August 21, 2014
Thursday: Priego de Cordoba to near Alora
The hour is late and I've to write this and make an early getaway in the morning. This morning my campsite wasn't much better than the previous night's. My tent was by a dry stream at the bottom of a steep hillside olive grove. The owner of the land was out early on a tracked tractor. The slope too steep for normal tyres. The metal clink noise like a tank approaching. He eventually passed on the hillside above my tent. It was a pretty ancient machine without a cab and he glanced down towards my tent without stopping.
Once back along the bottom and out on the road by a bridge, I cross the bridge and the day begins with a climb up the opposite olive grove hillside. Over the top and descends to a flat wide valley where I pause at a crossroads looking at the map. Left or straight on I'm indecisive. The later leads to a circle called Rute and seems to be more in the direction I'm going, so I ride on straight.
The day is summed up by a morning of riding to Rute, which turned out to be a fairly large town spreading down a slope into a valley my road onwards crosses to reach Autopista A45, Cordoba south to Malaga. Luckily though the original road N331 not shown on the map, shadows it, then further on acts as a nearly traffic free service road alongside. The road heads across a wide plain and ends entering Antequera, a small city on the slope up the hill on the edge of the plain, which I reach shortly before six and stock up at a Mercadona. The road onwards is a few kilometres steep climb to start of with, then drops into and follows a valley. I ride until after sunset. A place to camp being hard to find as there are so many houses, eventually I push the bike up a trail not far from a house, but far enough, up a hill and camp on a level spot near the top.
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Today's ride: 98 km (61 miles)
Total: 4,423 km (2,747 miles)
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