Today was all about climbing. Up we went from our beachside camping spot, into the Alpujarras mountain range, with the snow-capped peaks of the Sierra Nevada always in our distant view. At least the hike up was at a decent grade, so we were able to climb at a steady 10km an hour without getting off the bikes too often. We had been fortified earlier in the morning by a stop in a popular local cafe, where we enjoyed a couple rounds of cafe con leche – our favourite treat of the moment – and a plate of fresh churros, deep fried Spanish pastries topped with sugar. It took three women just to keep the cafe supplied in churros! One to make the dough, another to crank it out into the fryer and a third to cut the churros into sticks after they had been fried and put them on plates for waiting customers. In the afternoon we reached the small town of Ugijar and would have carried straight on through had a busy pub not caught our eye. Three beers each later and with some very tasty tapas in our bellies – squid, slices of grilled lamb and curry-flavoured brochettes – we reluctantly continued. The light didn’t give us much to go on as it was late afternoon by this point, so we only managed to get a few kilometers out of the town before picking a campsite for the night on top of a small hill, just alongside the road.