rob Lilwall, Anne Mustoe, Tom Allen, and most recently Stephen Fabes: a vicarious pleasure from reading about them battling winds, diarrhoea, dogs and malevolent locals throwing stones or trying to rob them, but also from their descriptions of the highs of touring: not just the landscapes but more often the sheer human kindness that is opened to a travelling cyclist.

Towards the end of Fabes’ book: “Signs of Life“, he stays with Heinz Stücke, who spent 51 years on a bike, travelling the world many times over before finally heading back to his home town. (There’s a trailer for the documentary about him below.). Fabes arrives in awe, after a mere six years on a bike himself, but ends up arguing with Stücke over immigration. Fabes reflects on the encounter as he pedals away and home.

“How worldly can you be, I wondered, alone, always moving, never setting down roots? Perhaps living in a community, with all its nuance and diversity, its discordance and compromise, can more powerfully compose a world view (or a just one, anyway) than watching a world as a stranger does, with no stake in anything. […] The last years had been, for the most part, an exercise in non-participation. I hadn’t improved any given slice of the world, but had nosed around, voyeuristically at times, and in my lowest moments I wondered if it had all been a vain search for self-worth and purpose. Perhaps purpose, at least, lay closer to home.“

And so we parted ways, and I never saw her again, another slice of life, a brief view into another soul, searching for meaning in life. Like most of us.

And I reflected on her and continue reflecting. Perhaps purpose can be shared: our work life can give us purpose, but so can our personal life, including our leisure time. These holidays give both pleasure and motivation: up close insights into other worlds for a brief and enriching spell, nourishing us and balancing us before we resume our wider purpose at home.

Then the final stretch into Nerja, a town that I have visited a few times before, and into another furnished apartment. My host, a charming and sincere man in his late fifties who had survived cancer and before the pandemic had ridden all the way to Santiago de Compostela in the northwest corner of Spain. Another slice of life, another person’s soul, another bit of perspective…

Monday 25 October and Tuesday 26 October: Nerja: rest days

When planning the trip, I had realised that I would have a few spare days but not enough to work in the delights of Cádiz or Gibraltar. So I decided to give myself a rest by the sea and to rest up in Nerja, a town I had visited three times before, the last time in 2014.

I remembered it as a town with a low-key rusty charm: touristed but not overly touristy. A place of Spanish bars but English pubs and the odd German menu. A town moreover in a beautiful setting, jutting out into the bay, most notably with Balcón de Europa, a parade laid on top of a rock like some seaside pier. I had fond memories of gentle breakfasts in a quiet café looking out onto the sea, of happy and not too busy beaches, and most of all, leaning out on a starry night at the edge of the Balcón, with the sea surging below me.

But things change. Returning seven years later, the place had gone very upmarket and was a hive of building. Indeed my lovely apartment refuge was not the place to rest up as from eight in the morning until sunset, there was the constant sound of drilling and jackhammering from a nearby street. Indeed that jackhammering seemed to permeate the whole town, with swish new apartments sprouting up in glass and white plaster.

The centre was full of pizzerias, Italian restaurants, and at least twenty Indian restaurants. Gone was my little café, replaced by an upmarket Italian. But at least there was still ice cream to be had at the edge of the Balcón de Europa, and after dinner, it was relatively deserted.

And the place was absolutely teeming with tourists. I had seemingly arrived at the confluence of many half-term holidays and the streets were full of voices in English, German, and Scandinavian tongues, and each coming to get away from the COVID misery, and letting down their guards as though the virus would hardly attack people who were on holiday…

For me, infection with the virus would be a disaster even with my double vaccination. What would I do? Where would I go? I could hardly hop on a plane but nor could I rent out a place. “Hi, I am suffering from COVID. Mind if I bunk down here for two weeks?”. So I skulked in the shadows and quiet streets, my mask glued to my face. It was the opposite of relaxing.

I tried to make the most and sit on the beach. I found a relatively secluded spot on the Playa Carabeillo, a pebbly beach just off the main beach, the Playa Burriana. I did my usual painstaking clothes removal act with a mini-towel and then splashed about in the water for a bit. It was chilly but invigorating, but even there I could not escape from the situation. As I swam around, I spotted an abandoned face mask floating in the water, like a lonely jellyfish… Looking back to shore, I saw equally lonely Africans walking along the beach, hawking handbags and saris, lottery ticket sellers, couples trying to find a discreet spot on the beach and an old man walking from one end of the beach to the other and back again.

