Day 2: Malaga to El Chorro…
- Todays mileage: 35
- Total mileage: 35
- Disasters: zero ?
Both of us didn’t have the best nights sleep for no particular reason so we woke late ~9am Spanish time. After final packing and pumping tyres it was time to store the bike boxes for the two weeks.
We hit the road about 10:20. Luckly it’s sunday & the streets were relatively quiet. We’re using Maps.me on my phone with pre-prepared route overlays (kml files). This made navigating city streets relatively easy.
We were stopped by a man with a gun for 10 mins while the Malaga half marathon went by.
We continued through urban sprawl till Pizarra where we stopped for some lunch. It was a busy locals cafe with three large horses tethered outside – suppose that beats the drink driving rules.
Now my Spanish is pretty shit but we managed to order two coffees and two cheese toasties. Coffees were lovely – almost up to Costa Fryers standards !
As we’d a few miles in our legs by now (no breakfast) we ordered the same again – or so we thought. Two takeaway coffees and two wrapped toasties were delivered – not sure what we said to order that ! Anyway coffees were drunk and toasties saved for later.
From Pizarra the traffic thinned and we started climbing into the mountains. Hot going – Garmin said 24°C.
Talking of traffic I have to say that the Spanish are very courteous and respectful drivers. Everyone slowed to pass us and gave us plenty of room.
We saw loads of club cyclists so I think the route we’d picked was a popular cycling route with numerous signs on giving cyclists room. Such a contrast to the UK.
El Chorro’s small but quite busy with tourists. The draw is walking and climbing. El Caminito del Rey is the famous walk which passes through stunning scenery, at times on elevated walkways along shear rock faces.
It’s a linear walk – you can only do it one way. some fun facts can be found here: https://www.caminitodelrey.info/en/5243/about-route
We’d booked the hotel La Garganta while having lunch. It turned out to be lovely – a hotel with character. The room is over two floors with a spiral staircase up to the bedroom & bathroom. Trouble is the spiral staircase is TINY. How you’d get a suitcase up is beyond me…
Another quirk of the hotel room was the shower. A precarious climb in when wet & the highest water pressure I’ve ever experienced in a domestic supply – great for massaging aching limbs but far too strong for the family jewels ?
The hotel restaurant was lovely but again my Spanish let me down. I tried to order a jug of water for the table “jarra de agua” but the waitress couldn’t understand my pronunciation. Made her laugh anyway before coming back in perfect english. Well it wasn’t perfect but better vocabulary than a few brits I know.
Anyway a summary of todays route…