How to put a bike in a suitcase....

... in 7 easy steps (not!)

interesting ( or not ) stats

So as promised here are some stats you might enjoy reading

Travelling info:

-Total distance covered: 1102 Km
-Highest altitude: 1378m ( yes you guessed it right, it was Pajares!!, although Boca del asno was not that far behind)
-Total ascent: 11600m ( yep thats right, almost one and a half times the Everest!!!)
-Total descent: the same, started and finished at sea level ( bummer)
-Provinces crossed: 9 (Asturias, Leon, Zamora, Salamanca, Caceres, Badajoz, Cordoba, Sevilla, Malaga)


Food consumed:
-15 loafs of bread
-1/2 kilo of jamon
-1/2 kilo of cheese
-1 salchichon ( type of sausage, amazing!)
-millions of chocolates, cookies etc that were eaten either as per usual or scooped with a spoon cause of the heat!
-28 litres of fruite juice! ( i think i am sick of zumo de melocoton y uva and piña y uva!!!)

Animals encountered:
-15 snakes (one of which was alive! not so good when you have a fear of snakes!)
-5 hedgehogs
-millions of rabbits
-lots of birds: eagles, storks (seem to be the national bird of Spain), owls, vultures
-some amazing peakocks (ok they were in a park but it still counts!)
-4 lizards (aparently some were quite rare, saw them in Monfrague national park)
-a few million carcasses in different levels of decomposition (nice!)

Finally wanted to give you the moto of this trip which we had to learn the hard way and that is :

THA PAIN IN SPAIN IS IN THE MOUN-TAIN!

Raniska

[Trip log] Day 15: Antequera-Malaga

Cant believe it! we finally made it!!! after a long long long day we arrived in Malaga. The day started quite lazy from Antequera cause we though we were going to have an easy, i repeat an easy 50Klm ride to Malaga. Problem number one: the wind was so strong that day that instead of our usual 20K/h ( i know we are stars) we were going with a max of 8K/h and the wind was getting stronger and stronger. Have a look at the video! Problem number two: although i was assured that this there was going to be a small uphill for a couple of kilometers and then ALL downhill to Malaga, the road kept going up and up, steeper and steeper!! small parenthesis: the previous day as we were looking around Antequera to see what there is around, we noticed that there was a national park called el Torcal. But when we found out that it was on the mountains and about 15Klm away we decided to give it a miss for obvious reasons, well ... thats what we thought!!! came to realize very soon that we were going up that mountain !!! So its 1pm and we have just finished climbing the mountain ( boca del asno), yes i have admit the el Torcal was great but not worth 900 meters of climbing at 35 degrees! So as we are getting really tired and we think this is the end of the uphills, we decide to have stop and have lunch. There we meet an really nice ( what seemed nice at the time) old man. He was from the area, even gave us water , cause we run out, and told us that there were only a few more hills to go and then it was all downhill to Malaga. Problem number three: that NEVER HAPPENED!! there was NO downhill, it was aLL uphill, well up and down but it felt all up. I really wanted to go back find that lovely old man and give him a piece of my mind!!! So 7 hours later, we finally arrived in Malaga and there just in front of us was the mediterrenean sea!!! mission accomplished: cycling through Spain from the Atlantic to the Med in 15 days (including 2 rest days). i am only going to give one sentence for Malaga cause i dont think it deserved any more than that. Not a pretty city, wouldnt recommend it, horrible beach , avoid at all costs! (although does have really nice seafood, maybe you should go afterall) So i think this is were we have to end this little blog and say a big thank you to everyone that has supported us through out this trip. It has been an amazing experience, both physically and mentally challenging and at the same time got to see a very interesting aspect of Spain. I loved it!!! Also a special thanks to Yari for his help and putting up this site for us :) For those of you that cant get enough of this blog, we have compiled some stats of this trip just for a laugh which we will be posting shortly, so keep looking, Raniska

At Malaga

Arrived to Malaga 3 hours ago, finally! Last leg of the route was very hard. We'll post some photos if we find internet. Cheers!

Day 15. Malaga is near!

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Climbed a huge mountain, "el Torcal", only 30 km to go. Cheers!

Unusual photos!

A little bit of everything

Cheers!

Pedro

Touring Cordoba...

in a Segway!



A weird photo we forgot to post :-)

[Trip log] Day 14: Puente Genil-Antequera

Early start to get out of here as soon as possible! Today we reached our 1000Klm mark, only about 100 more to go!!! The route to Antequera was pretty nice, full of sunflowers and olive trees as far as your eyes could see! Arrived at Antequera around lunch time and had a stroll around the town. Its a very nice town as well, takes about an hour to do the touristic tour. can i just also say today was the first time i asked for information at the tourist office and the woman didnt say " do you speak english?" i think after 2 weeks i finally learned how to ask for info and not look like a complete idiot! small tip, if you are visiting Spain and not a native speaker get some quick lessons in advance (or a spanish boyfriend, that works too) or else you might be struggling to even get dinner.

So tomorrow our LAST day!! i cant believe it almost over, but let me tell you its not over until the .... lady sings and in this case thats me ( have been doing lots of practise during this trip, Pedro can verify that!) WE have been thinking of giving you some stats for this trip so keep checking this space.

Raniska

[Trip log] Day 13: Cordoba-Puente Genil

After a very slow start ( had to recover from previous nights feast!) made our way to Puente Genil. The route was relatively short (62 Klm) however it was very fustrating. There were quite a lot of hills and we had an awful head wind ( thats against us!) that made it SO hard. We had to pedal even at the very few downhills that we had that day. Finally arrived at the hotel, didnt have the best reviews of the world, looked like time had stood still stince the 70´s but we thought for one night´s sleep it should be ok. Until we walked in the room and lets just say the ventilation of the air condition must have been somewhere VERY close to the sewage! Definately dont recommend it (it's called Hotel Xenil, be warned). But we were SO tired and there weren´t that many options in Puente Genil, so we just went to sleep without the air condition and basically fried ourselves to sleep!