But at least on my second evening, with sun setting, the crowds had gone and I had the place nearly to myself, on an in-tide that was nearly full, the waves crashing joyously around me and the glorious orange, ochre and green of the cliffs in the distance. Quite glorious.

And I ate well over my three nights: puntillas, boquerones al limon, clams in their shell, padrón peppers, grilled sardines, steak with chips and a divine tomato and avocado salad. And more ice cream. For purely medicinal purposes.

But after two days off the bike, I was keen to get going, to see more, to explore more, to.. I don’t know, smell more? Yes, that kind of works.

I would have to find a permanent solution to my poor broken down GPS, Bob the Wahoo. I would have to find a permanent solution to the mysterious creaking noise still coming from my bike seat and the equally mysterious bolt that dropped out some four hundred kilometres ago. And I would have to accept my poor – but strangely attractive and incredibly blonde-haired for my relative age – body for what it is and learn to love it. Creaks and all.

So on to Málaga… To find out what happened next, read Part Three…

March 19, 2022March 27, 2022

Crisp6 Comments

The calm delights of an Autumn bike tour through AndalucÍa

“Loco”. This is the exact word that the proprietress of the Casa Jazmin in Órgiva uses to describe my intent to ride straight uphill for the next forty kilometres to Trevélez, my bike thick and laden with three heavy packs at the back and a smaller handlebar bag at the front. “Absolutamente loco”, she adds for emphasis.

So how has it come to this? What am I doing flogging my ageing yet weirdly attractive and amazingly blonde-haired body up on a heavy bike with wonky gears and a bike seat with a strange creaking noise mimicking the noise of my own hips?

I’m fifty for fork’s sake… I should be sitting at home giving stern lectures to my children about the lack of realism of their choices for college and how they can pay for them themselves by working nights in a disease-ridden kebab shop… or deserting my stable but unsatisfactory thirty-year marriage for some hot and nubile young lady called Samantha who likes to call me Mr Chunky Chips and makes regular enquiries about the state of my pension fund.

So basically doing the same as most of my friends…

And at the very least, Samantha should be coming up the road behind me in the support van, occasionally handing out isotonic drinks or sports gels and mopping my brow. If she existed.

And how did I come to… enjoy it? And why would I recommend you take a similar trip?

And is Samantha getting a little too close to the imaginary hired driver Paco?

Read on to find out. I am breaking this into three parts. This is part one.

Friday 8 October 2021: Brussels – Seville

Why do I always end up getting flights that leave ridiculously early in the morning? Up at 4.45 to wait for a taxi at 5 to be there at 5.30 for a flight at 7.

My plan had been to use a pay-by-the-minute car, picking it up the night before, parking it in front of my house, and then hoping that no one had moved it overnight. But at the last minute, a colleague says “Why not use [nameless substitute taxi firm]?” and stupidly I agree.

When the car turns up, it is ordinary size. The driver takes one look at my bike box, shakes his head, and drives off, saying that he will waive the cancellation fee. So I look for the nearest pay-by-the-minute car, find one about seven minutes’ walk away, and head off, with my bike box and suitcase hidden in the dark at the side of my house… only to turn up at said car, try to unlock it using the app, get told that I am not close enough even though I am practically sitting on the bonnet, move around a bit in the hope of a better GPS signal, and finally give up, having lost ten precious more minutes… And then order a minivan from [nameless substitute taxi firm] which does at least come… and promptly charges me three times the usual price due to surge pricing…

Still, I make it the airport, have a relatively hassle-free check-in, and am on the way to Madrid… After an hour of peace and quiet in the serenity of Barajas Airport, I am on to Seville. There with relatively little hassle, I am picked up by a fellow called Mauricio with a car exactly the same size as the one that refused me earlier… but a markedly different attitude. With kindness and efficiency, Mauricio gets everything loaded and off we go. When I tell him my route, he is full of positivity, saying that I will have excellent scenery. He tells me that he yearns to go bike touring but will have to wait until his two young sons have grown up a bit.

To my hotel, not spectacular, but perfectly decent and well positioned in the famous neighbourhood of Triana and right on the banks of the Guadalquivir river. It is 2pm and I am exhausted, so I find a bar up the road and sit down for a decent lunch of arroz negro con camarillones and a glass of white wine. When I arrive, it is almost empty. When I leave at 3, it is completely full… Welcome to Spain. I have to adjust.

