Mertola - Santa Olalla del Cala - European Divide Trail

April 2, 2023 to April 4, 2023

Mertola - Santa Olalla del Cala

Stage 2

Nice easy trails out of Mertola lead into farm land and about 20 closed gates. A shepherd followed me in his car and I think he was warning me about all the gates, but when I showed him the GPS trail, he shrugged, said something like, "don't say I didn't warn you" and went back to his flock.

The trail went through an old copper mine site, and as usual the landscape showed the impact of this industry. There were a few people about exploring, both on foot and by bike, enjoying their Sunday.

The big excitement of the day was crossing into Spain. After the required photo, excitement was all done, and I pedalled up my first Spanish hill and headed for Santa Barbara de Casa and the hostel I'd booked that morning.

On arrival at "the address", at about 5pm, I discovered the hostel was in a town 27km away!! There is nothing quite like feeling weary from a hot 75km ride, and surprise! you have not finished yet.

Fortunately 20km was downhill with a tail wind, and only the final 7 was uphill. Plenty of time to grumble about how the booking.com algorithmn is happy to suggest options well away from your search location, and to vow to be more careful. My diversion is obvious on the map below.

Part 2 of the saga was getting back to the trail, which had by then climbed high into the hills, and so I did too. For 4 hours. To Jabugo, the town of ham, but no accomodation.

Intriguing sculpture near the 5 story ham drying facility near Jabugo

A quick search and I was rolling the 4km down to Galaroza and a nice wee hostel where I met Jess and Joseph, touring cyclists from Barcelona. We met again at a restaurant and Jess saved me from ordering completely blind by providing a translation service. As they had just riden a section of my tomorrow's trail, they also gave some insight into how fast/slow it might be.

Tuesday morning I set my sights on Santa Olalla de Cala and enjoyed some beautiful riding on a long distance hiking trail (trans Adaluce, or similar) as well as a bit of hard pushing up a few rocky sections.

It never looks steep in the photos, but this was a trail for hiking after all!

Riding through a small village Gerry Garmin opted to take a moment to do a firmware update, then couldn't find any satellites. This gave me about 20 minutes to stress about how I might navigate if this was the end of the line for Gerry.

Two re-starts later and normal programming resumed. Not funny Gerry!

Next unplanned diversion was a locked gate after Aracena. The re-route took 1.5 hrs and sent me up a long climb to rejoin the trail at Puerto Moral. More rough, boney, potholed road plus a section being watered and rolled (So that's how they get the surface ! ) had me in Santa Olalla del Cala in time to search for and book a cabin for the night - checking carefully its exact location, of course!

So ends Stage 2, with 413 kms on the trail, and a few more off it. Can't wait to see what treats the next stage has. For those interested in stats, on paper, stg 2 was: 202km 3010 m climbing. My actual track: 211km and 3450m.

Mertola to Sant Olalla del Cala - 211km, 3450m elevation

Today's ride: 211 km (131 miles)
Total: 464 km (288 miles)

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Comment on this entry	Comment	5

Bob KoreisFor whatever reason, of all the photos added to the so far two written entries, I only see one on each page. Have to wonder if it's me or some formatting issue. I've not encountered this before with CB.
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2 months ago

Rose ParkinThanks Bob - any suggestions of what the format issue might be?
I have posted a question in the forum, and emailed info@cb, hoping to get some help.
Is there any sort of user guide that might help? (I searched the forum, but turned up nothing)
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2 months ago

Kathleen ClassenDitto for me, just one picture on each page. I am looking forward to seeing the rest, but have no idea what the solution might be. I am enjoying the writing though for sure! Thanks for making the effort.
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2 months ago

Bob KoreisTo Rose ParkinHave you tried editing an entry by deleting and reinserting a photo to see if that fixes the problem? I'm thinking maybe there was an issue in the process of uploading photos. But, this is just an uninformed guess. Did everything look right when you published the entries? A little context here for the question, I was a school librarian for many years and the tech first responder in my building. When someone said their computer was not working the first question was always "is it plugged in?". We can miss things when making assumptions.

I'm very much looking forward to following along. I'd not heard of your route before and it looks like a wonderful adventure.
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2 months ago

Jacquie GaudetHappy to have discovered this journal after the photo issue was solved! With regard to booking platforms, the assumption always seems to be you have a car. I always look on the map view.
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2 months ago