Scary spiders!

We are really here to see one of Spain’s most famous monuments, the Mezquita de Córdoba, the Mosque-Cathedral of Cordoba. If the concept of a Mosque-Cathedral confuses you, it does me, too, but then I am a self-confessed religious numbskull. This has to be something to do with the mix-up between the Moors and Christians in Spain way back when.

As if visiting a religious monument wasn’t enough scary spiders for me, I was also being asked to ride the 25mks into Cordoba on a Spanish bus. Yikes! The campsite had helpfully provided Francine with a bus timetable, the buses going from a stop a short walk outside the campsite, so my chances of getting out of it were two: slim and fat. Besides, what else would I do on the campsite all day? Along with a couple of Spanish couples, we set off for the 09:00 bus into Córdoba.

€3 each got us to the Córdoba central bus station. The bus was very nearly full up but then, it was a Friday. This was where we’d hope to catch the return bus. Disembarking, we began wandering towards the Mezquita.

Mezquita is Spanish for Mosque. It is officially known as the Catedral de Nuestra Senora de la Asuncion [Cathedral of our Lady of the Assumption]. As a mosque, it was begun in 785 [it says here]. Right, that’s as much history as I can handle.

We made it to the old city walls, entered and wound our way through some amazingly narrow streets finally arriving at the entrance to the mosque-cathedral. Coughing up our €10 each, just in case the Roman Catholic church wasn’t quite rich enough, we got tickets to enter the hallowed walls – but please remove your hat on the inside. I do that, anyway, by the way. Odd. I also spell God with a capital “G”, which is the respectful term, even though I’m a non believer. Mixed up, or what?

The interior of this confusing edifice is, I think, famous for one thing – well, hundreds of more or less identical things, in truth  – the terracotta and cream arches spanning the countless marble columns which abound in the enormous space of the interior. The enormous space was, of course, heaving with enormous numbers of tourists and I spent an age waiting in one of the quieter spots to snag the arches (almost) people free. This is the best I could manage and, after a good 10 minutes waiting for tourists taking selfies to disappear, especially those in red T-shirts, I was reasonably pleased.

I had, at least, taken a proper camera with me to play, so I wasn’t resorting to a crappy phone camera. Francine had also taken her real camera but she has also recently “upgraded” to an iPhone which she was playing with in the Mezquita. She also loaded six wacky photographic apps which do weird things to photos to pretend you’re using a proper camera. Here’s one of her efforts. That’s me bemused.

Completely religioned out, we eventually left the Mezquita and wandered down to the river to cross yet another Roman bridge giving us a view back to the Mosque on the opposite side of the river. You’ll notice that Cordoba is devoid of high rise. Well done them.

We wandered a little way from the tourist trap of the Mezquita in search of some lunch. As usual, we were a bit early for Spanish lunchtime, which seems to start at 13:00. A very pleasant waitress was happy to serve us a drink while we waited for the kitchen to open. Once it did, we chose Berenjenas con miel [aubergines with honey], Fried Boquerones [Anchovies] and a Timbale of Rabo de Toro [oxtail]. As is also usual, we ordered a bit too much.

Just outside the walls of the old town we got quite a surprise. There was what appeared to be a completely sterile stone and concrete pool. There was vegetation at its side but there was no vegetation within it, certainly nothing emergent for nymphs to emerge. Francine first spotted one dragonfly on the pool side, then we realised that there were four different species. There was actually another pool, with absolutely no vegetation, hosting some of the same species. I don’t get it.

Now we had to get to the bus station for our return 15:45 transport. The place was heaving. We were in plenty of time but Spain has no concept of queuing so it ain’t first come first served. A hoard was gathered around the port our bus would depart from. Eventually, half the hoard loaded onto the bus before ours, leaving another half a hoard. If we didn’t get on, the next (and last) bus was at 20:00. Eventually our 15:45 bus pulled in and we managed to finagle our way on while there was still plenty of space.

With just a single seat remaining, we arrived at Frodo having filled the last seat with a student from the university.

Today was a (happily) uneventful drive of 240kms. We had booked a campsite in Villafranca de Córdoba, Camping Albolafia.

