October 12, 2018
N-322, the Mother Road
At long last Andalucía
It’s a good road. We followed it all day. The end.
It almost felt that simple. Today’s highlight was a hot lunch followed by a languid siesta, under a big oak tree.
We also encountered our second bike tourist, heading towards Valencia. He is French. That’s all we know. I wished him bon voyage.
It was easy riding, much of it downhill, but boy did we have to make up for lost elevation at the end. To top it all off, when we reached the town of Villanueva de Arzobispo, it turned out to be full of steep streets too.
This is where our story takes a turn, so to speak. We fought our way up to my preferred hotel, only to find that they were fully booked. Okay, no problem, there’s another hotel down the street. No luck there either. So we had to backtrack to the other side of town, where the other two hotels lie. You know where this is going. Strikes three and four. We even called a couple of casas rurales outside of town. We knew they were longshots, but we had to try.
I knew it was finally time to do something we’ve never even seriously considered up until now: stealth camp. Out of desperation, we both agreed that it was worth the risk. We climbed even higher to leave the town, and were soon back among the olive trees. With the sun setting and both of us exhausted, we pulled off the road and set up camp far enough away not to be spotted by passersby. Now here I sit typing in our tent. We hear cars on the highway and see the silhouettes of their headlights, but it's somewhat reassuring to not be too far off the beaten path. We have good weather, and no animals or people have wandered by. Yet.
Today's ride: 95 km (59 miles)
Total: 630 km (391 miles)
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