Antequera

November 8, 2013

Blown away by El Torcal on the ride of a lifetime

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Today began with a rare treat - breakfast on the balcony of our hotel, overlooking the castle. We loved sitting there eating croissants and sipping our coffee while being serenaded by a chorus of doves, roosters and dogs.

Today's ride to Antequera was one for the record books. If We are still around 20 years from now, I imagine Rachael and me reminiscing about this ride over almost any other experience we have shared together. It feels like a once in a lifetime experience. Our route carried us over the south and east shoulders of El Torcal, an immense limestone formation and nature preserve. Our intent was to get an early start and allow time for a ride up to the visitors center and a hike through its renowned eroded limestone formations - but in the end we ran out of time and skipped the hike but were more than happy just to make it safely to our hotel in Antequera.

The route we took was spectacular, with dramatic, majestic landscapes. It was easily the most challenging day of the trip - in a short 36 miles we climbed 6200 feet, far above anything else we have tackled on this tour. What made it especially memorable though was the weather. A dense and menacing cloud formation hovered over the range, making for dramatic skies and scenery - but it came with immense, at times frightening winds that felt gale force in the most exposed spots. The wind totally dominated parts of the ride, bringing us conditions that were almost uncycleable. I spent more time in my lowest gear today than the whole rest of the trip combined, at times on flat stretches of road; and Rachael and I spent a considerable time pushing our bikes - both uphill and down - because of our difficulty controlling them in the huge gusts. We were really lucky that there was so little traffic and we were able to spend most of our time in the center of the two lane road, giving us recovery room when we were battered off course by the winds. In spite of this I was still at one point blown off of the road onto the shoulder.

As awesome as the ride was, it was a relief when we finally dropped off the mountain, gradually felt the winds abate, and finally arrived in Antequera. Having covered the first half of the ride at a near-normal pace, our final average was a new record low: 7.3 mph. We arrived at our hotel exhilarated but well spent, with weary and aching upper bodies and hands from gripping our handlebars so intensely for the previous few hours. After a luxurious warm shower - I can't recall the last time one felt so welcome - we went out to look around and were awed by yet another amazing city. It is a beautiful place - beautiful physical setting, beautiful monuments, beautiful streets. And, to cap it off, we closed the day out with what we both felt was the best meal of the trip: a remarkable appetizer of eggplant cake with carrot jam (sounds weird, but was absolutely delicious) followed by salmon (Rachael) and leg of sheep (surely too large to just be from a lamb).

Completely amazing to have a day like this, when we had felt like the best days of the tour were probably behind us.

Elevation log: 6200' today, 71,100' total.