Jo Ackroyd’s Big Biking Adventure

The red rocks and scorching heat have given way to a landscape of mountains that fall into the sea and a dirty brown dust that covers everything. This end of Spain is known as Europes green house and how obvious this is when you see the fields of decaying structures used to farm Europes tomatoes. They are some of the largest developments you will see, forced in between the mountain valleys but in such a state of disrepair as to look like the shards of a ghosts veil. Their age is told in the colour of the fabrics, the deeper the brown dust has infiltrated the older they are.

Tower cranes abound around the coastline, development here equals any big English city, Ive never seen a concentration like it, other than in Andorra where nothing can be built in the valley floor without them.

Saw my first snake, an enormous green thing moving so fast I could barely keep track of it, there are many of lizards, each watching for a moth or fly to get just a little too close, cacti are dotted around the roadside and I forgot to mention … paraqueets everywhere! What a noise they make, its akin to a car alarm! I saw today an almond grove being harvested by a vibrating tractor which was interesting for me but incredibly boring for the farmer!

Ive not managed to get into the rythm of Spain. Usually, within a day or two the towns and their layout combine with the native way of life to create a rythm you can feel and get used to. For me here, each town is an individual, each layout unique and every time I stop, the task to find the shops and services I need is a drawn out affair. The siesta thing is predictable, but then some shops never reopen! Every post office has different opening times and then they only open for only an hour a day!
Now you know why there are no new photos!
Only the bars are dependable, but even they close early in the evening.

Still, in five days time…Morrocco - in another new hat!

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