The day starts early in the Duke’s casa when the first call of a rooster wakes me up. I check the phone and see that it’s not even 5:30. With sunrise still an hour and a half away, he’s definitely an early bird. He’s the same rooster we listened to last night, crowing loudly enough that he sounds like he’s just on the other side of our wall. I doubt that the hotel-keepers are raising chickens, so it must belong to a neighbor. It causes me to wonder what’s behind these solid lines of row houses. There must be enough real estate back in the interior of the block that folks could have a substantial green space to work with. Maybe there’s goats!
When dawn does come, I look out the window and then pass on to Rachael the good news that the sky is blue this morning. The calima appears to have moved on, from this bit of evidence.
Caffeinated and caloried up from the reasonable breakfast our host offers us up at 8, we’re out the door at about 9:30. After a challenging last seven days in which we’ve ridden 230 miles (and way too many of them on crappy service roads lining the A-92) and climbed 18,000 feet, we’re finally coming to the easy part of our nine day ride to Seville that I promised Rachael was out there. Today’s ride looks like a snap compared to what’s come before - 25 miles, but mostly gradually downhill with only a thousand feet of climbing.
It’s not quite the nothing-burger of a ride we were expecting though because I forgot to mention the winds when I told Rachael we could expect blue skies and milder temperatures today, at least ten degrees cooler than the last few warm days. The wind though - it will be blowing in our faces at maybe 10-15 mph for most of the ride, not terrible but enough so we definitely notice. And enough so that once again we bike concerned about whether we’ll make it to Arahal in time for the 1:15 reservation we’re booked for, a time we anticipated no difficulty making when we made the reservation.
As a result, we mostly just bike steadily, stopping for only a few photos along the way, hoping that these and the video will remind us of the phenomenal wildflower display we’re treated with as we ride. For mile after mile our road is lined with wide swaths of color - daisies, bugloss, poppies, thistles - it’s really quite wonderful and keeps our spirits up as we bike into the wind.
And in a day with more than a few highlights, I’m in luck when I stop for a quartet of birds hovering above the field ahead of us - the only time I’ll stop for a bird sighting on the whole ride. I’m not quick enough to catch one on the ground, but as they fly off I take a shot at the sky hoping to capture something recognizable and am in luck for a change. There’s just one bird in the frame, and just barely - a bee-eater, another bird like the hoopoe whose colorations are so distinctive that it’s unmistakeable if you get any kind of look at it.
Like the end of yesterday’s ride, today’s begins with mile after mile of spectacular wildflower displays crowding both sides of the road.
#189: European bee-eater. What luck - he’s just barely in the frame, and focused enough for an identification. I don’t think I’ve seen a bee-eater since hiking on the Gargano peninsula last spring.
The prettiest part of the day comes when we cross the Corbones River and climb toward Marchena. It’s looking like we’re going to be cutting it close on our lunch reservation, but it’s too pretty to pass up stopping for a couple of quick snaps.
That takes up all the photo slack time I think I’ve got though, so I don’t take any photos of Marchena when it comes into view. That’s fine, I’m thinking. After all, we’ve been here before - four years ago, on a memorable ride from Carmona to Ecija. I’ll just grab a shot from that post to show where we’ve come.
I’m wrong though - it was Fuentes de Andalucía we biked through then, not Marchena. Looking at that post now though, I’m surprised that this is the second time that we’ve crossed the mighty Corbones. The first was dropping down from Carmona, crossing the plane below on a rough track we took a chance on so we could avoid a highway. Were wondering if we’d have to turn back when we come to the Carbones, fortunately dry enough this late in the year that it’s fordable:
“ Once you make it down the hill from Carmona this dirt road is pretty good except for this bit crossing the Carbones River. It’s dry for much of the year, but I wonder how this would be in the spring. You might want to bring your hip waders.”
And then as long as I’ve got it open I scroll through that old post and am startled to be reminded of how gorgeous this country was in the fall, on an overcast day that threatened rain.
Amazing, they look like white sand dunes. As pretty as it is here in the spring, that might have been even better.
Dropping out of Marchena I see a small white town atop of the ridge ahead and tell Rachael our town’s in sight. We’ll be fine for arriving in time for lunch, so I can afford to stop for one last shot. I’m wrong though - it’s a hill town, but not our hill town. We have to climb up and through this one, Paradas, before ours comes in sight. And Arahal is also hill town, and a harder one to climb up to; so that slows us down, as does navigating through both of these little places and their brick or cobblestone streets.
When we crested the hill and dropped from Marchena I told Rachael that was out town ahead finally. I was wrong. That’s Parada. Arahal is behind it, another ridge away.
I was right though, in that I had enough time for that last photo - barely. It’s just turning 1:15 when we arrive. We’re looking at the wall and storefront wondering about the bikes and whether we should be eating at one of these small tables in front so we can keep an eye on them when the manager comes out, looks over our situation, and starts pulling one of the tables and its chairs further into the sidewalk so we can slip the bikes behind them in front of the window. And once inside we get seated at a table just the other side of the glass. Nice!
La Mazaroca. Take note of that name if you ever come this way.
So that makes an excellent first impression, as does everything else about this place. The decor is fantastic, with the walls jammed full of memorabilia and antiques: bullfight and flamenco posters, signed photos of customers from the past, pots and bottles and jars and vessels of every kind, tools, pencil sharpeners, cameras, radios, keys, musical instruments, flat irons, and on and on and on. The longer you look, the more interesting artifacts you keep focusing on. Its a real museum.
Scott AndersonTo Bob KoreisThey are well displayed! I was thinking about how much care and thought must have gone into the placement of everything as I looked at it. Reply to this comment 8 months ago
And the food is OK too - at this point, it probably ranks as the best meal of the tour so far. If we ever come back to Arahal - not that we’re likely to, because there’s really not much else here as an attraction - we’d definitely be returning to this restaurant.
Our shared starter: revuelto with potatoes and jamon.
Torilla brioche with vanilla ice cream and caramel sauce. One each - well, 2/3 for me and 1-1/3 for her. She’s always happy to lend a helping mouth when it’s needed.
The weather has taken a startling turn when we step outside again. It looks like it might rain soon when we leave the restaurant - and by the time we get to our hotel just outside of town a mile or two later it’s lightly sprinkling. Later it will briefly rain hard, right while Rachael’s walking a quarter mile to the nearest grocery store. I’m afraid she’s getting soaked, but in fact it comes and goes while she’s inside the store so she wasn’t aware it had rained at all.
Our hotel is a simple, functional place outside of town. The location has its good points and bad points. For Rachael, there’s nothing nearby and it’s an unpleasant walk along the highway to get to the grocery store. For me though, it means that we’re almost in the countryside so it’s a short walk to bring me to a small bit of wetland that nets me another two birds for the day.
It was startling seeing the gray sky when we came out from lunch. Ten minutes later it was just beginning to sprinkle when we pulled up to our hotel.
#191: Woodchat shrike. I knew I’d seen this bird before, but couldn’t remember where. For me it’s a lifetime first; but a CycleBlaze search solved the mystery - the Grampies posted a photo of one they saw in Portugal last month.
I decided to stay out long enough to see the sunset, which was nice enough. Mostly though I’m glad I stayed out so long because that shrike showed up just before sundown.
