To Osuna

April 7, 2024

Our hotel serves breakfast at nine, but that’s too late for us to hang around for. Rachael of course has enough squirreled away to feed herself, but there’s nothing for me. The plan is that we’ll stop at a supermarket in the first town we come to, La Roda de Andalucia, and pick up some sort of snack food - assuming the supermarket is really open on Sunday morning like the map promises it will be.

The supermarket doesn’t open until nine and Roda is only an easy ten miles to the west, but we get an early start anyway to leave time to check out a small wetland just west of town, Laguna de la Retosa. The reviews say that when there’s water the place brings in flamingos and other wetland birds, so with the recent rains we’ve had that should be worth a quick stop.

We’re disappointed to see the gray, hazy sky when we leave the hotel. The calima is still with us. Not the best start to the day, but at least neither of us concussed ourselves on the rafters this morning.

Still an impenetrable gray this morning.

I said we have an easy ride to Roda, but that’s not exactly right. First we have to make it through Alameda, the small town that we haven’t actually seen yet - our posada last night is two kilometers out of town. Alameda is a small hill town, and maybe if I’d looked harder I’d have found there was a ring road we could have taken around it. We’re not doing that though - we’re bulldozing right through its center and over the top. Some pushing is required.

Dropping down from what must have been the highest point in Alameda. I’m not sure we needed to have been up there, but I might as well salvage something from the effort and take this shot.

We don’t spend long at the lagoon when we come to it, because there’s no sign of water or waterfowl. It’s a pretty spring green though, so let’s remember that at least. Fortunately it didn’t take us out of the way getting here.

The famous wetland, Laguna de la Retosa. Serious birders flock here from miles around for a look at the waterfowl it attracts.

Looking back to the east, it looks like the sun is trying to burn a hole through the haze. We’re not there yet, but it looks more promising than this time yesterday morning.

As the old saying goes, all roads lead to La Roda de Andalucia. The train and bus both stop here, and the tourism blurb on the place describes it as a crossroads in the center of Andalucia. It’s not clear why all these routes are coming here though because it’s a pretty empty, nondescript place. At least it’s flat though, so we don’t mind biking through the center of town a second time after we realize we biked past the open supermarket on the way in.

Fortunately, when we do double back we find that the open supermarket actually is open this morning, if not particularly well stocked. I watch the bikes while Rachael pulls a breakfast of sorts off the shelves - a small package of turkey for her protein fix for the morning, and a roll and small packages of sliced cheese and salami for me. We enjoy this feast sitting on a bench staring at a wall five feet in front of our noses, because one of the oddities about Roda is that all of the benches lining its streets face the nearest wall rather than the street and it’s more open and interesting views.

For some reason it didn’t occur to me to take a shot of this town, but I did capture a roadside shot not long after leaving it.

On the way out of Roda, annother evocative ruin.

Other than a few gentle rises and that push through Alameda that started off the day, the first twenty miles are a pretty easy ride. As we bike along the haze gradually thins out and the day gradually brightens, and at some point I’m encouraged to note that for the first time in two days we’re casting a faint shadow on the road.

Which carries us to another brief date with the service road that parallels A-92. Fortunately this one’s a shorter and a less frustrating ride than the other stretches we’ve suffered through, and after a mile of it we come to our second Aquadulce of the tour (but one much less scenic than the pretty coastal resort west of Almeria), and after that we’ve got smooth sailing on good roads the rest of the way to Osuna.

Really, this is the best stretch of the service road we’ve seen. And very pretty - look at those daisies!

Aquadulce has a look we’re coming to realize is characteristic of the region. The streets are bordered with unbroken lines of row houses, all two stories high, all with their windows grilled. It makes a tidy appearance.

In Aquadulce. I puzzled over what this striking building was, and after researching it found a description. Might as well save it (translated): “Huerta de Las Almenas is one of the characteristic water-sweet orchards. A farm surrounded by a fence with a facade crowned by trells of clear neo-Mudejar taste, with a lobed arch door, is part of the Ruta de la Huertas. The building, in the Neo-Mudejar style, appears on one of the main access roads to the town, a black door framed in an entrance with a horseshoe arch contrasts with the rest of the construction, of an immaculate white color. At the top of the facade there are some tiles that make up the Fabas Giralda brand and that include an illustration of the tower that gives its name to the registered trademark, famous during the first half of the twentieth century.”

