But we managed to leave by 11.00 and after a short hop down the motorway we were on the B roads we desired, we stopped for fuel and ian blessed the bike with his old water (an Irish thing i think) and headed off to the mountains, we stopped for provisions in a small town for lunch and even talked about camping in the wild tonight. The road then took us along a winding road full off switch back and good Tarmac, until we hit the left turn that just went up. We were not sure if we could get across the top as the map Justin had studied the night before showed a track that went right over the top so as we have discovered so far on this trip ......if Justin says its a route ........don't believe it !
As we wound up through the mountain the road got worse and turned to pot holes and then mud with puddles and slippery stuff, it was great and we were both enjoying it.
When we reached the top at 2050 meters there was a barrier saying we could go no further (well done Justin), so nothing else than to set up the stove and cook some soup, I must say at this point that 2 hours before we left a nice 22 degrees, it was now about 2 degrees and we were surrounded by snow. So there was nothing else to do while the soup was boiling than to have a snow ball fight! After all that energy Ian made some cheese and ham rolls and Justin boiled the soup to perfection.
We were enjoying the moment when the clouds came in and things got very dark, so we decided to pack up fast and head down the mountain, which was more fun than going up, with mud flying and the back wheel spinning up on the wet mud, we even made a small detour through some very large puddles just to see how deep they were.
Back on the road we headed East on some fantastic road with flowing bends and hairpins to die for, if I had to guess I would say we must of hit t least 400 bends today of which about 70 of them were hair pins!
At about 4 o'clock we needed to find somewhere to sleep and Ian wanted a mountain auberge and Justin agreed, so we headed up through a mountain pass again through the snow and found a small auberge but decided there would be more. We crossed another snow covered pass at 2000 meters where ian picked up a walking stick for later use, not much later! The road the spiralled down at quite a rate through some very pretty but very closed towns until we hit Guadix a small Spanish town on the plateau of the Sierra Nevada. And picked a small hotel on a back street and went for a couple of beers before diner, but diner was not needed!!
We had a couple of beers in the hotel bar and got a fee tapas dish with each beer, we thought that was enough before diner and went for a walk, we then stopped for another beer at a small Spanish bar and got another tapas dish free, so we thought we would test the idea and had a few more drinks, all accompanied with a free tapas dish. This seemed to good, and we were now full so returned back to the hotel for a coffee and surprise surprise a free cake, so we have spent 17 euros on drink and had 5 tapas dishes large enough for 2 and a free desert, so more money saved and still no need to camp.
The plan for tomorrow is more mountain roads and maybe an auberge if we can find one before heading further north, but we both agree that today has been the best road riding day, although we can only remember the last few days, it's like we were never stuck in the sand!!!
The card is again enjoying the balcony of this little hotel, knowing she has little time left to get a tan!
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