Day 1 — Tuesday 26 April 2011

Tarifa – Vejer de la Frontera

The previous evening we had put the car and my bike locked on its roof in the town car park, an open piece of dusty land surrounded by a high wire fence and locked during the night. We got up and intended to get the car from the car park before looking for breakfast, but the car park was still locked at half past seven. We went back to the hostal and explained that we would have to leave the bags there until the car park opened. The proprietor said the car park would open at eight o’clock but it was still locked when we went to check.

Instead we set about finding breakfast and came across a shop selling very good panini, which we sat eating on a bench in the sun at the side of the street. No milk and cornflakes for us! Back up at the car park a man eventually turned up at nine o’clock and let us in. I changed into cycling gear in the middle of the car park and loaded up. My previous careful load planning went to pot in the dusty car park and in my confusion I left my book behind. That was my first mistake, but in hind sight there weren’t many more. I attached my small bicycle computer and spun the wheel, but it didn’t register at all, I think because the sensor on the fork had got waterlogged driving down from Granada. After about three days it started to work again as the sensor dried out in the sun and worked reliably for the rest of the journey until a few days before the end when I left the actual unit on my handlebars overnight and it got a good soaking. After that the display became corrupted even though the sensor was functioning.

I had another bicycle computer with me that I had bought in order to make use of a solar powered battery charger Liz had given me as a Christmas present. This other computer was a Bryton Rider50 GPS unit that I was hoping would record a detailed map and log of my journey. It was doing fine until it got stolen on the final night at the camp site at Pont-Audemer, and bang went all my detailed journey data.

The man on the gate of the parking lot was keen to lock up and go home so we had to move everything quickly onto the road outside the gates. A final check showed no serious omissions so Liz and I hugged each other and I set off with a lump in my throat at about eleven o’clock. The road out of Tarifa is very steep up to the main road and I had to get off and walk. There would be many other times when I simply gave up and had to walk, but for it to happen so soon was a bit embarrassing with Liz and Eva watching from the bottom of the hill.

I got to Vejer at about half past one. The N340 appears from the map to be a principal route, but in fact has very little traffic. I was struck by the excellent road surface and for the whole of my time in Spain was pleasantly surprised by the generally high standard of Spanish roads. I would have a shock when I got to France, but that is a later story.

Vejer itself is set on a high hill above the main road and I really ought to have gone up to have a look, but by the time I got to the camp site I reckoned I’d had enough. There was a restaurant on the road near the camp site so I had a filling Menu del Dia before walking up a dirt track to the deserted site. A French family with a small caravan turned up and I rang a telephone number displayed in the office window on behalf of us both. I have very little Spanish or French and I thought it a bit of joke that I should be ’phoning on behalf of the French family. After a halting performance on the ’phone I understood that someone would be round in due course so I pitched my tent, washed my sweaty things and used the showers that were heated from a solar heated water system. A man turned up at about half past three and charged €8 for the night.

The French caravanning family invited my to have a drink with them and we chatted for an hour or so. It was so warm my washing was dry before I turned in.

Liz Eva would be staying in Seville tonight and I rather envied them.