You gotta smile
Trip Start
Jul 07, 2008
1
33
219
Trip End
May 27, 2010
Seville,
Andalusia,
Spain and Canary Islands
Saturday, September 13, 2008
El Ronquillo (40kms from Seville)
Friggin hot!
We decided to stay an extra night in Aracena, not least because when we awoke at 7am to leave the day before last, it was blowing a gale. It is a lovely little town and the area is beautiful, so it was no hardship. We rode into town and eventually found a map shop, with a more detailed map of Andalucia. Wifi connections were available, intermittently, so that was a bit frustrating and didn't really allow us to do the things we wanted to do (book accommodation in Seville). Anyways, we treated ourselves to some lovely mussels for lunch except by the time we got back to the campsite and cooked them it was 4.30. So dinner was an egg and tomato sandwich about 8pm, followed quite shortly by bed.
Set off at 9am this morning and the sun was already up. The plan was to ride 40 odd kms to a place where we could take one of the very small roads up and over the hills, past the lake and eventually to El Ronquillo. When we got to the road it didn't have a sign to El Ronquillo but it did have a warning 'cortada a 9.95kms', which when we looked this up in our book, means 'cut'. We knew it was approx 12 kms to El Ronquillo, so we decided not to take the road as it could be a wasted journey and have to come back. Little did we know what was in store for us later that day.
This meant doubling the number of kms to get to El Ronquillo (the only place within sight of Seville that had camping marked on the map) making our daily total to be approx 65kms. Plus, there would be 15 or so kms that we would have to backtrack tomorrow to get into Sevilla. So resigned to the fact that we were going to be doing extra AND having to double back tomorrow, off we went. I kept saying to Dave 'what's at El Ronquillo anyway?' as we couldn't really tell from the map. There's lakes here, but that's all.
As we arrived in El Ronquillo I was still wondering what the attraction was but spotted the camping sign on the way in, but with no directions. We found the town map, again, no campsite marked and no directions. Finally, I asked a woman who appeared to be local and she pointed in the direction of the lake but told us it was closed! Closed!!!!! Fifteen kms up (mostly) a frigging great big hill, in the friggin heat AND tomorrow we're going to have to go back the way we've just come - frigging hell! 'What a waste of energy' plus a few expletives were my words. Dave said 'well not really, it's good for your legs - climbing'. He knew from the look on my face not to say another word.
The other day Dave discovered he had broken a spoke. During said discovery he made further discoveries, that he had previously broken 2 more spokes. Mmmm, he looked worried and when we arrived at the campsite he checked both seat posts for spares that he thought he had packed, but they weren't there. He then began explaining about why he thought they had broken, .... shortness of the spoke..... angle of the spoke (quantum mechanics to a 4 year old again) so I listened attentively, as you do. Then Dave's little face lit up as he scrabbled around in the pocket of his new cycling shorts, 'but, it's not all doom and gloom' he said 'today, when I discovered the spoke I also found something' by this time I was intrigued, a piece of jewellery perhaps? Diamond ring? He was beaming from ear to ear as he pulled something out of his pocket '50 cents' he said, as he handed it to me to put in the purse.
You gotta smile!
Laters
