Day 20 Granada to Pantano

We found the way out of Granada much more easily than we had found the way in a couple of days ago and were soon cycling in the countryside with distant views back to the snow-covered Sierra Nevada.

We enjoyed the small villages we passed through, stopping for bread and other supplies. Many villages still have a panaderia with fresh-baked bread and other interesting goodies for the passing, hungry cyclist. 

 Having spun out the morning sauntering along in the flatlands, we found ourselves facing the big climb of the day in the early afternoon heat. The 600m climb seemed to go on and on and we got very hot, though the views were lovely.
The road was almost deserted, but every few minutes a large lorry went by which wasn't very pleasant. I think there are some quarries nearby.

 Eventually the worst was over as we went through the pretty village of Argón with its tiled houses and soon began to descend to the Embalse de Los Bernajales.

We stopped at the very pleasant campsite at Pantano. What a difference from the one in Granada. We have grass and nice views and silence!

Today has been really warm, much more the sort of Mediterranean weather we were expecting. It's a lovely balmy evening and we've cooked some nice local vegetables and are now enjoying sitting in our camping chairs (well worth bringing) and finishing off a bottle of local vino tinto.

Distance 51km, ascent 600+m.

Day 19 A day at the Alhambra and absolutely no cycling

It is worth spending two nights in this run-down campsite in a singularly unattractive suburb of Granada to be within walking distance of this!

We've had a lovely day at the Alhambra and will be back on our bikes tomorrow. 

Distance 0km, ascent 0m.

Day 18 Arrival in Granada

Today we just had a short distance to cover to Granada. More down than up too, just a gentle climb of 200m or so out of Guadahortuna.
Cyclists have an obsession with gravity. Our lives for the last two and a half weeks have been dominated by the number of metres we have to climb each day! In fact just in terms of point-to-point heights on the profiles in our guidebook we have so far climbed about 13,000m. That doesn't take into account the many undulations within that. There is such a huge difference between grinding upwards at 6km/h or whizzing down the other side at 30 to 40km/h. One spends so much more time and effort doing the former than the latter. We have now covered 1365km, which means that we have ascended at least 1000m in every 100km along. It's no wonder that we are quite exhausted now!

The breakfast in the Hostal at Guadahortuna was very good as was everything else there. It's another typical village Hostal with a friendly bar full of locals (mainly male) chatting noisily over their drinks and watching bullfighting or football on TV. The rooms are usually comfortable, if basic and very reasonably priced. This one was €40. Safe storage for bikes never seems to be a problem- usually in a storeroom or garage.
The route was nice with views towards the Sierra Nevada, but as usual getting into a big city is never easy or pleasant. Thank goodness for GPS and Google maps!

We are installed at the rather scruffy and certainly not scenic Camping Sierra Nevada, very close to the centre of Granada, and are looking forward to a day off cycling and becoming "normal tourists" tomorrow.

Guadahortuna to Granada - 59km, ascent 300m.

Day 17 Cazorla to Guadahortuna

It was difficult to leave the beautiful Camping Cortijo in Cazorla, but we needed to press on towards Granada where we have prepaid tickets for the Alhambra in two days time.
This is a new landscape, not as wild as before because of the intense cultivation of olives.

Here we are finding fewer big hills, but lots of smaller ups and downs, which if anything, are even more tiring. 

We undulated our way through the olives on almost deserted back roads until, some 47km further we came to the first town (or village for that matter), Jodar where we found the only open bar (we don't know why most were closed) and had a few linguistic (and, I think cultural) problems about vegetarianism before eating a good meal to set us up for an afternoon of climbing in the heat. I had in the meantime stretched my Spanish to the limit and succeeded in booking a room 40km down (or in fact UP) the road. There is very little accommodation on this stretch and we didn't want to take a chance. 

This road is more major and though there isn't much traffic, that that there is goes very fast, so in spite of the beautiful surroundings this section proved to be a bit of a slog in the afternoon heat. A final big hill nearly finished us off.

We eventually made it to the top and were rewarded with a view towards the distant Sierra Nevada in the haze.

Thankfully a long downhill brought us to the hotel. 

Cazorla to Guadahortuna 85km, 1100m ascent .

Day 16 Tranco to Cazorla

We packed up early as the forecast for today was terrible. Heavy rain and thunderstorms......
So much for our plans to get to the south before the heat of the summer!

