Ronda, Spain

89 miles 5980 ft

In the inimitable words of Andy Williams “We’re Almost There”. Just one more day to go after 41 days of cycling and almost 4000 miles covered since 18 August. Chris and Nick will have done around 800 miles since joining me in Zaragoza too.  

 Leaving just after sunrise, we headed south, passing through more empty fields of garlic which still smelled very strongly and then through a mix of other crops including vines and cotton (below) as well as the ever present olives. 

Unfortunately much of the route today was on slightly bigger roads that could not be avoided, although in general they were quiet, except for one ten mile stretch between Puente Genil and Estapa, but at least it did have a hard shoulder that we could ride on out of the way of the lorries that thundered passed. It was not a fun session and we were all relieved when that was over and turning the corner just after this, we found this gypsy encampment with the washing hanging up next to a sweet factory in Estapa.  

 Settling down to coffee we had several curious stares from passers by , but only one stopped to ask what we were doing and was happy with our response. Just as we were leaving the nice lady helper from the Canadian cycle tour pitched up, as they had lost their 72 year old cyclist- very careless and poorly organised. We offered to let her know if we came across him but failed to do so. 

  
Leaving the gypsy encampment we called into one of the five sweet factories in the town and  had a tasting of several of the local speciality almond pulvorones, but were not that keen, however Chris and I did rather like their chocolate Nougat-like sweet, so bought some  to take home. 

 As ever we saw many olive trees and harvesting was underway, some by hand picking furiously, others with a mix of machines and sticks bashing the trees to remove the olives which were collected on matting laid under the trees.  

 This church clock face in Campillo shows how much the Spaniards care about the correct time with the clock faces showing totally different wrong times.   

  As the temperature rose today, lunch was held under the watchful eye of the castle at Teba.  
 After lunch, we had the longest climb of the day that went on for 18 km rising 1800ft in the process.  There was this great message for motorcyclists to watch out and not go to crazy on the sweeping bends. Starting gradually, the gradient did get to 8% near the top. 

 From the top of this climb we then had a good drop down into Ronda. This had been the subject of much debate during the day, as both Nick and Chris have been before and had said that it is on the top of a hill. Ever the optimist Nick said that we may come down onto Ronda and for once, he thankfully was proved right.  

 Ronda is a very attractive town and really the first place that we have been to in Spain that is truly on the tourist route full of bars and English signs. 

 Tomorrow is the very last cycling day of the whole tour and with Chris and Nick catching flights on Saturday and the rest of us having to drive the camper 600 miles across Spain to get to Santander, we are keen to try to arrive a bit earlier, so will be looking to leave at sunrise      
 I will be very sad at reaching the end of such a great adventure but I will be pleased to get back home to see Caroline, Halcyon and Remy.