Day 21 Pantano to Colmenar

We've been cycling for almost three weeks now and have covered nearly 1500km through the mountainous and generally untouristy interior of eastern Spain. Today we are in sight of the Med again, 1000m above Malaga.
It's been a glorious day, bright and sunny, but not too hot. The route was also glorious apart from a short stretch.

We set off around the lake and were able to get up the two quite big hills ahead before midday, avoiding the worst of the heat. The views were ever more spectacular and for a long time we could still see the Sierra Nevada far behind. Eventually new landscapes opened up ahead.

The olive trees gradually gave way to a bleaker, more rugged terrain.

After the second col we descended into a wide, fertile valley where there were acres of vegetables growing. Fields of artichokes as far as the eye could see, tomatoes, beans, lettuce and cabbage were on either side of the long straight road which led to Ventas de Zafarraya. We sat down here on a shady bench to eat our picnic lunch of bread, cheese, tomatoes and apricots. By the time we set off again a sort of rush hour had developed, as the Muslim field workers headed towards the mosque for Friday prayers. The relatively quiet road was now very unpleasant, just a constant stream of cars, and we were happy to turn off it a couple of kilometres further on and head uphill once more into even more rugged mountains, eventually arriving on a beautiful road which contoured around the hillsides with far-reaching views to the distant sea.

We're staying in a Slovakian-run Hostal just above Colmenar which is interesting and is not archetypically Spanish as all the others have been.
Tomorrow we'll descend to Malaga (brakes on - 1000m down!) and out into the hills again the other side.

Pantano to Colmenar - 75km, 1000m ascent.