22km – Entering Africa

Mmmmm, coffee. Anyone see a pattern in our mornings??There wasn’t so much cycling today, but lots of running around before we boarded the ferry for Africa. Not, of course, before a morning coffee and a tasty tortilla sandwich in one of Malaga’s cafes. Next it was off to a downtown bicycle shop, where we played a game of charades with the owner, trying to explain that we wanted to buy two spare chains for our bikes. At first he thought there was something wrong with our chains, and tried to repair them, but after quite a bit of pantomime and broken Spanish we finally got our message across. We aren’t sure if it is overkill taking spare chains with us but they don’t weigh much and if we are in the middle of nowhere when a chain breaks it would save a fair bit of walking! A last minute stop at an internet cafe and then it was off to the boat, where everything ran smoothly. We boarded along with the cars and had a pleasant, if long, journey across the Mediterranean. The ferry was extremely quiet and we wondered how they made any money on this route. Coming off the boat, we instantly felt that we were on a different continent, even if we are still in Spain. The streets were livlier late at night, and many people shouted greetings to us as we cycled past. We easily found the centre of Meillia,just a few minutes from the port, although hotels seemed scarce. We drove in circles for some time without seeing a single place offering rooms, before finally stumbling on two 3-star hotels across from one another.