February 12, 2024
Day 6: Denia to Benidorm
A Type 2 fun day
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White tablecloths, fancy rooms, and many staffers are not the only ways a good breakfast can add to the base rating it gets from having bacon, soft cheeses, and croissants. Today we ran into the quality factor. Our hotel, the Marineta, not only put out the likes of berries and cherries, and croissants, and yogurt, but it made these standouts by their being top quality. The berries, for example, were as fine or finer than what we take from our own garden, and the croissants were tender, and warm. And the coffee was from top brand Illy. To boot, the owner at the end gave me a hug and wished us a great trip. We left the Marineta with a lot of energy, and a warm feeling.
Out on the street and by the water, we eyed the large yachts. "Those are not for us" observed Dodie. "Oh", I replied, "Maybe these boats down here are more our speed", indicating the bevy of small craft in the main marina.
"Nope", said Dodie, "more like this rowboat, down here".
It was, of course, a silly conversation, since we have no ambition about owning a boat at all. So I turned my attention to another of our non interests - fishing. "I wonder if they have any fish in here". And looking over the side - 'Yes, they do!"
Over ahead, of course, were fishing boats belonging to real fishers.
Turning our attention back to land, we observed some of the large apartment buildings that face the sea.
And here are some boutique hotels, much like the one we stayed in.
We started on our track, heading out of town. When we had a little distance we looked back and could now see a bit of a castle on a hill. We captured it, for Kelly Iniguez.
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Everything was going well, including the temperature which had started at a slightly cool 14, rising rapidly, so that we kept stopping to shed layers. Then came the opening salvo of what was to quickly become the theme for the day. For this, the track directed us down a steep slope of dirt and large rocks. We balked, and were standing there taking the opportunity to remove more clothes and also to search the GPS for a real road, when another cycling couple came along. They were from Netherlands, but seemed to know the area. They assured us that in a short distance the track would return to pavement. With this, they unhesitatingly dove down the slope.
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9 months ago
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The Dutch cyclists turned out to be (sort of) right, as the track did return to pavement, for a while anyway. We traveled through the customary oranges, even observing some being harvested into crates and loaded onto transport trucks.
A flash of multicoloured birds caught our attention next. At first I thought we had come upon some exotic bird colony. And it did turn out to be something exotic. It was a flock of Spanish painted pigeons. They are part of a very traditional sport, in which male pigeons compete to determine who is the best at courting. The males fly around, vying for a chance for some private billing and cooing with a female. Eventually most lose strength or interest, leaving a victor. To determine who is who among the pigeons, they are spray painted in various colours. You can read more about this strange birding activity at this link.
We left the pigeons and continued on the track, regarding with mild interest the various mountains and hills all around.
A poster board described a phenomenon we had already noted - round towers on some hilltops. These turn out to be the remains of wind powered mills. There are enough of them that the poster set out a walking circuit among them, for those so inclined!
We were obviously climbing during all this, or we would not have been photographing mountain top mills. But our concern grew as we looked ahead, and saw that the main road was getting ready to snake through a pass. What did that mean for us?
The answer was that our track followed the road, but by wiggling around beside it or crossing underneath. To do this, however, it used rough and steep gravel.
Finally our path became steep and rough enough that Dodie could neither pedal nor push on it. So we sent her up walking, and I jockeyed both bikes along, by going up with one and walking back to get the other.
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After quite a long and hard struggle, we came upon two other cyclists resting on a rock. They were from Netherlands, and so spoke English. They were coming the other way, and let us know that the tough gravel ended not too much further on. Dodie set off, and the Dutch man said "Hey, you forgot your bike!" But once he understood how we had been doing it, he took Dodie's bike and jockeyed it up and through the rough gravel after her. This speeded things up a lot for us, and I hope we thanked him enough, as he parked Dodie's bike in a smoother spot, not so far from where the pavement began again.
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With the pavement restored we could continue on our merry way, for instance observing a farmer cultivating the dormant grapes.
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In short order we came to a spot where we could see the sea again, and it looked like all there remained to do was to spiral down, and we'd be there. Ha! what a foolish presumption.
We followed our track until, whoa, it wanted us to go down the hillside seen below, and with no real path in evidence.
Again we balked, and I had the bright idea of getting Osmand+ to show us a way out of here. We programmed that in, and now had the authoritative voice of the program speaking "turn left" "turn right" and the distressing "you have now been off the route for 60 meters" (so get with it?)
Unbelievably, Osmand now took us a different way, but soon also up a goat track with large rocks.
Up and up we struggled, thinking Osmand must know what it was doing.
Finally we agreed that this was ridiculous, and we turned back one more. We vowed not to go on another road that was not paved, and headed down.
Practically what it meant was finding our way to N-332, the standard car road to Benidorm.
From N-332 we could see that some of the mountains were not lurking behind the coast, but were on the coast!
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N-332 had its own challenges. For example, we approached a headland and wondered if now we would have to climb that as well. "N-332 will never have to climb over a thing like that", opined Dodie. And she was right. Instead we ha to go through some challenging tunnels!
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Finally we landed at the beach, and again I was sure our problems were over. We even saw and later identified two new to us Gulls.
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The beach ran into yet another headland, but this time the road successfully ducked behind it, without needing any tunnels.
Tis put us on track for Benidorm, and good thing, because our strength, batteries, and time left before evening were all running low.
Our first view of Benidorm was as a town of tall towers.
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As we descended closer to the beach, we found a large mostly walking street parallel to the water. Then at the water, another large area with many people strolling past shops. We took a street that was at right angles to the shore, and that too was packed. We noticed a lot of noisy bars too. Overall, the impression was like Playa del Carmen on steroids.
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We bust out of the crowded area, but could see that the city extended for quite some distance.
At last we found our hotel, the Marconi. It's quite cheap, but efficient. For example, we like the number of plugs, with one on each side of the bed. The scene below is directly across from the hotel, not that in our cheap room we have any view. MO
Today's ride: 66 km (41 miles)
Total: 187 km (116 miles)
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