Baena

September 29, 2004

This may have been the best day of the tour. You’ll remember from yesterday’s post that the day began with a visit to the Mezquita, which by itself was enough to make this an exceptional day. The ride was exceptional too though, as I remember it now - maybe the best riding day of the tour. The countryside south of Cordoba is really beautiful - rolling, contoured hills crowned with endless fields of grain blowing in the wind. Thinking back on it now, it makes me think of some of the country in eastern Oregon that I love so much - imagine Sherman County, but with a few whitewashed towns widely scattered about the landscape rather than vast wind farms. It reminds me too of the Crete in Tuscany also, another of my favorite landscapes.

We got a late start with the ride because we spent the first hours of morning at the Mezquita, so we didn’t arrive in Baena until nearly sundown. I remember that our inn was at the north end of the small town, and we didn’t appreciate the climb to get up there. The restaurants were all down at the center though, so we walked down again soon after we checked in. It was beautiful looking down on the tile roofs of the whitewashed town in the fading light.

I remember too that there was a fair or festival of some sort - it oozes like this evening was still the setup phase - tents were being erected and almost nothing was open yet, but there was plenty of foot traffic and even horses in the street if I remember correctly. I think I had some photos of this but didn’t keep any of them because they were all too dark. The camera I was carrying at the time wasn’t too effective in low light conditions.