Archive for December, 2006
Sunday, December 31st, 2006
60km Los Alcazares – Isla Plana
Considering we had planned on an easy day of riding into Europe’s oldest city, Cartagena, 60km was a bit more than we bargained for, being New Years Eve and all. But this didn’t seem to stop us. After checking out one hotel in Cartegena, a bit too expensive, and finding another full, we bailed on the idea of a hotel for the night and desided to push on.
Earlier that morning we had doddled down a beautiful coastline just south of Los Alcazares, not concerning outselves with any great speed. Stopped at our cheapest cafe yet for a Latte or Cafe con Leche — 0.90 euros just outside of La Union. The cafe must specialize in dried ham, since there were over 100 of the huge hams hanging from the ceiling in the cafe, getting their second smoking no doubt from all the cigarette smoke rising from the punters. After that stop, it was a mostly lazy downhill into Cartagena. Once we had made up out minds to continue for a campsite, we treated outselves to a lunch of paella and a beer. For the second day in a row the temperature has reached 21 C, so we needed to change into our short cycle pants and continue in the beautiful sunshine. Continually climbing most of the time, until we saw a huge valley, down and up, and finally back down at a 10% grade, reaching a max speed of 66km when a car passed. A good bit of fun. After checking into Isla Plana’s campground we ventured into the heated salt water pool, under the mountains which we descended. Not a bad end to 2006. Happy New Year.
1 Comment » - Posted in Cycling Trips, Journal Entries, Spain by andrew
Saturday, December 30th, 2006
84km Cap de Santa Pola – Los Alcazares
Perfect days are made like this one:
- Waking up in the morning to a beautiful view from your wild campsite
- Enjoying a great cafe con leche at a local cafe for only 1 euro
- Buying your food for the day at a bustling Saturday market
- Eating lunch on the beach on a sunny 21 degree day
- Taking in the scenery of local salt lakes and pink flamingoes
- Drinking an afternoon beer
- Seeing another cycle tourist for the first time since Canada!!
- Finding a campsite at just the right moment, as the sun is setting
If every day were like this we might just keep going forever!
1 Comment » - Posted in Cycling Trips, Journal Entries, Spain by andrew
Friday, December 29th, 2006
60km Villajoyosa – Cap de Santa Pola
Another hilly day dawned for us. Although the climbs weren’t quite as steep as yesterday, the road took in plenty of rolling hills throughout the day. Alicante was our lunchtime stop – surprisingly not quite as tacky as we’d expected. The seafront area is quite nice and with the mountains in the background it’s not hard to see how it’s become so popular. Lunchtimes by the beach are becoming a ritual for us. Soaking up the sun over the noon hour almost makes dealing with the traffic along the Mediterranean worth it. The traffic was particularly heavy coming out of Alicante but it started to die down once we got past the airport and it wasn’t long before we discovered a nice little detour to the Cap de Santa Pola. With its lighthouse and view from the cliffs over the sea and the Illa de Tabarca, it’s well worth the stop. We made our supper there, before slipping down the road and into some of the woods on either side, to make our camp for the night.
1 Comment » - Posted in Cycling Trips, Journal Entries, Spain by andrew
Thursday, December 28th, 2006
70km Denia – Villajoyosa
We’d rather forgotten how to climb hills, having followed mostly fairly flat routes lately, so today’s mountainous path came as a bit of a shock to the system and it’s fair to say we were exhausted by the end. The route was pretty though, taking in two regional parks and some beautiful rugged coastline, and it was a welcome break from the over developed towns like Benidorm. Sometimes it seems the Spanish are turning their whole seafront into a wall of concrete. The one upside to all this urbanisation for expats is that there now seem to be plenty of places serving English breakfasts, something we’ve been shamefully craving for a few days now, so perhaps we will take advantage of a local cafe tomorrow. The supermarkets also carry quite a few UK products, including porridge oats which we had hardly found at all in Spanish stores further north. Sounds boring, but they are the fuel that keeps us going most days so we are happy to have stocked up once again.
No Comments » - Posted in Cycling Trips, Journal Entries, Spain by andrew
Wednesday, December 27th, 2006
51km Xeraco – Les Rotes
A lazy day for us. We slept in, enjoyed a long lunch on the beach and finished early just outside of Denia, a busy seaside town with ferries to the party island of Ibiza and plenty of British pubs. After speaking almost only German yesterday, it seems this may be where the British invasion of Spain begins. The campground we found, Los Pinos, is almost entirely filled with Brits, although the atmosphere here is quiet, laid back and very affordable, despite being right on the beach. It’s a world away from the overpriced expat haven we found outside Barcelona earlier in the trip. We stopped early to give us a chance to clean our bikes and wow, did they ever need it. Our chains were encrusted with dirt. The bikes sound a lot better now and hopefully our cleaning will extend the life of some parts.
