Day 25: Lora del Rio to Palma del Rio

March 14, 2025

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We had a little debate about whether to put on the rain pants. There was no rain when we looked outside, but we decided to go for the pants anyway. It was a good decision because it was pouring by the time we actually stepped out the door. Our first objective was the Mercadona, a grocery store that we had spotted nearby on our phones.

Our custom is to leave me outside groceries with the bikes. We usually look for some kind of shelter for me by the building, especially of course if it is raining. This Mercadona had no such shelter, but I did see that they had a fairly large entry room, so we brought me and the bikes in. There was a vacant, out of the way, corner of this room, so the bikes went there. The corner had a sort of chrome rack and a sign, but that was all.

After Dodie went into the store, I got out my phone and sussed out the sign. It was about mini grocery carts, that would make my shopping easier. Ok, fine. But shortly a man came around and gave me to know in Spanish that my bikes could not be there. Since I was now up to speed about the carts, I understood his beef. I got my phone to tell him "Don't worry, if any carts come here, I will move the bikes". The man gestured behind me, and yes, while I was fooling with the phone, a cart had somehow appeared in the rack. "Ok, you are right!" I said, and moved the bikes to another rack, that had been set up for those awful electric scooters. This seemed to satisfy the man, who was probably the manager. I say that, because he drummed up a lady with a mop, who proceeded to remove, in minute detail, any slight watery traces that our bikes had left in the forbidden spot.

Really, the manager was on solid ground, ejecting the bikes from his cart storage, but I did think bringing in the cleaning lady was a bit much. Other signage around the room did lend a bit of an authoritarian bent: plastic bags to use with your drippy umbrella, and a warning that your cart would lock if you set foot outside the vestibule.

As I waited with the bikes, an ONCE man appeared, and set up just by the doorway. ONCE is a sort of charity organization that benefits the blind and deaf, with agents all over the cities selling lottery tickets. I thought the vestibule police would give this guy the boot from the store entry, but no. I later saw that many locals knew him, and that he was making pretty good sales.

We had written to a bike shop in Cordoba, hoping on hope that they would have time and knowledge to look at Dodie's brake. Actually they did reply, and we have an appointment for Monday. But meanwhile, just on a whim, Dodie got me to look for a shop in Palma. We found one (and just one) called rather appropriately "Dry and Mud" Bike Center. After Mercadona we toddled around to there.

The shop was rather jumbled, and with both bicycles and motorcycles, but inside was Manuel, an amazing mechanic with nothing jumbled about him. Manuel understood exactly what we were talking about with bleeding the brake, and for example when I said "The fluid can be Shimano or Magura but not..." "D.O.T." he chimed in. Correct!

Ok, it's a little jumbled, as those are motos.

We see here Manuel sending fluid down the system, not up. I am not sure if he had it open then at the bottom or not, but he seemed confident, but now the brake works!

While we were there, I asked about a replacement for the mirror that had died when Dodie hit the bush. My experience in Europe is of finding only blurry plastic lens affairs - so much inferior to our glass Mirrycle models from back home. I had patched together the Mirrycle, but did not expect it to last the whole tour. So we bought one of those European models, and Manuel put it in.

Only a couple of kms and I was sure I preferred a broken Mirrycle to a new European whatever.

While we waited for Manuel to complete the repair, we went for a short walk. It was still raining hard, as you can see from the shot below.

Still we managed at least this shot of a picturesque street of the town.

At one point we took shelter under the awning of a closed restaurant, standing there for a bit. It was long enough for a man to appear out of "nowhere", carrying two lattés. We think it was our Canadian flag that triggered this generosity. We rather hope that this was out of general positive sentiments toward Canada. But I think in some other interactions we are getting sympathy for being from Canada, in the way that Ukrainians do. I recall from last year, people wearing "I am Ukrainian" tee shirts. Will we need those too in a Canadian version?

While we were out, we hunted down a Correos mail box, and sent a letter off to Scott Anderson. Scott will find the envelope with genuine souvenir Spanish stamps. The particular stamps celebrate LGBTQ rights. Just sayin'.

With newly functional brakes "in hand", we set off for Palma del Rio. The route, as we knew, ran by the Guadalquivir river. Fortunately, though the river was high, there was no dangerous flooding.

We quickly got onto a secondary road that was free of traffic, water, or mud. In fact it was the kind of road we look for in every country. On either side were very large orchards of oranges, almonds, and olives.

Most of the orchards were flooded, some with visibly moving water.

It got warm enough for some of our gear to come off, but we kept a cautious eye to the sky.

Perhaps because of the rainy weather, we were not brandishing cameras very much, looking for birds along the way. But we did capture these two. Each photo started with a little black shape in a distant wire or bush, but the P950 can often reach out to such cases quite well.

Dodie often does miracles of finding great places to stay, and this time she did it in Palma del Rio. Our spot is the Monastery of San Francisco. This place was founded in 1492 as a Franciscan monastery, at first with just 5 or 6 monks. It is said that Christopher Columbus slept here. The Franciscan order protected him, and he also slept for free. At 119€ (breakfast included) the Grampies are also doing not that bad. History also tells that in the 18th century Fray Junipero Serra and two local monks slept here, before departing from Cadiz for America. They ended up founding San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego.

Grampies arrive at San Francisco monastery.

We sent Dodie in to see about the room, again leaving me with the bikes. In the short time, the sun not only disappeared, but a hail storm started. It's amazing, because the temperature had also briefly touched 30°C during the day. The lady at reception scrambled to get me and the bikes into a protected courtyard. From there the bikes eventually went to a locked bike storage room. This room had a bike "shower", individually locked bike racks, and a selection of bike tools, plus for some reason several easy chairs. These actually could be good for sitting on while making bike adjustments.

Looks sort of like electric chairs, but no.

The monastery building turned out to be really gorgeous, with interior courtyards and many citrus trees.

The dining room, what we hope to visit tonight. When this shot was taken there was background chanting being piped in.

This little den was for customers in the "superior" rooms.

Somewhere around there is a bell tower. We think the bells need tuning.

From our cycle today and from the monastery, we collected a grapefruit, some oranges, a kind of specialty lemon, kumquat, and some orange preserve.

Our room at the monastery is certainly not a monk's cell. It is in fact huge, and with a door to a small balcony. We could not be more thrilled with it. One nice feature is the tile floor, which contains many hand painted tiles. They look like this:

The bathroom too makes elegant use of ceramics. We have probably found this in most of the places where we have stayed in Spain. But typically such places (like last night's apartment) look shiny new. This time we have elegant old.

We are practicing monastic restraint by waiting until 8 p.m. for the opening of the restaurant here. Stay tuned tomorrow for the report on what it was like. Tomorrow we will also ride to Cordoba, and its amazing mosque-cathedral. Interesting times ahead.

Today's ride: 30 km (19 miles)
Total: 773 km (480 miles)

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