To Loja

April 5, 2024

Biking west from Granada to Loja, our stop for tonight, looks like it should be a pretty simple ride, following the rushing Genil downriver for 35 miles. It’s more difficult than it looks though because of a shortage of rideable roads. Bikes aren’t allowed on the A-92, the primary motorway between Granada and Seville. If you’re trying to take a fairly direct route as we did today, you have to make do with the few paved roads that exist stitched together with service roads bordering the motorway - sometimes paved, sometimes not. If we ever bike to or from Granada from the west again we’d probably take the longer route we followed a decade ago, through Alhama de Granada.

Whatever. We’ve made our plan, and there wouldn’t have been time for the route through Alhama anyway if we’re going to make it to Seville in time to catch our booked MD train to Zafra. So we start biking west on a minor paved highway, following the Genil rushing to our right. And it really is rushing today. At one point we stop to look back at a pickup truck crossing the river on a short but flooded cross-connector, wondering if he’d stall out in the middle. There was a passenger car behind him watching how he did, but after seeing how it went got discouraged and drove straight on instead. A wise choice.

The Genil is really flowing. I was sorry I didn’t get the camera out in time to capture the rooster tail behind that pickup that just made it across.

The first half of the ride is therapeutic, a treat for sore legs as we gradually descend while staying on pavement - the only climbing at all comes from an overpass across the highway. After four miles on that initial highway out of town we leave it for some small roads through nearby villages, much of it on bike paths or bike boulevards. It’s very pleasant riding, through country that’s much changed from the mountains we’re leaving behind. Its green, agricultural, and many of the fields are a dazzling yellow.

Looking back toward Granada, we get our last look at the snowy Sierra Nevada range.

Somewhere near Purcil we stop to admire this unusual pole barn.

In Belecina I think, but I failed to catalog the string of villages we passed through.

One of the four entrance gates to Santa Fe, the namesake for New Mexico’s town. I wish we’d taken a few minutes to detour here to look into the center, but it was a narrow one way street coming our direction and we didn’t want to circle back to come in from the other side. The town was established in 1491 as a military base, the platform for the final assault by Christian forces on moorish Granada.

The countryside grows more colorful and interesting as we continue west, starting to approach the next set of hills.

Another par of pole barns. It must be a regional characteristic. I don’t recall seeing ones like this anywhere else.

It’s really a colorful scene at this time of year. Yellow fields, olive groves on the slopes, stands of poplar on the flats along the river.

After about fifteen miles we leave the therapeutic half of the ride behind and enter the more challenging half. It begins with some minor lumpiness that coincides with the first unpaved part of the ride. For the next four or five miles we’re on a quiet dirt track of varying quality, sometimes rocky, sometimes quite bikeable. It slows us down, but it’s not a bad spot to be held back because it’s quite beautiful the whole way.

In tiny Fuensanta we grateful return to pavement for awhile, but pass up the opportunity to snap up ferry tickets to Morocco. That ship sailed already when we made our choice back in Almería five days ago.

Does it seem strange to you that there’s a ferry ticket outlet here in this tiny place, far from the sea? It does to me.

The next ten miles, on pavement the whole way, are maybe the best cycling of the ride. Lovely everywhere you look, and on generally flattish roads threaded through nearby hills.

I’m not sure what we’re seeing here, but I think it’s the Tejeda Sierra, the mountainous formation near the sea north of places like Nerja, Berja and Motril.

This pleasant interlude abruptly ends about three miles from Loja when our narrow, one lane road suddenly picks up a substantial amount of traffic, some of the drivers in a hurry and impatient. It’s a bit of an unpleasant surprise, and we look forward to finally come to town and the restaurant we’re booked for.

Loja itself comes as a real shock though as we bike into a crazy traffic scene of cars blocked up and trying to merge into and out of a traffic circle. We have to cross it ourselves somehow, and there’s no other option than to dismount and walk between these frustrated drivers. It’s maybe harsh or unfair to judge a town on first impressions like this, but I don’t think either of us will willingly come to Loja again.

Our poor first impression is partially offset though by the excellent lunch we enjoy at Restaurante Flati, a surprisingly elegant place that’s surely the best restaurant in town. We sit outside in an enclosed and covered patio, enjoying our meal and the refreshingly cool breeze filtering in - a welcome feature on a day that has heated up to over 80F.

We hang out at the restaurant for maybe an hour and a half, and then tackle the short but very long two mile walk/ride to our hotel, on the high side of town above the A-92. The first half is steeply and relentlessly uphill - first on pavement, and then on another gravelly service road that is steep enough that it’s difficult to keep our footing. I must stop half a dozen times toward the end summoning up some will to keep going for another stretch.

Leaving Loja from the uptown side is a challenge, to say the least. This is the easiest part.

Like many places, Loja makes its best impression from a distance.

There’s only about a third of a mile like this, but pushing up a gravelly 15% slope on full stomachs on a hot afternoon tries our patience.

Finally we’re up, and gradually coasting down toward where our hotel supposedly is, though it’s hard to believe because we’re still on gravel in the middle of the woods. When we finally emerge from it I think I’m going to be sick to my stomach when I look across the highway and see a hotel on the other side, with no way to cross it within two miles. Surely I haven’t mapped us up here to the wrong side of the highway?

But no, there are hotels on both sides - both roadside full-service complexes with filling stations and restaurants. Ours has a Tim Hortons and a large self-service convenience store/cafeteria. Not the sort of place we stay at normally, but we’re quite happy to be here.

Our room is on the first floor, and fortunately there’s an elevator because the bikes are going in them. There are two elevators actually, both small enough that a bike just barely fits when stood vertical - mine has less than a half inch clearance, and at first I think I’m going to have to fold it.

Rachael takes all the panniers up in one shaft while I take my bike and then go back down for hers. After we’re up and I wheel hers to our room I go back for mine, but can’t find it!? Surely no one will would have taken it in this brief time, but it’s nowhere to be seen. And it looks nothing like the place where I left it, leaning against a brick wall in a dark hallway. I finally find it where I left it, down in the basement on floor -1 rather than +1. I must be really tired.

Video sound track: Guitarra Picante by Ralph Towner

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Today's ride: 37 miles (60 km)
Total: 664 miles (1,069 km)

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Karen PoretWhew! Glad you did find your bike..
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8 months ago

Lyle McLeodA Tim Horton’s????

That does it. We’re going to have to tour through here ourselves sometime soon.

On a more serious note, your last few days have been a revelation (at least to me) on where the ‘Sierra Nevada’ actually is (had no idea they were this far south) and how much elevation and snow the offer. Very beautiful.

Once again you’re laying out a tantalizing breadcrumb trail. Thank you 🙏
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8 months ago

Rachael AndersonTo Lyle McLeodAnd in addition, they had a myriad of other food choices and we open early! It definitely is beautiful countryside in this area.
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8 months ago