Córdoba to Baena

October 31, 2022

Halloween AND the day before a stat holiday

Halloween day. We had a nice early start thanks to the time change. We were on our bikes by 8:30 in lovely temps, 15 C or so. Across the Roman Bridge (on foot) and an easy exit from Cordoba, once I stopped going in circles.

Then we had an absolutely delightful ride on the CO-3204. Probably the quietest paved road we’ve been on, and that's saying something. There were lots of rolling hills and olive groves. We saw a medium-tech olive harvest underway. There was a Bobcat sized device shaking the trees, accompanied by men with power rakes, and a relatively large crew of women on foot spreading nets along the rows.

We avoided a big hill by ignoring Komoot’s off-road suggestion. We're getting better at identifying its unnecessary suggestions! We had a long coffee break in Castro del Rio. Having exited Cordoba, we were back in the land of cheap drinks - 2.30 euros for café con leche and tea together. Gail’s tea adventures continue - today she ordered just ‘tea’ and got green tea. Yesterday she ordered ‘green tea’ and got mint. Coffee-wise, I still haven’t found a place that didn’t have decaf. Much easier access here than in small towns at home. And the Cordoba hotel had very good instant decaf. As good as Starbucks via, and probably 10% of the price.

Starting out from Castro del Rio we had a tailwind. We also learned that we’re on a camino route at the moment, since there are some yellow arrows here and there. It was another lovely quiet road. We passed lots more olives, with blobs of olives on ground. Also an entire orchard of rotting pomegranates. I wonder what the story is? We stopped and picked a few. Saw a short-eared (?) owl resting on a traffic sign, and vultures too. The owl flew away before I managed to get my phone out.

Gentle ups and downs, as we begin our climb back to the mountains.

Man, is it ever dry. A terrible olive harvest, apparently.

This crew is spreading nets to catch the olives before the shaker machine comes and knocks them off the trees.

Pomegranates rotting on the trees. It looks like they'd just been abandoned.

We arrived in Baena about 1 hour before our 4 pm meeting time to get into our apartment. So we stopped for drinks and received substantial free tapas - we got a nice veggie tortilla and olives with the first beer, and a potato/carrot/caper salad with the second. What, two beers? Remember, they are only 200 mL each. So two draft beer is smaller than one tall can at home.

Komoot didn’t get us quite to the right address, but I WhatsApp’d our greeter, and she shared her location, which was very helpful. Our bikes got wheeled right into the ground floor location. It’s sort of a one room place - but very comfy and all we need. Not an exciting evening. We did laundry, then went to the surprisingly large grocery store around the corner. There was a kids Halloween party underway in a park.

It's time to check air pressure in our tires again - there's a bike shop around the corner, so we'll do that in the morning.

This cutie was grocery shopping near the party.

We made ourselves a yummy mixed salad for dinner, including hardboiled eggs and buffalo mozzarella. I finally cracked open the can of sardines I’ve been carrying around for weeks. We had grocery store cheesecake for dessert, and it was very good.

Today's ride: 64 km (40 miles)
Total: 866 km (538 miles)

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