Et c’est la Grande Bleue qui rehausse le ciel
Chacun d’eux te réclame et t’offre l’horizon
Leaving the Mountains
So this is Spain in autumn: quite chilly mornings until around noon when the sky clears and the air heats up to 30 degrees and more. Especially those early hours are great for cycling and today I spent them riding up to the Alto del Legionario pass at 1360 m. After yesterday’s endless Sierra Nevada ascent this one barely rates as an effort, especially considering I started at the altitude of Granada at about 800 m above sea level.
The descent into Almuñécar has low gradients and can thus be enjoyed for a long, long time. Lots of cyclists thought the same today so the road was somewhat busy but with business of the good kind. Except for a horde of fancy cars with Dutch license plates whose drivers kept behaving like entiteled children; one of them passed me in an ultra sketchy manoever, violating half the traffic code simultaneously.
Loser drivers aside, the scenery up there is magnficent with its jagged mountain ridges and countless rock formations. Probably even more enjoyable going uphill. From the bottom of this descent it is only a few meters to the sea which in this part of the world means extensive beaches lined with overpriced hotels.
Costa del Sol
At least the road is flat, mostly so, and one gets from A to B quite efficiently. Of course a couple hills every now and then are mandatory for the Mediterranean coastline so the afternoon wasn’t entirely horizontal. The larger towns saw some traffic on this Saturday but I’m happier than ever now to avoid high season. This place must be unbearable then.
In Málaga I rode up to the Gibralfaro hill on whose lower slopes the Alcazaba was built. Again it was not possible to enter the citadel on a bicycle so I just called it a day and went to do some sightseeing in the city center instead. The campsite on the outskirts happens to be located right next to the airport under the entry lane. It’s close to midnight and there’s still flights arriving and departing, let’s hope this doesn’t go on all night.
161 km with 1700 m climbed after all thanks to the not-so-flat-after-all coastline.
gps tracks
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