So I take a siesta and then descend to the car park to unbox and methodically reassemble my bike. I thought that it had gone quite well but when I head to a nearby bike shop to inflate my tires, the assistant looks at my bike with alarm: in putting my handlebars back on, I had managed to twist the gear and brake wires…

So there I am in the middle of a bike shop, disassembling my handlebars and when everything is finally sorted, I find that I have damaged the cable for the rear derailleur… The assistant clucked seriously at it before concluding that it was just about OK but worth looking at when I could find another mechanic as they had no time. So we would see…

But a fine end to an up and down day, sitting outside a bar in Triana with a few glasses of wine, a delicious bowl of salmorejo, a slice of tortilla, and two simple slices of bread with anchovies. Off to bed, weary…

Saturday 9 October: Seville – Carmona – 52 km

A beautiful morning to set off: clear blue sky and a warm breeze. After a fantastic breakfast up the road from my hotel of a large cup of coffee, fruit, yogurt and best of all, a hot bocadillo with a river of melted butter, ham and soft cheese, I checked out of my hotel, leaving my bike box and my suitcase behind for four weeks. Packing my bike bags in a large suitcase had worked well, allowing enough space for items like zip ties, duct tape and marker pen for the other end, and also allowing me to jettison some of the cooler weather gear that it was clear that I would not be needing.

Out along the Guadalquivir, then tucking inland through the grans vias of the city and the flow of tourists, and then out along bike routes through the outskirts and…

BANG!

My first puncture, not even 5k out. The inner tube of my rear tire completely wrecked, so I laboriously replaced it before heading out of the city nervously.

Then after passing a university, a complete change of scene: following an irrigation canal along dusty tracks with an arid sienna landscape stretched out into the distance, the odd rusty factory belching away at the horizon. Desolate yet eerily beautiful. Odd sewer pipes poking out here and there like mini-bunkers or glacial boulders. I half expect to see Mad Max thundering along on an armoured motorbike.

But instead, I have loads of delicate bikers coming this way and that.

The track was mostly easy to ride, but coming into the outskirts of Alcala de Guadaira, it got more and more irregular and bumpy, hard work for my poor bike, and then in the valley under the town, the track broke up altogether so I had to walk for a bit, dragging my bike up a muddy slope.

Beyond that, almost no one on the bike track as I passed a military base and women’s prison, the track following the perimeter fence for a few kilometres on the edge of a plateau. Stunning views to my right down into the valley and beyond, over to mountains in the distance but hard work in a dry heat, constantly focusing on the track ahead and grinding my way.

It was like riding Italy’s famous Strade Bianche: the white mud roads raced on. Worryingly, my gears were starting to slip here and there, with no prospect of seeing a bike mechanic at my destination.

After 10 hard kilometres of this and 40 for the day, I decided to abandon the track and head uphill at the town of El Viso del Alcor, connecting with the main road to Carmona. It was not scenic but it was reasonably direct, up and down for a final 10 kilometers before uphill and through the beautiful town of Carmona, my gears shifting erratically, and my hotel on the edge of a cliff at the edge of the town. A quite splendid view down to the valley and beyond: buttes, farms, horses, sheep all in the setting sun.

But I was exhausted, feeling the heat and grind and the effects of hard days before my holiday. After a quick shower and lie down, I headed out through the streets in the setting sun, a very agreeable place… and then had to wait an eternity for dinner… Spain.

I sat outside having a cool glass of sherry, hake in green sauce and chopped steak in whisky, before deciding to end the evening back at my hotel with a further two media raciones of fideaua of shrimp and a tempura of aubergines with honey… I waddled off, a bit full, but after a hard first day, I had deserved it…

Sunday 10 October: Carmona – Palma del Rio: 54 km

There are advantages to spending a day going uphill: you often start the next day with a glorious descent… and so I did.

But first, breakfast, and if you are going to pay extra for a hotel breakfast, then you should take full advantage, and I did. Scrambled egg, green beans, fried ham, cheese, Iberian ham, croissant, pastries, three cups of coffee and a discreet few pastries and sandwich for the road ahead.

Out on the road, a wonderful slow and almost straight descent over 13km, never having to touch my brakes and waving nonchalantly at the Sunday riders straining their way up. But just a touch of wind….