Our route was largely cross-country and rather unscintillating, though it was better than trudging down a tedious motorway. Most memorable to me was passing through the town of Peñarroya-Pueblonuevo, which clearly had a rich coal mining history. We past what looked like old spoil heaps, now turned into mini mountains, with many old metal pitheads standing by the road as a reminder.

We negotiated a lengthy descent of the high plateau towards Córdoba. The traffic and road system of Córdoba was a bit of a shock after a rural journey but we made that unscathed and began heading to Villafranca de Córdoba.

The campsite reviews were a bit mixed but, having checked in, we managed to find Frodo what we thought was a very decent pitch right on the edge, although we were facing the rugrats’ playground. Even better, were facing the right way to maximize the shade from Frodo’s shop-blind awning.

Fingers firmly crossed.

We had overnight rain. The rain was quite light, in that we couldn’t even hear it on the roof of the van. It was, however long-lived, going on from about 02:00 until the so-called morning when a vestige of light can be seen around 08:00, in this barking time zone. Whereas when we arrived we had a splendid view of the hillside opposite, this morning we couldn’t tell that there was a hillside opposite.

We’d both had a very unsettled night. Francine woke me as soon as she realized it was raining ‘cos I’d left the chairs out. I went outside in not much to fold them up and put them under the van. It was a bit late, in truth, they were already wet.

There’s an irritating design “feature” with Frodo. Here’s what I think happens. Rain runs down the rear window and drips off the lower edge. Unfortunately what it drips onto is the very proud lower rear moulding, the full width of the van, containing the number plate and rear light clusters. The dripping is not consistent but it is constant. With our heads on pillows at the rear end of the van, after not very long this incessant dripping becomes like a Chinese water torture. In heavier rain that beats a tattoo on the roof, the dripping sound is somewhat masked but that was not the case last night.

This is not the first time this has happened, naturally, since rain in the UK is quite frequent. Previously, I thought that pitching Frodo slightly nose down would cause the water on the roof to run forward rather than overflowing the rear of the van eventually running down the window. At this site, levelling up when pitching was a bit of a challenge and I hadn’t thought about it, smiling with satisfaction as Frodo looked level in both axes. Whoops!

Assuming my assessment is correct, there might be another potential solution, which is to open the rear window wide enough for the drips to fall beyond the lower moulding. Sadly, with the bikes mounted on the back, rear window movement is very restricted. If I’m expecting rain, maybe I’ll dismount the bikes and try it.

Francine resorted to ear plugs and I got little more sleep. I could have stopped counting sheep and started counting drips but I decided that would be too masochistic.

After five nights (probably one too many) and nearly taking root, we’re leaving Madrigal de la Vera and travelling a modest 175kms or so into Extremadura to Alcuéscar.

Francine had had enough of cramped campsites in/near towns and was lusting after the countryside. It almost seems as though, the further we go, the smaller the pitches become. Burgos suffered from punters failing to understand the pitch markers, and from no hedges marking boundaries making everything feel a bit haphazard. Camping Don Quijote at Salamanca [left] had pitches of 70m² max, if you were lucky. Then, in Complejo La Mata at Madrigal de la Vera [right] I calculated the actual pitch size at 50m² – ours was about 9m/10m x 5m tops. The saving grace here was that the site was so underutilized that our surrounding pitches were empty and it felt quite luxurious, as long as you avoided the shanty town of permanents. In between all those pairs of trees in the picture are other pitches. At the height of the season, this would be unbearable but now, it was quite civilized.

Francine just heard of someone (via Farcebook) who, having booked for January in the south of Spain, had just been told they’d get a pitch of 6m x 4m – they have to be effin’ joking.

Francine got no argument from me, who really doesn’t do towns and cities anyway. What she found was a camper vans only site, run by a Dutch couple, with just eight pitches and within walking distance [about 2 mls/3 kms] of Alcuéscar. The reviews sounded fantastic; actually given what we’d already seen, unbelievably fantastic. With so few pitches, she sent an email to book and confirmed that they had room for us. They did, so off we set.

