(Title picture is from yesterday in the Parque Natural Sierra de Castril, narrow single track only went for a couple 100m but a good occasion to take a photo and make me look like a badass)

A week in and it’s been really great so far. I started in Malaga, stayed a day longer than i wanted to because it was harder to find a fitting gas canistrr than i yhought. The third Decathlon (at the airport) finally had one. I also picked up a windbreaker there because i felt that the wind was really cold but the sun really strong, too warm for my rain jacket. Was a good idea, used it a lot already. From there went into the mountains then down to Granada where i made an early rest day, had a pension for 25€ a night in the heart of the city and wanted to have a look around. Early rest day was also good because i was not in shape at all (last cycled in ocyober really, other than running errands at home), and the first days were pretty tough with lots of climbing and steep grades.

I feel like the grades here may generally a bit steeper than what i know from elsewhere, maybe i am imagining it though due to my form.

• Cycling out of Granada. If you enhance the jpg enough, you can see a crystal clear Alhambra

Went back into the mountains on what i believe is a part of the badlands race route, very lonely and beautiful. Went on through the Gorafe desert. It was drizzling

• Gorafe desert

In the desert there were quite some people, motorbikers, vans. Not too bad though. In the weird sandy riverbed (?) at the bottom of it seemed to be a small cycling race going on. After a river crossing i was all alone again for a good while in amazing landscapes.

Yesterday i went into the parque from the title picture all day along this hiking track. Only at the bottom of it i saw some hikers, the rest of the day i was aline. Slept in one of the refugios up there on the high plateau, it was so good because it is getting really cold in the mountains. It was drizzling, really windy and i was freezing. So happy that i have mu stove with me to eat something hot, also earlier just make a coffee break and wait out the rain. So good when there’s no infrastructure around.

• My bike in the refugio. Somehow looks like great weather outside in this photo :)

Refugio also had a water pump. This morning it was real cold again, the nights in the mountains were like 3-5° which i did not really expect tbh. It was raining and i descended. Fucking ice cold hands, cold everything. After about 15km downhill i finally made it to a village, where i hung around in a cafe, eating tostadas con tomate and drinking tea and coffee. Rain kept raining and i didn’t want to go back up on the hiking tracks, so i made up a new route to the next village on my original route where i could take a room. Cycled through the rain on mostly asphalt, which was nice for a change, the road was also super calm, met like three cars on 40 km of riding. Beautiful views too.

• Through the trees you can see the village where i’m at now. Every lemmy user here in Siles is invited to as much beer as you can drink, pm me for details :)

So i got a room here now. Somehow the sun is coming out, weather report said it’d rain all day, heavy in the evening. Next two days it’s gonna rain too.

I am waiting for a restaurant to open, which is only ever after 8. So i have time to kill writing this post, haha.

The whole ‘no dinner before 8’ really is not great for my touring time table. Also the siesta fucked me over a few times. I hope i will get used to it.