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Tweety Says Go!
So we finally managed to leave Seville after a few failed attempts due to bad weather. We left the city and straight away it was everything we had wanted and expected - the sun was shining, the roads were flat and we saw what we thought were real rural Spanish houses. Perfection. We had no plans of where to stay but we didnt care... so we thought. Around 5pm that evening we had done some damn good cycling along lovely flat roads, seen some serious road kill and discovered that all spanish farms kept dogs (all of them. They mainly ended up as road kill), we decided to stop for the evening to give our bums a very well earned rest. We pitched up on the joining of two major A-roads where mainly massive lorries passed. There was a nice little patch of land between two trees that seemed out of the way enough that if the Policia passed, we wouldnt get seen and moved on. Again, perfect. s***ting our pants we had dinner and settled in for some sleep - uh uh *wrong*...along comes Buggsie. The food and tent munching demon rabbit. Along with the aforementioned massive lorries and trucks and what felt like minus temporatures, it was not the good sleep we had hoped for. We woke up (well...woke up from not sleeping!) that morning as soon as it was light, we shook off our tent, packed up our stuff and got a rollin'. We checked with Satnav and it said we could find a hostel in a place called Villamartin, a further 40km along the way. We had been heading for Arcos de le Frontera and this was not far off route. We made haste crossing some of the most beautiful hills (the first of many) and even more beautiful views (We would load pictures but no poxy internet cafes allow Java Quick Upload so its taking us aaages to load the few photos we have). At this point the riding was really enjoyable, sweaty but enjoyable. About 2 km outside of Villamartin we saw signs for a hotel so we pulled in to see what the cost was. It was beautiful so we pitched up for the night. After de-smelling we wondered into the town to find some food - wow we found it too. We stumbled into one of about 3 restaurants in this tiny hillside village and after having Steve's Cookie Monster Jumper being chatted up by a local (we still arent entirely sure what he was saying but think it might have been that he himself was the village Cookie Monster...or that he sold them.) we were introduced to the village English speaker who even though it was his day off, he came in to wait our table. The ex-pat Scot who spoke 5 langauages and had about as many teeth...all in one part of his mouth...suggested a few dishes we should share for our meal. We have never eaten so much fish in our lives. Damn good but we ate so much that Steve was completely incapacitated apart from the drool. We stagged back to the hotel after a short walk and the discovery of a orange lemon tree (picture to follow, Jurr maybe you can shed some light on how this is possible!) and spent the evening brushing up on our Spanish by watching Spanish gameshows - quite eyeopening. The next day we peddled to Arcos de la Frontera. By the time we got there we were pretty tired so decided finding somewhere to stay was a good plan - uh uh, wrong again. Arcos is basically just a little town of little big winding streets which are NOT made for bikes, let along bikes with luggage. But we found somewhere and found that it had quite a view, a pretty castle and a nice KKK statue erected in 2004...including burning crosses. We were lucky to get out the next morning as the landlady who kindly locked away our bikes was knowhere to be found in the morning. But we did.
That day (Sunday at this point) we made a heavy 70km treck to just outside Vejer de la Frontera and were very proud of ourselves. We had almost hit sea and we bloody excited. Not that the hils of Spain arent beautiful but by this point we had crossed some of the most vast mountains it had to offer and seen more wind turbines than we thought imaginable in one place. Very efficient the Spanish, even if they do seem to have one of the worst fly tipping and littering problems in Europe. Shocking. SO the next day we finally made it to just outside Tarifa...which had a beach!!! A beach, which has sea!!! And is the Wind and Kite Surfing Capital of Europe, the very very bottom point of Spain. We found a lovely campsite and pitched up for a few days. Over this time we spent walking the beaches, seeing a dead dolphin washing up on the shore and looking at Africa. It was beautiful and warm and we drank 1-2EUR wine. After spending 4 nights there in our cheapest accomodation yet, we decided to make a break for Gibraltar. Stopping off in the biggest inbred s***hole in Spain, Algeciras. DONT GO THERE. Not even a stop over. We both would have taken a night with the demon bunny again more than the hostel we ended up in. The next morning we got up before light and packed our bikes quicker than ever with a cigar smoking midget and a few other odd bods watching, cycled quicker than ever and through the rain, up big hills but finally, made it the last few miles to Gibraltar.
And here we are. In Gib, finally. We love it. The people are lovely and apart from the fact that it has rained continuously since we got here, its really quite nice. Now planning our next steps so will keep you in the know.
Peace out ya'll! ; ]
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