I dont think we actually have any photos of Puente Genil, really not impressed! nor by the town or the people, who kept driving through the main square with their sport cars and the loud music over and over and over again!!!! Looking foward to getting out of this s...... ( sorry to the Spaniards :) )

Raniska

[Trip log] Day 12: Cordoba

A well deserved rest day! Cordoba is a beautifull city. The new town is nothing exiting same as every other city, however the old part of the city is really beautiful. I think Cordoba is a must if you are in this part of the world. Be a bit aware of the tourists though, can get a bit cramped when you are walking down the narrowest street in the entire universe an a group of 50 Japanese appears out of nowhere and they all want to stay together! oh yes! and take the obligatory photos!!!
Anyway, spend the whole day touring around the old part of town, saw the alcazar ( castle), the synagogue, the roman bridge, the traditional Andalucian houses with their typical patios and last but not least the mezquita. Diffuct to explain what that is but lets try: so this used to be a roman church, which was destroyed by the Arabs when they conquered Spain, then they built a mosque on top of the ruins. Then when the Spanish reclaimed that area the decided to built a Cathedral in/with the mosque. The result is something that you HAVE to see! really impressed! Finished a perfect day with a REALLY nice meal, if you are even in Cordoba you have to try the 2 specialities: deep fried aubergines covered with a honey sauce ( still not sure if its savoury or sweet but definetely worth trying) and the "rabo de toro"" ( bull´s tail in a stew!!!). Finally ended up at a maroccan type of cafe for some tea and shishas, by this point i could barely breath from SO much food but it was worth it!

Raniska

Day 14. Going to Antequera

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On our way to Antequera. Nice weather, not too hot. Crossed the 1000km line. Cheers!

[Trip log] Day 11: Castuera - Cordoba

Hi there!


So we are finally in Cordoba! what a hard day! we had to cover 160Klm of ups and downs and the weather is not doing us any favours. Left Castuera early ( thats the norm now so we can avoid the heat) but had to cope with 30Klm of uphill before we got into a valley. then the heat got so much we had to stop at the nearest town. In this trip i have been complaining about the lack of people in the small villages, they always seem empty. Let me tell you this village was the loudest busiest village in the entire universre! all i wanted to do was rest for a couple of hours before we head on but it was impossible. So ended up at the front garden of the fire brigade! underneath a tree until 4pm. The next part of the trip was also hard. at some point we got overheated again and stopped at a gas station to get a cold drink and they looked at us like we were aliens! maybe they dont see a lot of cyclists in these parts of spain. Then there was this really big hill, that as we were approaching it, it looked like its was a 50% slope! thank got it was just an optical illusion, but had a small stroke for a moment. Finally arrived at Cordoba at 9pm and headed to our hotel, only to find out that we had put the wrond address on the GPS!!! finally arrived at the hotel and after a quick dinner went straight to bed.

Raniska

[Trip log] Day 10: Trujillo - Castuera

hola people,

Today we had a relatively short day, however the days are getting harder and harder becase of the heat! I also was so tired last night and missed my dinner, didnt have my breakfast so about 30 min into the ride i almost collapsed, so had to take a break and stuff myself with lots and lots of sugar! although like i said the day was relatively short it seemed to go on for ever. At some point we are going up a hill, the sun is right above us, its 3pm and we are both overheating! we are 4K outside Castuera and there is no way we can make it unless we have a little break, but we cant find a single shade!!! so Pedro luckily found a construction site and we went there and sat under their machines! until a few minutes later the workers came back from their lunch break and had a REALLY good laugh when we told them were we came from and were we are going! i think one of them mamde a comment like, yeah i´ve been to Malaga with the car and it was really far away!! cheers!!!

Finally arrived in Castuera, had the obligatory shower & nap in that order before we could explore the town. It is a nice small town, all white houses and not touristic at all! We had a hard time finding somewhere to eat, so after a stroll around the town and buying some supplies from the supermarket we ended up having dinner at the hostel (which wasn't bad). Taking lessons from the previous night, that I didn't eat enough for dinner, I had the biggest, most humongous steak in the entire universe! (accompanied with some gorgeous garlicy green beans!)

Raniska

[Trip log] Day 9: Plasencia - Trujillo

Hi guys!,

So today we did Plasencia - Trujillo. We started our day having a humongous breakfast at the Parador. Raniska was more moderate but I had enough breakfast for 2 or 3 people

We did about 80Km, which would have been fine if it wasn't for the incredible heat! The route was a little bumpy, with the some steep hills but beautiful scenery. We crossed a National Park, Monfragüe, which is known for its vulture and eagle colonies. We had an early lunch at the park and continued our way to Trujillo. At this point the heat was starting to become really uncomfortable. After 1pm we had to stop every 10 km more or less (that's about half an hour) to cool ourselves down and avoid to melt the tyres (okay, that might be an exageration but you get the idea)

Finally we arrived to Trujillo at about 4pm. Picture this: sweaty, tired and hot and what is the way to get to the centre of the town?? That's right, a little (not so little) nice (not so nice) uphill!

So that's all for today. Tomorrow we have a long day (about 100km) and we are quite tired, so forgive us for not writing anything else!

Pedro

Some photos of food we have had

Dedicated to Evangeline! (we had loads of other stuff, but we always forgot to take the photo!)