Day 28: Cordoba to Castro del Rio

March 17, 2025

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Despite the good work that Manuel in Palma del Rio did on Dodie's brake, the lever action seemed to grow increasingly soft in a day or two, and we found brake fluid coming onto the lever. So we searched up another bike shop, in Cordoba, and somehow arranged to go there first thing this morning.

Today's mechanic, Raul, did not have as much English as Manuel, but he still claimed Magura expertise. We let him have at it, though we could not understand his diagnosis or plan of attack.

We found this shop in Cordoba, and were there before they opened.

Raul and Dodie are working on communicating.

In the end there was a good rapport, though we never quite understood what was done to the brakes and are not sure they work any or much better. "Taller" in Spanish is Workshop.

With brake repair "in hand" we set off across the Guadalquivir and into the countryside, heading for Castro del Rio. We quickly embarked on a much storied road, CO-3204. Betsy Evans, Scott Anderson, and others have waxed lyrical about this one. In all cases that we remember, the main point was that the road was car free, and once on it you feel alone in a vast landscape. We can vouch for these two angles, but there are two others that are not much mentioned by Cycleblazers, if at all. The first is that the road is hilly. And in our case we also had rain and headwind. That had us doubting whether we would actually make it to the end. The second big extra feature must be both because of the season and also the recent rains. That is the patterns of green - from fields and trees - and browns, plus the geometric aspect of rows and rows of olive trees. In addition, in the earliest going, the road snaked down to a river and back up, making for interesting snaking road scenes.It was

This road is famous in certain elite Cycleblaze circles.

Cordoba is still visible in the distance. See the mosque-cathedral on the right? The city is so much bigger than the old town.

It was prudent to push up most of the hills.

The landscape here reminded us of the Palouse region of Washington State - where round low hills are cultivated to their tops, often with special machinery that works on slopes. With the bright green fields and the trees, the scenery here was fabulous.

This was unique little area, where the palm trees formed sort of an oasis amid plowed fields.

In our first couple of hours, only two cars came along. Both stopped to talk. The first driver wanted to confirm the way to Cordoba. I gave an expert answer on that! The second driver asked all the Usual Questions about our trip, and was gob smacked when I mentioned that we were cycling to Francia and Germania. Only casually did she mention that there was water on the "patio" ahead, but that we could probably pass. I wondered what that really meant, and then we came to this:

Normally we expect a closed road to prove its impassability, and we don't respect the road closed sign. But in this case all the flooding we knew about added an element of menace. The hills and headwinds also meant that we would seriously not appreciate finding the road washed out 10 km down the line. The sign, of course, gave no hint as to how far away the problem was, when the sign had been erected, whether there was a detour route suggested, or anything. Dodie's theory is that only locals come here, and they don't need all that detail.

This all triggered a massive detour for us, in which we had to abandon our direct route south, and head east. This added about 1/3 to the length of the day's ride. Given the hills, headwind, and the fact that we had left Cordoba three hours later than normal because of the bike shop visit, things were not looking all that great.

Despite the setback of the detour, the ride remained absolutely gorgeous. And maybe the detour route was a little flatter than CO-3204.

Except for some underlying worries and problems, this was a fabulous ride!

We finally came to the point where CO-3204 joined in to the route we had been forced on to. The sign shows that Cordoba is 34 km away on 3204, but our bike computers showed we had cycled 48 km to reach this point.

Looking over to 3204 as it joined us, it did seem rather hilly.

We reached Castro del Rio, and of course both our Casa Rural and a grocery were uphill, by the fort.

This was our Casa Rural. We figured out the lock box easily enough, and entered an apartment with three bedrooms off a narrow corridor, one bathroom, and a kitchen. We contacted the owner in Whatsapp and he said to choose any bedroom and that we would be the only customers this night.

The place was swell, and all was well until Dodie went to turn on the light in the kitchen. This rash act killed all the power in the apartment. I found the circuit breaker box, but no amount of flipping restored service. So we contacted the owner on Whatsapp, and in due course a nice man appeared, bearing a fistful of screwdrivers. The man set about ripping apart the switch where the problem had started, and he moved on to the outlet that the wifi router was plugged in to, plus removing one or more circuit breakers. None of this solved the problem, exactly. The man did get some outlets working but not the overhead lights. Meanwhile, holding a cell phone light for him, I was learning something of European electrical fittings.

The basic diagnosis - unlike at home, up to four or more circuits plug directly into a breaker. In this case, there was a short on one of the circuits going into one of the breakers. The bad circuit was tripping the breaker and taking out the other circuits that used that breaker. And somehow this issue was taking down the house overall as well.

The man, who told us he was actually and archeologist, not an electrician, fooled with the wires for quite some time. We appreciated his time and effort, as he worked to restore as much functionality for us a possible. In the end, with the help of some lamps instead of overhead lights, and some extensions, we were mostly back in business. A really big one was the ability to charge our bike batteries. Without that we would be going nowhere tomorrow!

We have been leery of plugging in a heater, so we dragged out some extra blankets and stayed in our travel clothes. We should be warm enough that way, and with batteries charged, ready to tackle the next hilly day, as soon as the sun returns!

It was not simple. The man got things going as much as possible, with a lot of extra effort.

Today's ride: 57 km (35 miles)
Total: 903 km (561 miles)

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