Alegria or bust

  Waiting for the boat to Morocco in the southern Spanish port of Motril I doodled through some online cycle touring forums, in the hope of getting some advice about where to stay and what to do on the other side. My heart gave a leap when I found a post, only a few days old, from a girl named Krista who was looking for a cycling partner in Morocco. I immediately sent her a reply to ask if she had found anyone yet. Before the boat left she replied to say that she was probably a weeks cycling ahead of me in Fes but that she could wait for me to catch up. It was her intention to cross the Sahara. Well I was pretty sure that my set up was not good enough to get me across the Sahara, and I had my doubts about its ability to cope with the Rif mountains between AlHoceima and Fes, so we left things basically open. But when I read her profile and saw her photo I was absolutely smitten with the energy of this woman and the prospect of travelling with her, so I made it my primary objective t...

Th ese patterns in the pavement were on the doorstep of the hostel I stayed at in Granada. It took an old fellah just a day to do this one, with the help of his young apprentice. He doesn't work from any design sheet or use any kind of measuring instruments but carries all the designs in his head. A true artist if  ever I knew one! Th e blog gets more difficult to write the more I have to sort out what subjectively interests me and what is appropriate or expected for a cyclists travel blog. I've had some challenging personal experiences to do with loss and self esteem during the last few days and I'm not sure how much soul baring is healthy. I've had a brief chat with Scott from the CW Farm, who is becoming something like a mentor for me on this trip, about some of my experiences, and I don't think he'll mind me sharing here that one of the comments he made was that I'm not doing the Tour de France ! So  with that in mind I'll attempt to convey some of t...

 On my way south again Jenny and Al directed me to a quiet cross country route that by passed the main towns. The weather was very sunny and it was heavenly to get back on the bike again in such tranquil conditions. Just outside Baza I picked up another Via Verde trail, the old railway line between Baza and Guadix.  As I mentioned on an earlier page of the blog I've visited this area about seven times before and it's always very emotional when I leave. Whichever way you go it seems there's a quite specific moment when you leave the Altiplano. Maybe because it's more or less surrounded by mountains, and when you look down on it from above as well as being able to identify many of its features, there's also a strong sense of its "genius locii" or essential nature as a place. Here's one of my last glances backwards towards La Sagra, the mountain which dominated my view of the Altiplano, in the far north and at the centre of the background. To get some ide...

 This is one view of the town of Castillejar. It's like a huge wedding cake with at least five levels of caves, maybe even seven or eight in places, piled up on top of each other. You could say it's perched on a hill, but it's more like a monolith, Ayers Rock kind of thing, because it stands on its own with pretty much sheer sides, straight out of the ground. Probably it attained that form because it's at the confluence of two rivers which have over the centuries stripped away the slopes.  Among the complex network of roads and pavements chimneys emerge at random through the ground. There's very little privacy in this town for if you are inclined to linger close by these chimneys, you will hear the conversations going on in the dwellings below! Historically there was little regulation of cave construction, and if somebody needed an extra room it was simply a case of digging back further into the hillside to create one. But following a number of collapses planning pe...

 The museum at Barranda did not disappoint and luckily I timed my visit with a tour in which the guide played quite a few of the instruments. Traditional instruments from all over the world. The building was purpose built and the acoustics were excellent, such that listening to the sound vibrations was a whole body experience and left me feeling quite tingly. The guide explained that the reason that the town of Barranda was chosen for the site of the museum was because of the annual traditional music festival that is held there in the last weekend of January, called "Las Cuadrillos". The museum's website is also excellent and has several fascinating videos. http://museomusicaetnica.com/ There were still a few hours of daylight left after I left, so I continued cycling through Singla to La Almudena where there was a hostel marked on Google maps. My plan was to avoid the main highways to Castillejar, and as many mountains as possible, although in Spain they are never far aw...