Our journey took us over an interesting cross-country route to begin with. Leaving the Gredos mountains behind us, the land was almost instantly flat. Sometimes, we passed fenced, golden land with scattered, quite low-level trees, that reminded me of Africa. Then the scenery would change, the trees would disappear and we were passing large swathes of open golden land that was reminiscent of outback Australia. Then we’d be back in Africa.

Eventually we hit the almost inevitable autovia and just trudged along it with little in the way of interest. That got us close to our destination and we were soon approaching the campsite, La Tierre Verde, up a very gravelly track. Reception was open between 12:00 and 14:00, and later in the afternoon from 17:00, so we had to time our arrival. We were here at 13:00. Good so far.

Ringing the bell was met with resounding silence. There was a note on the door saying they’d had to go out for business and giving a phone number. Francine called it and we were told to pick our own pitch. With only one other unit on site, we had a good choice. We got Frodo levelled and settled but had to wait for Sr. Dutch-Owner to hook us up to the electricity. In the interim, we fired up the fridge on gas, just to keep the beer and white wine cool.

Given what we’ve seen thus far, this really is luxurious. At this end of the season, the land is very scrubby but and at last we have a selection of birds to entertain us. Catching them on camera may prove tricky ‘cos they seem a bit flighty.

Just outside the entrance to our campsite, Complejo La Mata, is a rocky river, the Garganta de Alardos. There’s not a huge amount of water in it but it is flowing. One of the more appealing aspects for those keen on the activity [not me] are some permanent swimming pools. The water, I must say, is stunningly clear. Beyond the stream in the distance are the Gredos mountains.

The approach road to La Mata continues a short distance beyond the campsite so we thought we’d investigate. We wandered along and found a Spanish couple with a parked motor home enjoying one of the swimming pools. Dragonflies were there none. Since there is absolutely no vegetation in the entirely boulder-strewn river, I can’t say I was particularly surprised. In one bush beside the water course, Francine did spot a new (to me) species of Potter Wasp; I think it’s a Euodynerus species, possibly E. variegatus but don’t quote me.

It was approaching lunchtime so we wondered how manic the restaurants in Madrigal might be. We started sauntering in, which took us past the Roman Bridge, after which our road into town is named.

When I say it was approaching lunchtime, I should qualify that by saying it was approaching our lunchtime. Given the late eating habits of the Spanish, it was not approaching their lunchtime. A handful of folks did begin eating at a restaurant opposite a bar where we sat refreshing our feet with beers but it was all relatively quiet for a Sunday lunchtime.

We wandered into one restaurant in search of a menu, which they did not have posted outside, and were told that on Sunday there was no menu, only casa. In other words, it was a fixed menu of the day and that was all – you had that or nothing. Looking at a few other establishments, the same seemed to true. We saw signs proclaiming “fin de semana” [weekend] and “menú del día” [menu of the day]. The latter is normally available in a Spanish restaurant but today it appeared to be the only choice (if that can be called a choice).

We just wanted a light midday bite to leave room for an evening meal. A menú del día was going to be two courses and way too much food for us, so we sauntered back to the campsite to enjoy our own tapas chez Frodo.

We are camped beside a part of one of the routes through to Santiago de Compostela. There are supposedly 200 routes, starting from various places (It says here), seven are popular. I suspect the one by us is one of the less popular ones. About 3kms of it takes us from our campsite on a pilgrimage into Alcuéscar.

We began our walk and as we turned onto the path heading into Alcuéscar we were joined by a handful (well, three) of other pilgrims. You can spot the real pilgrims ‘cos they have walking poles in a variety of designs, ranging from aluminium trekking poles to a simple wooden stick. The tourists, on a short pilgrimage to a local bar/supermarket, carry nothing.

Our pilgrimage to Alcuéscar was largely pointless; Alcuéscar was mainly closed. We knew where the Dia supermacado was but struggled to find an open bar. We eventually found a bar with signs of life down near the main road through town. We went in and ordered two beers. Having been given the beers we were presented with a tapa of … I don’t know what.