The road around the reservoir of Tranco is absolutely beautiful and was totally deserted at this time on a Sunday morning. 

We had a break to shed layers in the warm sunshine and to apply more sun cream. 

Half an hour later the heavens opened and thunder was rumbling. Just as it started to rain we came across the first bar for 20km and dived in. We were lucky to stay dry and stayed some time eating bocadillos and drinking coffee. The storm outside was terrific and soon the bar was full of bedraggled cyclists and motorcyclists!

It eased off and we set off again, only to take shelter again a few more kilometres further on.

Fortunately the weather improved as we had one of the stiffest passes of the entire  route ahead of us. We made it to the top without getting wet again and very thankfully without a thunderstorm. 

It was well worth the effort!

We saw two huge golden coloured birds circling over this valley and assumed that they were golden eagles.

Looking back to the rugged valley we'd climbed up in the rain.

The other side from the top, a gentler landscape with olive groves.

A long descent with a new landscape of olive groves brought us to the lovely town of Cazorla and a peaceful evening at the super Dutch-run campsite. 

 

Tranco to Cazorla - 66km, 1100m ascent.

Day 15 Alcaraz to Tranco

We were served breakfast in our room and left very early as we were aiming at a long day to get to the next suitable campsite.
After a quick downhill on a main road we stocked up at a village bakery and headed uphill. The road we took led through a wonderful gorge.

Eventually after a gruelling, but spectacular climb we arrived at Puerto de la Crucetas at 1300m.

A long downhill to Riopar was followed by the inevitable climb, but this time we passed a special waypoint!

We've made it to Andalucia!

Alcaraz to Tranco 106km, 1200m ascent.

Day 14 Barrax to Alcaraz

The day dawned grey and drizzly. We had an early breakfast and pedalled  off in the cold, gloomy morning. After a few kilometres we reached the village of Tiriez which had a superb panaderia where we bought enough bread and cakes to fuel us through the day.
This area of Spain is quite remote from the tourist trail. There are very few shops, indeed many villages have none at all. If they do they are tiny and not very conspicuous, so we are always careful to carry enough to keep us going.
After 30km we arrived at the Via Verde Sierra de Alcaraz aka Ruta Don Quijote. This was not as smooth as the one we used a few days ago, but was scenic. This huge project of hundreds of kilometres including many tunnels and viaduct was almost complete when a combination of civil war and declining interest in rail travel as roads were developed, caused it to be abandoned before a single train ran on it.

 Eventually we arrived at Alcaraz and are now staying at the excellent Hostal Rosales where we were served a superb meal on our balcony (the bikes are on it too).

That just left time for a stroll around the town before bed. At least the weather had improved!

Barrax to Alcaraz   72km, 500m ascent.

Day 13 A windy day - Olmedilla to Barrax

We woke up at our rather unusual camping pitch at Olmedilla rather disappointed that it hadn't rained! We were given this covered spot just in case it did. I should also have mentioned the great welcome we got here last night when we went into the bar to register. The lady saw our sweaty, exhausted state and immediately pulled two cold, draught beers and served them to us with a bowl of peanuts saying "on the house". Perfect!

We were hoping for an easier day today as the terrain is much flatter now. 

We made an uphill detour to visit the perched and fortified village of Alarcón which was stunning. One can't really imagine what life must have been like in these places in medieval times though.

Then we continued on a long, straight road - this is a completely new kind of terrain for us in Spain. There are fields of poppies here too though as there have been for most of our journey .

The problem with this flat landscape is that the wind can howl across it. By mid afternoon it was doing just that! An easterly cross wind was making cycling difficult, if not dangerous, and we were relieved that the last 40km of our route took us along a paved service road for an irrigation canal.

This was at least partly sheltered from the gale and was totally traffic-free. Nevertheless we are quite exhausted by the struggle with the wind and very happy to have arrived at a Hostal in the small industrial town of Barrax. We've just eaten dinner in the lively bar here and enjoyed the colourful local ambience.

Let's hope for the wind to abate overnight. 

Most used items - waterproofs (all but two days).

Least used items - swimming costumes (no way!) 

Olmedilla to Barrax (with detour to Alarcón) 95km, ascent about 200m.