To Jerez de Los Caballeros, Spain

July 7, 2023

Heart

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This morning we slept in! With only 20 miles to ride, we were treating it as a partial rest day. Last night Jacinto had asked for a fan to supplement the weak AC. The clerk volunteered to move us to a new room instead. That room also had poor AC, but it wasn't on the sunny side of the building, so felt cooler.

We had a provided breakfast this morning. No yogurt, or fruit. I had some ham and cheese slices. Jacinto drank coffee. Then we went upstairs and ate more of our own food. We were riding at 9:45.

No paint was wasted on our roadway today. We had straight black asphalt, in good condition - just what we've come to expect in Spain. How do they have so many good quality roads and the roads in the USA are in such bad shape? We need a gas tax, but I digress.

The riding was short in miles, and I felt my effort was reasonable. We had perhaps a few too many ups and downs for my taste, but I knew Jacinto liked them. The land today was very dry and barren. We did see a few cows and goats. I have no idea what they were eating. One herd of goats, all with bells on, were out in the roadway eating the grass along the road. Their friends, inside of the fence, had not a blade of grass.

We passed over several small bridges with no water under them. Only one bridge had water. That's where we took the photo with the flowers. I've just said the land was barren, but the first section did have a lot of brush growing in close to the road. The roadway was so narrow, and the bushes so bushy, that there were only a few feet in the center to ride. I wondered what would happen if a car went past, but we had only one car in that first ten miles. I told Jacinto I thought that was the best ten miles of the trip. He laughed at me and said it was because it was all downhill. It sure didn't feel ALL downhill to me. I was sweating! That's my question to ask him now, since his knee is better. He made the comment to me the other day about enjoying the climb, he was finally sweating. Now I have to ask him if he's sweating and having fun.

I was feeling good until we got close to town. There's a castle, on a hill. I started up first. It got steeper and steeper. I challenged myself to continue riding from one patch of shade to another. I'd estimate this section was 12%. I was doing really well until RWGPS told me to take a sharp right. On that steep of uphill? Ok, let me give it a try. To make things more interesting, there was a car also wanting to turn AND a group of old men watching my progress with interest. I did make the turn. The car waited. But then Jacinto yelled at me that I went the wrong way, which forced me to stop. My quads were quivering from the effort. Jacinto's GPS said to go left, mine said to go right. One of the old men motioned to the right. I liked that direction, as it was paved (not cobblestones) and looked to be more level. We ended up going left, because I wanted Jacinto to be the navigator. Then he went too fast and lost me. That wasn't the route I had, so I didn't know where to go. We ended up calling, and getting back together. In the meanwhile I had looked at RWGPS, and decided if we rode up Santiago street, it would go straight to the hotel. We ended up walking the whole way, it was steep.

There was an adjoining cafe to the Hotel Oasis. I immediately plopped down in one of their empty sidewalk chairs. My poor quads didn't know what to do, if the assault was over or not.

Our bikes are in the storage garage across the street. We are upstairs in a spacious room that has working AC. We've eaten a sufficient menu del dia lunch. I swore I was going to get dinner tonight, but now I'm feeling full. Jacinto has gone walking to the store to see if there are any treats for the road tomorrow. Pickles are surprisingly hard to find. Sometimes we can get pickled vegetables (usually carrots and cauliflower), but those are difficult also. He thinks he's found a big store that has a deli.

We've completely redone tomorrow's route. Jacinto's GPS took him the back way, with 600 more feet of climbing. I had to admit, it looked better than my route which had 24 miles on the N Road. Yesterday, the N Road had more traffic. I offered to switch to Jacinto's route. I might regret that tomorrow. He voluntarily rode with me today, which was surprising. I really thought he was going to go for one of the longer routes. Today when we joined in on one of those routes, we saw the road to Encinasola was rough dirt. He wasn't feeling quite so sad then.

Today's route was good. All country back roads. If we had needed rescued, it would have been a problem. Isn't that a little ironic that I want just enough traffic to help me out if needed? But not too much traffic! It was short on miles, but still had 100 feet of climbing per mile, if you look at Strava. Jacinto says RWGPS is selling me short on elevation. It is regularly way shorter than Strava.

We are getting a box breakfast to go, with the hopes of getting out the door early. It will be a long day to Merida. We had a day off there to see the sights. We have an apartment with a washer. My clothes will be so clean!