The weather was basically overcast but dry so we went outside to enjoy the dulcet tones of a tractor-load of local workers pollarding the streetside trees with a clumsily wielded Stihl chainsaw on a long pole.There’s nothing [buzz] like a [buzz] calm drink [buzz] in a sunny [not, buzz] local bar.

While sucking our beers [buzz] out of the bottle [buzz] – they seem to serve them this way to stop warming the beer up with a glass – we began [buzz] nibbling our tapa [buzz] with toothpicks. My initial impression was [buzz] that it might be tripe [buzz]. No, it wasn’t. It was, however [buzz], something very soft and fatty [buzz] in a tomato sauce with onion and carrot [buzz]. You can serve pretty much [buzz] anything in such a sauce [buzz] and get away with it.

Now, we have seen frequent occurrences [chainsaw moved on] of a bizarre offering, bizarre to us, that is, both on menus and in supermarkets. What we saw in supermarkets on polystyrene trays was pigs snout. This very same, though I’m failing to recall the Spanish, was on offer at the bar in our very first Burgos campsite. Clearly cooked for long enough to make an oak tree tender, I have a nasty feeling that that is what we were eating.

Fat, slithery and slug-like, I polished it off. Well, why not, this might end up being lunch? Never let it be said that I am culinarily unadventurous.

We repaired to the Dia supermercado, which prover to be considerably less super than the one we’d recently visited in Madrigal de la Vera. Nonetheless, we filled out rucksacks with a few provisions and set off back along the pilgrim route to our campsite.

I was grateful to arrive back at Frodo.

Somehow, in all the messing about with my bicycle mixed in with occasional moments of trying to enjoy a holiday, I seem to have misplaced a set of reading glasses. I’ve got the pouch that should contain them but it’s empty. Normally, I’d have put the glasses down on a table somewhere but try as I might, finding them eluded me. There is, of course, the possibility that I might have left them at a restaurant having read the bill to pay it. I didn’t think I had, though.

I’ve got another pair, which I keep in my rucksack, so it’s not a real problem but I like having a second pair to be safe.

Spain is full of emporiums run by Chinese folks. The stock ranges from cooking pans, material, light bulbs, tools, electrical supplies, motoring accessories, the lot. They are an absolute Aladdin’s cave. What you can’t buy in these place is largely not worth buying. We are not talking high end items but relatively cheap. They can often help you out in a fix (though not, it seems, with bicycle innertubes). When we had Casa Libélule in Jalón, we learned such establishments were affectionately known as Chinese Takeaways.

There is one such right beside the Dia supermercado in Madrigal de la Vera. Since we were off on our bikes [YEAH!] to do a top-up shop prior to moving on on Monday, Francine suggested looking for some replacement reading glasses in the Chinese Takeaway.

What is difficult once inside is finding what you’re looking for, so huge is the range of items they carry with apparently little in the way of logical organization. We both began scouring the aisles with no success.

Near the checkout, Francine did find sunglasses but that was it. Then we turned around and there, low down behind us were a few boxes of reading glasses arranged by power. Francine rummaged in the 2.00-2.50 dioptre box and finally found a 2.00 pair.

For a princely €3.75, I was the proud owner of a perfectly comfortable pair of reading glasses, in a plastic case and complete with a cleaning cloth AND a grandad cord to string them around my neck. Amazing! I really should go and buy a few more pairs for home.

Francine joked that now that I had a new pair, we’d be bound to find the old pair that I’d sought to replace. These would be magic reading glasses.

Back at Frodo later in the day, Francine did some laundry and went to get the washing line from one of Frodo’s lockers.

“Come here”, she shouted, ominously.

“It doesn’t sound as though I want to come there”, I said. Such summonses often mean that she has discovered something amiss and Mr. Fixit is needed.

I went around the back of Frodo. There, on the sandy ground, was my original pair of reading glasses. I’m in the habit of hooking them into the neck of my shirt and, when bending down using Frodo’s locker, which is quite low, they’d evidently slipped out of my shirt and onto the ground unnoticed.

Magic reading glasses indeed.

Maybe I should use that grandad neck cord that came with the new pair.