And then the descent ended and I turned East… into the wind. It wasn’t relentless or massively strong, but it did sap me over the hours. I cycled through the plain: ploughed fields and more irrigation canals parallel to the mighty Guadalquivir, though I hardly saw the river itself. It was not the most stimulating of rides: a day for quietly grinding out the kilometres and getting your legs used to riding with a heavy pack.

But I did pass through cotton-growing country and clearly in harvesting season too, a first for me: like seeing snow over fields. And then the first of many orange and lemon groves, a novelty to my northern European eyes.

Then to Palma del Rio, and an overnight stay in a converted monastery. It was a little spartan but fine. The place had little to see, but it was nice to wander around and see people enjoying themselves on a Sunday night in a fairground area. And I had a decent dinner served by a friendly waiter: gazpacho with all the trimmings, grilled razor clams, and beef cheeks in gravy with chips.

Monday 11 October: Palma del Rio – Cordoba – 60km

After a poor breakfast at the monastery, out into the town for my most important task of the day: getting my bike fixed.

By all accounts, there only appeared to be one bike shop in town: “JR Whelee” and it did not look promising when I rolled up: half empty with motorbikes and hardware more visible than bikes.

But the owner was an amiable old man and tolerated my awful Spanish as I tried to explain my problems. Without a word of complaint, for an hour he fiddled with my gears, listening to the rhythm and trying to diagnose the problem, and also gently pointing out that when I had replaced my rear tire after the puncture, I had put it on the wrong way, with the tire treads pointing backwards rather than forwards. And after all this and assuring himself that all was well with my gears, he sent me on my way, refusing any payment whatsoever. A beautiful man.

Then on my way, back into the wind and rising heat: flat and featureless for the first 25 km but then on the outskirts of Posadas, my GPS told me to turn off the main road and onto a rutted cattle track. As I stood there pondering my options, two mountain bikers came up the track. When I asked them if it was passable, one looked at me with a “Not with that kind of bike” look but I figured that I had no choice, so for the best part of one very jolty up and down kilometres, I struggled with my bike like a recalcitrant mule, before the GPS instructed me to join the main road… that it had so painfully taken me off… a total waste of effort. Sometimes it pays to plan routes more carefully.

The main road did not last too long and there was a decent hard shoulder to ride along before I was directed off and up some painful hills to the glorious sight of the Castillo del Almodovar, looming up. I sat and had lunch in the visitors’ car park, smugly surveying those who had driven up there, before heading down the other side…

Sadly that was my fun for the rest of the day: quiet and boring farm roads and then a horrible ride along a ribbon development whose town planner had decided to make things more interesting for motorists by studding the road with hundreds of almost invisible sleeping policemen.

For kilometre after kilometre, I cursed him and his fascist inclinations as my bike hopped over one after another of his fascist monstrosities. Perhaps his fascist brother had a side-line in selling tires or his fascist sister worked for a haemorrhoid cream manufacturing company, or both. “These delightful fascist traffic calming measures are sponsored by Anu-salve, the cream that softens and purifies. Visit your local pharmacist now. Fascist.”

Mercifully my apartment in Cordoba was great: top floor, tastefully decorated, A/C, kitchen, nice shower, very quiet, good Wi-Fi, safe space for my bike outside, and not too far from everything. No fascists.

Dinner however was disagreeable. I started at one fancy place where I was offered half a table with one of those annoying bar stools and served a bowl of rancid acidic salmorejo, so bad that I paid the bill quickly and set out for somewhere else to remove the taste.

The only place that had a table – or rather an upturned barrel – was served by a woman in her twenties who walked around with her mask on her chin and barely covered the mouth when she came over to take my order and ask me about whether I was happy with my Kindle. Still the food was good: fried anchovies and fried cod: deliciously moist.

Tuesday 12 October: Cordoba – rest day

A day off. A chance to get some rest, wash my clothes, and gently wander around Cordoba. The town was full of people on Spanish national day, still rather unsettling in these virus times. I wandered around in a fairly aimless fashion, avoiding anywhere too crowded, but quietly ticking off major sights that I had wanted to see.

After a lunch of pleurotes with prawns followed by a ceviche served in a wine bottle sliced in half lengthwise, I took a pleasant afternoon nap and then headed over to the must-see of Cordoba: the Mezquita, the remains of an Arab mosque. I had been there before but knew that I must get back. The mosque is famous for its fantastic pillars, pulled together by several layers of arches in alternating red and white.

