TRANS-ANDALUZ: Day 8 - Gibraltar, HO!

Under the watchful eyes of a an elderly couple, Claire and I managed to get the stuff off the train in record time (having received a finger-wagging from the conductor NOT to hold the train up; this, in spite of the train leaving fifteen minutes late from Ronda station.) We got the bikes assembled, went to the bathroom, wheeled the bikes out of the Cortes de la Frontera station and took a long, long look up into the hills - stunted mountains, really, great slabs of limestone poking out of the hills at odd angles, and dotted yellow with lichen and broom, which was in bloom.

The secondary highway leading up into town was narrow, but it seemed like drivers were used to packed bikes slowly making their way up the hill: no one blasted by at stupid speeds. A short toot of the horn, a smile, sometimes a befuddled look - and from one woman driving a Range Rover with British plates, a round of applause.

Riding with cyclists who are better than I am makes me realize that I AM getting better, slowly but surely. Our ride takes us sixty-five kilometres across the southern end of the Parque Natural de los Alcorconales, and I only had to get off and push twice - not bad, considering that the entire day consisted of nearly 600 metres of accumulated climbing.

This is bike touring as it should be: good, resurfaced roads with lots of green hills on either side, lots of (not THAT high) mountain passes with scenic lookouts (perfect for picnics) and the occasional group of guys who have escaped from their wives to reclaim their youth, complete with litre bottles of beer and a couple of chunks of chorizo -- and a tent they readily admit they've never put up before.

We're heading towards the town of Alcalá de los Gazules, but there's a hitch: Claire didn't realize how cold it was going to be down here, and doesn't want to camp. I'm pretty sure that we're going to be S.O.L. trying to find anything that's not a campsite - and, sure enough, anything on the west side of the Iberian mountain system, where the weather is better, is booked solid.

At about 6pm we roll into Alcalá and hit the campsite, which, to be fair, looks about as appealing as a down-at-heels Florida trailer park where people have lived for so long that they can't be bothered to take care of the lots. Turns out that impression is not that far off the mark: the vast majority of people staying there have GBZ - Gibraltar plates. Gibraltar is only thirty miles down the road, and this is the weekend getaway for a lot of British troops stationed on the Rock, as well as for gibralteños with kids who want to get away on a regular basis.

We go to sleep with the lilting Andalusian Spanish which is interwoven with phrases I don't understand...and punctuated with the occasional statement right out of EastEnders or Beverley Hills 90210: Crikey! Whoamgod! Duuuude!