For three days now, the front wheel of my bike has had a flat tyre, though for the middle of those days I hadn’t realised because we were just driving. This sorry episode began as a self inflicted wound caused by me foolishly trying something that really didn’t need trying. [Yes, dad, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”]

Yesterday I discovered what was actually the second problem, related to the first, and had no luck patching things up. TBH, the hole in the inner tube was just too large for my puncture repair kits.

We, or more correctly our new Dutch neighbour friends, had located a bicycle shop in the nearby town of Candeleda, just 11kms away. With good reviews, a visit was definitely required. I prepared Frodo for travel.

Candeleda was, I think, a little larger than our own Madrigal de la Vera. As I expected, finding a parking space for Frodo proved tricky but we found a spot up a side street from the bike shop, leaving us with a bit of a walk. With a disabled bike whose front tyre insists on constantly removing itself from the rim, “a bit of a walk” is “a bit of a challenge” ‘cos you have to carry the wheel off the ground rather than roll it. Thankfully it wasn’t the rear wheel, which is considerably heavier.

Francine held the shop door open while I carried my bike with an airborne front wheel up the steps and in. Happily, the shop was otherwise empty.

Tengo un problema …

… I announced, rather unnecessarily given that it was glaringly obvious, in my limited but perfect Spanish. Still, it’s always good to practice.

The young man swiftly removed the front wheel and dragged the flat innertube out of it. Since bike part 1, I now had mixed valves, one Presta and one original Schrader. I tried to explain that I really would like a new tube with a Schrader valve.

It seems that, in Spain, tubes for my wheel size, 700c, come ONLY with Presta high pressure valves. He disappeared into his store room and returned with another tube. This one was a posh job, filled with gel presumably to self-seal in the event of a puncture. Whether it would self seal in the even of an explosion, I hope I never have to find out.

The tubes have another dimension, this relating to the width or fatness. My old tube was 38/45c (it’s a range, though Darwin knows what the dimension is) and I noticed this replacement was 25/34c. It was clearly intended for a road bike with skinnier tyres. Sr. Bicycle-Repair-Man thought it would be fine.

He proceeded to install it. I was gratified to see that, even in his experienced hands, the tube had a habit of pushing the tyre off the rim as it inflated. I tried to tell him that I thought the tyre seemed a little too large for the rim; “no”, he said, and kept going encouraging the tyre back into the rim if it popped out anywhere.

We bought a second spare innertube, largely for Francine’s bike, just in case. Since one of the base causes of this 3-day saga had been my inability to correctly attach my old emergency pump to a valve, We also bought a new mini-pump, supposedly for both valve types, which I also hoped I wouldn’t have to find out.

The return wander back to Frodo was much simpler, now being able to wheel the bike instead of carry it.

I really should practice with the new emergency pump to learn how it works but I can still hear my father whispering in my ear,

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

We planned a lunch in one of the restaurants in Madrigal de la Vera. First, however, we needed some shopping. There is a Dia supermarket in Madrigal which is about 1 mile/1.5 km distant. We decided to use Shanks’s Pony armed with our two rucksacks. Just outside our campsite there is a rather splendid Roman bridge which we had to turn just in front of.

Get a move on, we need to get into town. Since the weather was quite pleasant, around 24°C, rather than sit around having lunch with fresh food warming up, we decided to bring our purchases back and then return for lunch. Besides, we’d have been too early.

For the return trip to town and lunch, having walked there and back already, we thought we’d use our bikes. I took the rain cover off the bike carrier only to have my heart sink; the front tyre of my bike was once again doing its best to emulate a pancake. It was completely flat. How on earth had that happened?

There was nothing for it; we walked back into town.

Beside the side road was a sort of drainage ditch, quite narrow, rather like a flush. This is the kind of habitat favoured by Keeled Skimmers (Orthetrum coerulescens) and sure enough there were a couple of males flying over it and settling on the vegetation. I also saw one that looked a little different and the light stripe on the thorax side, the “epaulet”, identified this as another skimmer, the Epaulet Skimmer (Orthetrum chrysostigma). This was the first decent dragonfly action of the trip but I wasn’t prepared so these are just phone shots.