I arrived later than planned, with only just over half an hour to closure. I was quietly ticked off for my late entrance by the ticket office. “Bah” I thought, “I am not going to need more than ten minutes…”.

How wrong I was! The mosque was even more entrancing than I had remembered: a place of magnificent contemplation, helped by there being relatively few other visitors. We had time to wander around its immensity, taking in new visions not just of those fantastic arches but the mihrab and golden chapels, and in the middle, that most defiant of messages from the Reconquista: a fully blown white Catholic cathedral… I remember my shock the first time: a jolt of religion and style, aggressively breaking out of the mezquita and lunging to the heavens. I lingered in the arches of the mezquita, taking it all in, bathing in its coolness and subdued light.

Wednesday 13 October: Cordoba – Zuheros: 71km

The first of the hard days. I could have followed the Guadalquivir along its lazy, boring and gusty valley, but to me, the point of bike touring is to see a country properly not get through it as quickly as possible.

A magnificent morning to be out riding: relatively cool and sunny, and hardly a soul on the street as I threaded my way along the river, out through the suburbs, and surprisingly quickly out into the hills along a well paved and gently rising road with hardly any traffic. A joy to be on my bike!

Within a few kilometres, I was high above it all, cresting up and down along mostly easy roads, in a stunningly empty landscape of yellow and brown hills with lonely farmhouses and fincas in dimpled valleys below.

I felt beautifully alone and detached from the miseries and fears of the last years. Until the final kilometres of my ride, I only came across one cyclist, exchanging that delicate outstretched tilt of the wrist that Spanish riders use to salute each other, a sort of half-wank tilt. But I was passed by plenty of grumpy and unimpressed farmers…

I quietly congratulated myself on a job well done as I rode into one of the few towns along my route, the charming town of Castro del Rio and bought some cool drinks from a tienda whose friendly owner beckoned me inside. 43km done and 610m climbed and feeling good.

But as soon as I left the town, the real climbing began: 28 kilometres but a whopping 740m of climbing, most of it packed in the first 20 k. And on a broilingly hot and sweaty afternoon.

As I ground my way up hill after hill, stopping now and then to deal with the sweat and drink water, I attracted an increasing audience of interested onlookers every bit as zealous and crazy as the masses of the Tour de France or Vuelta a España. Flies everywhere, throwing themselves in front of me as if it were the narrow mob on the Alpe d’Huez. I gave them my full Bernard Hinault, swatting them out the way to little avail.

But the scenery was again magnificent: mile upon mile of olive groves like corncob braids on a brown head but with green trees and cliffs in the distance, and then the town of Doña Mencia gleaming white in the distance in the setting sun.

Then, after a brutal but short ascent, along the Via Verde, a converted railway track, to the outskirts of Zuheros, and a final desperate 20% incline up into…

And you know what? I got off my bike and walked. Because it’s a bloody holiday and I don’t need to wreck my tendons trying to prove that I can get a heavily laden bike up there. My rules, people, my rules…

The town itself was amiable but rather basic: narrow streets in the increasing gloom. I set out for a circuit of the town, rather late as the sun was nearly set. Feeling exhausted after nearly 1400 metres of climbing, but glad to have done it. A world away from the hubbub of Cordoba. Magic.

Thursday 14 October: Zuheros – Jaén: 74 km

A day spent following the Vias Verdes, the green bike path routes following abandoned railway lines. First the Subbetica and then the Aceite or olive.

For all that, quite hard work, with the bike path often rutted or sandy, meaning that one had to keep one’s eyes on the path ahead. Old railway bridges had been left with their wooden buffers intact, giving one the option of either cycling carefully along the narrow side of the buffers or taking them head on, a jolting, buffeting ride. In some places, I had no choice with the sides taken up with metal girders with rusted nails sticking out, forcing me into that horrible ride over the buffers.

Yet a beautiful ride, downhill for an eternity, gently losing the height that I had so painfully acquired the day before. Mostly olive groves stretching out in the distance but the geology was constantly changing: changes of hue and rock every few kilometres and at one point a vast arid basin stretching to my right. I wish that I had the knowledge to make sense of it.

Hardly a soul out there, hardly a breeze as again the temperature cranked remorselessly up into the low thirties.

I had it almost all to myself, seeing more rabbits scurrying from their hiding places at the sound of me than other people. Starlings all around, a stray cat, lizards.

