I wave at an old man wearing the mandatory straw hat as he straightens upright from crouching in a vegetable plot, rubbing his brow of sweat with the back of this forearm as he sees me ride up pass. My bike loaded and me setting off for a final day in Spain. The young man's father. The man in the van the evening before that drove in off the road just after me. I had turned off the highway up a gravel track a few kilometres south of Ronda, thinking this will do, there'll be somewhere to camp up this track and thinking wrongly that no-one lives up here. At the top of the steep entry up off the road, there's a chain across upon which hangs a sign reading "NO PASA. POR FAVOR". A polite request to keep out. Ignoring the sign I lift the chain and stretch it high enough to wheel the bike underneath. Moments later as I ride on, I hear a car slow and drop down gears as it labours up the steep gravel behind me. Alarmed I turn and see a Citroen Berlingo van. The driver already out, paying no attention to me wheeling the bike back to meet him, as his eyes are in the palm of his hand as he fidgets through a bunch of keys. Finding the right key he opens the padlock. The chain falls slack onto the track. He still doesn't seem concerned about my presents as I reach him and in Spanish plead I'm just looking for a place to camp. He says undecidedly something about it being difficult terrain. Not many levels places. Then a light bulb lights up. "Mira!" he stresses. Keep going straight up and turn left at the top. He directed me to a waterpumping house at the side of a trail the track narrows to once pass his farmhouse. The trail between a steep rocky hillside and a jungle of tropical shrubbery. The pumping house partly beneath ground with the flat floor only a step up. An excellent place to camp. A place with great ambiance with chirping birdsong and the excited voices of the man's children playing over by the farmhouse. Also he mentioned the "aqua dulce" the nice spring water running continually from a small metal pipe in a font alongside.

Once I pass out under the chain again and freewheel down to the road and cross over turning south, my legs instantly feel stiff and drunk from all the climbing the day before as this morning the way is up from the beginning. Just ahead the road winds up between two mountains and passes through a gap. Before long the chain is down on the granny. I often think this little twenty-six tooth cog-wheel on the crank pulling the wheel round with a thirty-four rear cog overkill on most sealed roads. This last few days though I've been glad of this ultra-low gear.

I pass a now familiar big sign at the roadside reading "Caratera Montana." as if I need reminding. Not long though the legs start loosening up and it isn't long until I crest the gap. Ahead the slopes drop away towards the coast, but not the road ahead. Ahead after a fairly long descend I'm climbing again.

I still have some of that powdered hard Italian cheese for pasta left, which remains as powder, not melting and congealing in the bag like soft mozzarella. I've only found it in Spain. I'm thinking I need to use it today, as I won't be camping or have the opportunity of using my stove for a few days. I'm hoping some of the villages ahead marked on the map will have a mercado to buy some extra ingredients.

The road descends for the second time. Dropping steeply into a small place. On the outside of a bend where the road levels out before going up again, there's a big white house. Looks like a shop. It is a shop.

Inside the old windowless building is cool. There are trestles and shelves with every food item imaginable. I fill a bag of peaches and another with veg. There's also good bottles of wine on offer for one euro, so I take one.

There is one final long eleven per cent climb away from this village before the road finally descends to bumpy brownish-yellow dry country without any possibility of shade so I can stop for lunch. I found picnic rest-places in shaded groves of trees common in other parts of Spain, but in the south they're rare. Eventually I come to a river with a long bridge across. I ride the bike off down a stony track to the river bank and into the shade under the bridge, where I cook my pasta on the concrete foot of one of two support columns.

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The road ahead levels out considerably and a cool sea breeze blows inland and soon I join the A7 called Autovia de Mediterraneo, going southbound to the ferry port city, Algeciras. On the way into town just after the arrowed turnoff for the port, there's a hostel along the highway on the right. I stop and check the price. Twenty-five euros. I'm in but I'm short of cash and need to find an ATM. I ask the man behind the reception desk the whereabouts of the nearest. He tells me there is one a kilometre further on. Telling him I will be back I set off to get money out. It is then only five thirty but I would be gone two and a half hours. Firstly I don't find the bank the reception man referred to. So I cycle on along the divided highway until I find a turnoff for the centre. In the first commercial street there are two banks, but both don't have the signs for foreign cards, so I cycle on. Eventually after much cycling around, it being a sizable place, I make my way to the waterfront by the ferry port where I find a usable bank machine. Then after getting money I've to find my way back to the Hostel.

I am feeling pretty exhausted with all this extra running around. The street I'm in running off at a right-angle from the waterfront avenue seems like a little Morocco. It is full of people obviously North African pulling cases of lugguage having just arrived off a ferry. There is also what appears to be lots of Sub Sahara Africans. You hear about the plight of these people's migration across the Sahara, here is the end and the beginning. There are lots of hotels in the warren of side streets, but they look rundown and grotty. They probably wouldn't be much under Twenty-five a night anyway. There is of course lots of Moroccocan eateries and I sit down at one, Restaurant Marakesk and order cous-cous.

Having eaten up and drinking a glass of sprite, I think back on France and on Spain. I can only say how much I enjoy cycling in these two countries. Both countries are as difference to my mind as Germany and England. Without going into the contrast in cultures and just sticking with geography. France is green. Spain is desert. France has great waterways and its near enough possible to cross without climbing a hill. Spain is impossible. But I loved Spain. The arduous arid high interior. The Summer heat.

It is easy to say now sitting comfortable. Something which is easy to do is something which is usually boring. Better a challenge. Living for the moment. It is what its about.