Once in town [again] we started the search for an appealing restaurant. It was now around 13:15 and most of the restaurants were still empty. Whilst I don’t like them crowded, empty restaurants raise question marks. One called the Alhambra had a few signs of life and some items of interest on the menu so in we went. We ordered alcachofas con jamon [artichokes with ham], gambons a la plancha [grilled prawns] and a salad. The prawns were very messy and quite yummy. Between about 14:00 and 15:00 the place got relatively busy. I know the Spanish eat their evening meal late but they clearly also eat lunch late, too. Makes sense, I suppose.

Fun over, I was going to have to walk back, yet again, and investigate my accursed front wheel.

I took the wheel out. The weird thing about the tyres on my bike is that they pretty much fall off the rim; I’ve never had a bicycle tyre so easy to remove – no need for tyre levers at all. The converse is that when you inflate the inner tube withing the tyre it tends to push it off the rim in any number of places making assembly difficult. It had made we wonder if the tyre was actually too big.

I took the tube out and found a large hole very near to the valve. In the corresponding position on the wheel, the rim tape which lines the wheel’s spoke locations had a similar large hole. I don’t know how it had happened; possibly the exploding inner tube had blown this hole in the rim tape? Now at least I understood this puncture – putting 50psi in the tube had pushed the inner tube into the rim hole and it had failed again.

I used some gaffer tape to cover the rim tape hole.

Out came the puncture repair kits; yes, I have two. I first tried a self-adhesive patch but clearly picked the wrong one; when I installed the “repaired” tube and inflated it, air blew through the patch.

Now I couldn’t easily remove the failed patch so I used an old-fashioned glue-based patch from the other repair attempting to to patch the patch. That got me to about 7psi and then the patch on the patch released some air.

Now I resorted to a penknife to scrape the first patch off the inner tube. Looked OK. I found my largest old-fashioned glue patch – the hole was about 3mm across and circular but with a flap – and tried a third time.

I didn’t get much further before that, too failed. I need another new inner tube and life is becoming stressful.

Today we were leaving Salamanca and heading for Madrigal de la Vera, approximately a 3-hour journey of about 200kms. In between our start and end points lies the Sierra de Gredos, a mountain range which Frodo was going to have to cross.

The first part of our journey was a very dull, free autovia across to Ávila. The surrounding countryside was very flat “big field” country. From Ávila things became much more interesting as we approached the Sierra de Gredos.

We actually had two summits to get over. The first of these was Puerto de Menga at 1564m. However, Avila is on a reasonably high plateau at 1100m so the climb wasn’t a particularly big deal. The Spanish had thoughtfully arranged for a few stopping points beside the road from which to admire the view, something we sometimes seem to be missing in La Belle France.

After descending from Puerto de Menga we soon hit the next pass, Puerto del Pico at a modest 1352m. Once again, there were stopping points to admire the view. We then embarked on a descent of about 1000m to get down to Madrigal de la Vera at a much lower 375m.

As we entered Madrigal de la Vera, the turn Sally Satnav wanted me to take to get to the campsite was more or less 180° doubling back on myself. It was quite impossible so we ended up driving into the centre of town looking for somewhere to spin around. Sally tried to send me along more unlikely looking roads until I did manage to turn. With no roundabout, reversing out of a side turning was necessary. You really do have to approach from one direction and one direction only.

This campsite, Complejo la Mata, is the last of those we’d made a reservation for before departing the UK. Since the website would not take payment from a British credit card, I’d had to resort to email which had apparently worked – we were expected. We paid and were shown to a pitch.

Complejo la Mata, is, perhaps, best described as rustic. We got hooked up to the electricity but were not particularly happy about where we had been put, right beside a whole series of permanently set up units jammed on top of each other – small pitches again – looking like a shanty town. Francine went wandering further back in the campsite.

Francine found a much more appealing area, with more light and space and just a couple of units. I went and managed to ask in my broken Spanish if we could move . Yes, we could. I can’t think how the decision on where to stick new arrivals might be made. These pitches are still quite narrow but we have a field to look out over.

There is just room for our awning to be extended without encroaching on the pitch in front, between us and the field. That would actually have been a more appealing pitch for us but I was a little concerned about some lower tree branches. We’ll see.