And loads and loads of startled rabbits.

And my bike certainly gave them advance warning. Whilst my friend at JR Whelee had cured the randomly switching gears and I was no longer worried about another tire explosion, my seat had been making an annoying creaking noise as I laboured up hills or pushed hard on the pedals.

Ordinarily with noises, you find the right place and squirt a little oil or grease, but with this, where to squirt? So I put up with it, wondering how in hell I could explain it to a bike

On the outskirts of the ugly town of Martos, I stopped for a late sandwich lunch, only to notice that my seat post had begun to slip. The bolt to tighten it was almost impossible to turn, having been worn away. So I did my best, happy that at least I only had an hour to ride.

While removing the seat post, another bolt dropped off. I looked and I looked but could not find where it had come from. Everything looked in place.

So I pocketed the bolt and made a mental note to ask the bike mechanic whose help I would need on my seat post.

After a slightly nervous trip into Jaén, I found a bike shop: Ciclos de Luna and manoeuvred my laden bike inside. A kind guy took a look and removed the bolt, tailoring a new bolt to replace it, clamping, filing, banging, tweaking… and refusing any payment, happily sending me on my way, saved yet again. (And by the way, with a strong command of the English language, much better than my basic Spanish.)

And checking into my hotel in the centre of town, I realised that I had forgotten to ask him about the mystery bolt. Oh well, no harm done… I’m sure I’ll come across a bike mechanic sooner or later…

My hotel was one of those old corporate town centre hotels: rather soulless but just fine. Decent A /C, shower, breakfast, the lot… I took time out to wander around the city and in particular its magnificent cathedral, before having a rather lacklustre dinner of oversalted tuna and tomatoes in the old town.

Friday 15 October: Jaén – Úbeda: 58 km

Fuelled by yet another colossal hotel breakfast, back on the road again and quickly out of Jaén and mile upon mile of olive groves, but so peaceful and splendid and above it all.

I spent the morning up in the hills, almost plateauing along a lonely but mostly well-paved farm road. Despite its apparent emptiness, there were regular snatches of Spanish and – more common – Arabic from the olive trees and the warm greetings of farm workers rather than the supercilious contempt of their bosses in tractors.

There was a wonderful serenity to it all as I continued to release myself emotionally after the stresses of the previous months. The hills gave me not just a break from the petty squabbles and emotional confrontations, but a slow deflation of them. To be away on holiday is a marvellous luxury at any time, but in October when you have the satisfaction of knowing that your co-workers are slogging away, even greater.

But as ever, there was a price in the afternoon, a long slow climb along the hard shoulder of a dual carriageway to Baeza: 420 metres of climbing at 5% and often 7-8%, with the temperature again pushing thirty degrees, sweat pouring out of my eyebrows. I dared not look up because then the sweat would start pouring in a worse way. And as ever, the goading presence of those black flies, taunting my slowness.

And to make things worse, my stomach started to act up. After days of splendid overindulgence in the evening, working my way through the Spanish and Andalusian repertoire and shoving cheese and salami in a bread roll into myself on the road with reckless disregard, my stomach had lost its patience.

By the time I reached Baeza in the thick of the afternoon, I had reached a decision. I spotted a lonely but posh hotel on the outskirts, dismounted from my bike, put my face mask on, wheeled my fully loaded bike through the doors and approached the front desk.

“¿Es posible utilisar sus aseos?”…

“Si, claro”.

So leaving my bike and bags in reception, sweating profusely and gripping my stomach, I headed for the toilets…

The rest, my friends, is history…

A little later, I struggled into the nearby town of Ubeda, ready for another day off and into an apartment with an owner who I never meet but who bestows me with the mysterious codes needed. A nice place but lacking in… decent WiFi, and… condiments… A bath mat… Table mats… coffee… clothes wash… head space. But at least there is space to store my bike safely… With its strangely squeaky seat and unexplained bolt…

The view from my apartment bedroom. Without Samantha.

So how best to treat a bruised stomach? With a stupendous dinner of apple salmorejo – a revelation – and flamenquin: rolled steak in ham and cheese sauce, all washed down with a few tasteful glasses of vino tinto… for purely medicinal purposes.

Though oddly, I feel strangely queasy afterwards… Must be the cycling…

And where are Samantha and Paco? They should have arrived a long time ago.

February 21, 2022February 24, 2022