December 7, 2019
Águilas
Leaving Andalucia
Finally, after being here for four weeks, we leave Andalucia behind and begin the final stage of the tour. And, now that we’re leaving, I feel some regrets about it. We’ve spent more of our three month tour here in Andalucia than any other region, but I’m a bit sorry that we’re leaving so soon. Knowing what we do now, I’d be pretty happy to double back to Almeria for the last week of the tour and fly home from there instead.
But, we’re committed now. Our suitcases are in Valencia, and we have five nights reserved there - three with the hotel that finally received our suitcases, and another two with the hotel that refused delivery but then acknowledged their error and offered us two free nights lodging as compensation. Valencia sounds a very attractive city and like a great place to wind up the tour, and we’re looking forward to our stay there.
Between now and then we have three more days on the road, ending in Murcia where we’ll catch the train or bus the rest of the way to Valencia. The original plan was to bike the whole way, but we decided to save four days at the end so that we could spend more time in Andalucia. Feels like that was a good decision.
Today’s ride
Today’s ride is quite easy, one of the lightest ones of the tour. Once we drop from Mojácar the riding is quite flat most of the way to Aguilas. And, after the nearly unbroken drama of the past several weeks, a bit uninteresting. It begins and ends with long stretches of flat beaches and small coves separated by smaller headlands, and has been almost completely taken over by coastal tourism and large resort hotels. A lot of this development looks quite new, and it makes me a bit sad to envision the string of quiet fishing villages that must have existed here before they were inundated by mass tourism. The riding is easy enough though, and there are enjoyable miles where you can bicycle on pretty seaside promenades - but it’s not really the Andalucia we came to see.
The middle third of the ride is a different story though, as the quiet coast road passes beneath Sierra Almagrera, a short mountain range with a long history of ore extraction, most importantly lead and silver. There is evidence of long abandoned mining activities all along the range, but it all died out over a century ago when its last silver rush played out.
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4 years ago
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4 years ago
4 years ago
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4 years ago
We keep talking about taking another tour up your way. We did a loop through southern Scotland and the Borderlands years ago and have meant to return ever since. One of these years.
4 years ago
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Video sound track: Estigma de Amor, by Kany Garcia
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Aguilas
Aguilas is a genuine surprise for us. We didn’t give much thought to it as a destination actually, and were just looking for a place with available lodging at the right distance for segmenting the three day ride to Murcia. Our main concern really was whether we’d find stores and restaurants open on this holiday weekend: yesterday was Constitution Day, and tomorrow is Immaculate Conception Day. Rachael is pedaling with a heavy load today, carrying enough provisions to insure that we won’t starve this weekend.
So we’re surprised to discover what a delightful place Aguilas is. It’s sprawled along two coves separated by a small headland with an impressive castle crowning the ridge. It’s an active fishing port, with a large harbor protected by a long jetty draped with drying nets crawling with cats and lined with fishermen casting their lines off the rocks. It has a fine lighthouse, a pair of scenic windmills, attractive parks cornered by enormous fig trees, flocks of white pigeons, tons of cats, good restaurants. And lots of walking possibilities - beyond this headland and the marina is another fortress-crowned headland, with another long beach beyond that.
We’d be happy to stay here another day if we had one to spare, really. But we’d not be staying at the same hotel if we did. It easily gets our vote for worst hotel of the tour. Among other things, we resent the fact that this expensive three star hotel (the only place we could find lodging here on short notice on this holiday weekend) doesn’t have strong enough WiFi to upload the day’s video. We’ll bring it in later.
Aguilas is the first town for awhile with enough attractions to be worth a post of its own. I’ll dump some photos into a separate post when I get the time, but in the meantime here is a bit of local color to tempt you to come back:
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4 years ago
Ride stats today: 28 miles, 1,000’; for the tour: 2,259 miles, 93,800’
Today's ride: 28 miles (45 km)
Total: 2,259 miles (3,636 km)
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4 years ago
4 years ago
Thanks!
Maybe we'll even be lucky enough to cross paths.
4 years ago