Leaving Aquadulce and regaining the pavement, we almost immediately cross the Rio Blanco and its supposedly sweet water and start in on the only sustained climb of the day - but one not as arduous as some we’ve seen recently, climbing only 500 feet over three miles. The sun has finally started breaking through the haze though and we’re feeling the heat - the day tops out somewhere around 80F - so we’re happy enough when the final summit comes into sight.

As usual, Rocky finds herself in the lead and pedaling alone.

Over the top, the views open up to the west.

Once we’re over the top we come to the best part of the ride as we get fine views to the hills to the west. The roadside is lined with wildflowers, there’s a ruined castle on the ridge, it’s an almost sunny day, and the wind is with us - everything is working in our favor as we race toward Osuna, our hotel, and lunch.

A beautiful stretch of land, that could be improved only by a clearer sky.

The roadside wildflowers have been remarkable all day. Were really pleased to finally be seeing Andalucia in the spring.

We pass beneath El Calvarillo, a ruined castle.

Looking to the north, we get our first view of Osuna.

Wonderful. There are so many greens at this time of year.

We’re following a large horseshoe in the road, giving us a view of both sides of the castle.

The best part of the ride, worth several shots as well as most of the day’s video.

Close enough that we could smell lunch, if we could smell lunch.

Video sound track: Everyday, by Classic Dream Orchestra

As usual, our first order of business on arriving in town is lunch. Thinking back on the last six weeks (we’re halfway through our tour of Spain!), I think we’ve taken lunch as our main meal of the day every day we’ve been here. We’ve gone out for light snacks in the evening a time or two, but lunch is really our routine in Spain now. It works so much better for us - more restaurants are open, many have economical menus of the day, we get our ride in during the best hours of the day, and we’re not frustrated by waiting around until 9 for dinner.

For a place as large as Osuna, it was surprisingly hard to find an appealing restaurant for lunch that was open on Sunday afternoon. We weren’t helped either by the wildly inaccurate information on Google maps. It started yesterday, when Rachael found a place we both thought sounded great. But when Rachael checked its website to see if we could book it, in spite of what Google claimed it pretty clearly stated that they were closed on weekends.

So we dug deeper and found a second place allegedly open on Sundays that sounded appealing, and that’s what we headed for today as soon as we arrived. No luck there either though - they’re closed today too. While we’re scratching our heads over that we see that a guy at the joint right next door is hauling out chairs, and he tells us they’ll open in about 20 minutes. It’s only a tapas place though, so Rachael and I study the map some more and find another restaurant not too many blocks away. We head there, only to find it’s also closed. Three for three - they’re all claimed to be open, but all closed. We found this frustrating.

Rachael’s had enough and is ready to settle for the tapas place, but I find one more place a quarter mile away and talk her into giving one last try. And it’s open when we get there!! But not for us, because there’s a large, elegantly dressed crowd congregated with drinks in their hands outside, and when I look in the door everything is made up for a banquet. It’s obviously been booked for the day for some great event.

So the tapas joint it is. And it’s fine, saving this part of the day and serving us a terrific fruit salad as our first of two courses.

An awesome salad: orange, kiwi, guava, pineapple, grapes, blueberries, raspberries, and a guava dressing. Its a good thing we’d each ordered our own.

Rachael isn’t quite full when we leave, and I’m sorry now that I didn’t encourage her to stay for a third round even though I’d had enough. We head to our hotel instead, check ourselves into a place that makes an excellent first impression, and then Rachael goes out on her own to have a look around and incidentally stop in at a heladeria as long as there’s one handy. When she’s back I go out for my own look, and see enough that appeals to me that another photo gallery is needed.

I’m back before seven as Rachael had requested, so we can go out and find another tapas place for an evening snack. What follows is a repeat of the afternoon, as we walk back in forth through town to five different bars and cafes that are all allegedly open. Three are closed, and the other two are down to only a few unappetizing tapas.

Finally Rachael can’t take it any more and walks about a half mile to the one place sure to be open: Burger King! I’m not particularly hungry and I’ve done enough walking for the day, so we split up - she walks off and comes back later with a chicken sandwich, and I stop in at the nearest bar for a glass of wine and a large handful of roasted almonds. Not quite what either of us envisioned, but it works.

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Today's ride: 38 miles (61 km)
Total: 735 miles (1,183 km)

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