In Daroca

October 9, 2023

Breakfast isn’t served until 8:30 at Hotel Cienbalcones, our only quibble with this otherwise very nice lodging. We’d like to get an earlier start of course, but we do the best we can by showing up right at 8:30 and find several folks already eating. We’ll try coming down earlier tomorrow. The good news is that it’s an excellent breakfast, well worth waiting around for.

Today’s Ride

Another day, another bike & hike. We’ve got three straight travel days ahead, so of course Rocky’s walking while she has the chance. I leave the room first, so we’ll start with my morning. Before I go we remind each other to be back by two for lunch. We’re thinking we’ll check out the menu of a place just down the street, and if we don’t like the looks of it we’ll come back and eat here again.

I’m taking a loop ride today, one that begins with a climb to lift me out of the valley Daroca sits in and cross the ridge to the next one over. After crossing the small Jiloca River that formed the valley I almost immediately start climbing and don’t stop for the next seven. From the top I get a long view back to Daroca and its walls, looking so small in the distance that I’m not sure it’s really our town without the aid of the zoom.

Leaving town I stop for a photo of this colorful house and garden. Later when Rachael shares the photos of her walk with me over lunch I’m startled to see that she took a shot at it too.

Maybe half-way up, looking back into the Jiloca Valley.

This was standing tall at a junction at the turnoff to Valdehorna. An old chimney?

Just before crossing the summit I get a last look back. That’s Daroca in the distance.

Once over the top, the ride takes a feeling sort of like yesterday’s. After passing through a craggy section and a stand of holm oaks I’m gradually dropping into a broad, high elevation basin. I’ll drop through about five miles of plowed fields and dried sunflowers, bottoming out at the oddly named town of Used before climbing back up the other side.

Conditions change immediately once I cross over.

Dropping from the summit, with the ruined Santed Castillo standing on a knoll ahead.

Aah, another of these wonderful roads. No deer today unfortunately, but Rachael did see one on a hike from Calatayud a few days back.

The medieval Castillo at Santed was an important part of Aragón‘s front-line defenses against the Kingdom of Castile. It was abandoned after the two kingdoms formed a dynastic union with the marriage of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile in 1469.

So how do you pronounce the name of this town, I ask her? Used, she said.

The climb back to the summit of the ridge beyond Used has little to it, climbing about 500 feet in five miles. Even with the day warming up it’s never steep enough for me to break into a sweat. I do feel slightly aggrieved when I cross over near 4,000’ though and find no summit marker at the top. I’m not sure, but this might be the high point of the trip for me.

Thyme blankets the hilltop at the top of the last climb.

Dropping off the other side into the Jiloca Valley again I enjoy fine, intensely colorful views and look forward to a blissful descent for the next nine miles, my reward for the long climb that began the ride. Unfortunately it’s not like that for the first five miles as the smooth, nicely paved road is coated with a fine layer of sand or crushed rock that piles up enough in spots that it’s a biking hazard. Rather than enjoying the descent and views I ride the brakes, limit my speed to 10-12 mph, and have one eye on the mirror as I ride the centerline much of the way because the surface is cleaner there. Fortunately there’s almost no traffic - only one car passes me in four miles, but one is sufficient if I’m not paying attention.

Dropping back to the Jaloca Valley. Catalayud isn’t visible because of the hills, but it must be about 20 miles straight ahead from here.

Not quite like last night, but colorful enough.

FinallI come to the end of this frustrating road and turn right at a junction and follow the river the rest of the way back to town. It’s a much more relaxing ride the rest of the way, other than for the frustration that not one but three Eurasian jays fly across the road in front of me, each of them briefly landing in a roadside tree just long enough to tempt me to pull out the camera before flying away.

These birds are such teases! I’ve probably seen thirty or more of them this year, but it’s always like this. So I give up. I’m adding it to the year’s tally without waiting for the photo opportunity that never comes. Just so you know though, they look like this:

Unmistakable. Maybe I’ll get lucky enough to post my own photo some day, but in the meantime we’ll copy in this one from eBird.

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Ride stats today: 32 miles, 2,300’; for the tour: 987 miles, 34,500’

Today’s hike

I get back to the room just before two, and Rachael’s just about to call me to see if I’m close yet. For some reason we haven’t been able to see each other on our Garmins all morning so she has no idea where I am. I change clothes quickly and we immediately head out for lunch.

The lunch hunt starts out with a string of disappointments. The restaurant we wondered about just looks like a seedy bar when we get there so we return to the hotel only to find that their restaurant is closed on Mondays. The receptionist pulls out the map to show us the options. There’s a bar nearby that she says is good, otherwise it’s a ten minute walk to a restaurant outside the town walls. So we go to the bar, which looks attractive with shaded tables alongside a cascade running down the middle of a plaza.

We grab a table, look around, and Rachael learns that we have to order inside. So we go inside, check the menu on the wall and make our selections, but then the woman shakes her head - we’re too late, they’re out of everything but bar snacks. So we’re back on the street, walking in the hot sun to the nearest restaurant, wondering the whole way if we’ll get fed when we get there.

We do get fed, and it’s a decent meal for only 14€ each. It looks like a real place, full of work crews dressed in orange on their lunch break. My grilled chicken and potatoes are especially satisfying, and over my shoulder I can’t help looking back in fascination as a grinning Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin knock off one of the bad guys chasing after another chasing after them in their stagecoach. It must be 4 for Texas.

While we’re waiting for our salads to arrive, Rachael pulls out the phone and shows me the pics from her walk. She’s mildly disappointed in the walk after last night’s technicolor knockout, which only goes to show what a colorful place this is. her pics look pretty great to me.

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2023 Bird List

202. Eurasian jay

Today's ride: 32 miles (51 km)
Total: 977 miles (1,572 km)

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