Where's Bertie? He's on a patch of wasteland (rather a nice patch, as wasteland goes) adjacent to Playa de Entrevista, on the edge of San Juan de los Terreros (exact location: 37.35062, -1.68181)
Weather: wall-to-wall sunshine. Cold start in La Peza, but warm afternoon on the coast.
Having surveyed the elevation profiles of the two hills I had the option to run up this morning, I chose the one behind Bertie (150m ascent versus 200m; I am inherently lazy!). Waking to a temperature of 8 degrees inside Bertie was an indication that it had been a chilly night, and as I stepped outside I reconsidered my options. My intended hill was in the shade, whereas the other option was in the sunshine. Figuring the climb would soon warm me up, I stuck with the plan ... for a whole 100m, until I noticed that a snarling dog behind a fence wasn't being kept in by a closed gate.
My general experience in Spain is that dogs out on the streets without a lead (whether with a person or not) will completely ignore you. Dogs behind fences will bark and/or snarl agressively - but that's fine because they're locked in. I felt reasonably confident that this dog would run to the end of the driveway then stop, having reached the end of its territory, but the chance that it wouldn't was just enough to cause me to think that the sunny route was the right one to take after all.
I have no idea what I missed on the originally intended route, but the one I ended up taking was lovely.
Views. I don't think the snow-capped mountains really show on the second photo, but they were perfectly visible to the naked eye.
Back at Bertie, Mick was up and largely packed away, so once I'd breakfasted and after a visit to the service point (and another chat with Cathy and her husband - a couple of British full-timers), off we went for another lengthy drive (200km today).
We started by heading 2km in the wrong direction. Bertie was in desperate need of diesel and that is where lay the nearest petrol station. He could have made it to Guadix but: 1) Mick was eager to get to the coast, so I'd written off our visit there; and 2) having not spent any money in the town that had given us a night in such a good Aire, using a local independent fuel station was the right thing to do. It was a bonus, when we got there, to find that their fuel was 8-10c cheaper than the norm. (As is common, the fuel station also doubles as a restaurant, so as the attendand filled up Bertie I sat and observed a man sitting having a coffee and a cigarette on Bertie's other side; smoking, on a petrol station forecourt, is not something that seems to raise an eyebrow here.)
The impressive road engineering I mentioned yesterday, in between La Peza and Autovia 92.
Weather: wall-to-wall sunshine. Cold start in La Peza, but warm afternoon on the coast.
Having surveyed the elevation profiles of the two hills I had the option to run up this morning, I chose the one behind Bertie (150m ascent versus 200m; I am inherently lazy!). Waking to a temperature of 8 degrees inside Bertie was an indication that it had been a chilly night, and as I stepped outside I reconsidered my options. My intended hill was in the shade, whereas the other option was in the sunshine. Figuring the climb would soon warm me up, I stuck with the plan ... for a whole 100m, until I noticed that a snarling dog behind a fence wasn't being kept in by a closed gate.
My general experience in Spain is that dogs out on the streets without a lead (whether with a person or not) will completely ignore you. Dogs behind fences will bark and/or snarl agressively - but that's fine because they're locked in. I felt reasonably confident that this dog would run to the end of the driveway then stop, having reached the end of its territory, but the chance that it wouldn't was just enough to cause me to think that the sunny route was the right one to take after all.
I have no idea what I missed on the originally intended route, but the one I ended up taking was lovely.
Back at Bertie, Mick was up and largely packed away, so once I'd breakfasted and after a visit to the service point (and another chat with Cathy and her husband - a couple of British full-timers), off we went for another lengthy drive (200km today).
We started by heading 2km in the wrong direction. Bertie was in desperate need of diesel and that is where lay the nearest petrol station. He could have made it to Guadix but: 1) Mick was eager to get to the coast, so I'd written off our visit there; and 2) having not spent any money in the town that had given us a night in such a good Aire, using a local independent fuel station was the right thing to do. It was a bonus, when we got there, to find that their fuel was 8-10c cheaper than the norm. (As is common, the fuel station also doubles as a restaurant, so as the attendand filled up Bertie I sat and observed a man sitting having a coffee and a cigarette on Bertie's other side; smoking, on a petrol station forecourt, is not something that seems to raise an eyebrow here.)
A few hours later, with a stop for lunch en-route, we arrived in San Juan de los Terreros, a place chosen because we had a honeymoon to gatecrash. A friend of Mick's got married just before Christmas and has been honeymooning in San Juan for the last two months. Being now in the final week of that trip, we had an imperative to make haste to the coast to catch the happy couple before they headed home to France. The meet-up also allowed us to offload the 1200 Yorkshire teabags we had for them as a wedding gift (the fact that they live in France being the reason why this was an appropriate and appreciated gift; it would perhaps have been a strange thing to choose for someone who lives in, say, Harrogate).
The wasteland upon which we have parked (along with a whole collection of other vans, who seem, currently, to be well tolerated hereabouts) is only a hundred metres from the bar where we'd arranged to meet. The problem was that, by the time we'd met up, had drinks and surveyed the menu and chosen, it was firmly in that window between lunchtime and tea time (that being, in Spain, between 4pm and 8pm). "The kitchen is closed" was the response to our request to order (pity they didn't mention that when we'd asked for the menu!).
Having walked the couple of kilometres into town (via a drink and quick snackette at Simon and Debbie's villa), we were just going to give up on food when one of the bars suggested somewhere that would be serving tapas. Their directions were followed, and we were just going to give up on finding the place when we came upon it. A small bar on the ground floor of a block of flats, it had a distinctly local feel to it.
They also reported their kitchen to be closed, but showed us the tapas options that were available in two chiller cabinets on the bar. They looked good! They were good!
Whilst the afternoons are warm, and objectively the evening wasn't cold, after a few hours of sitting still outdoors (albeit in a semi-enclosed gazebo), I was uncomfortably cool by the time we left the bar at approaching 9pm (sunset is 7pm).
Fortunately the route back to Bertie wasn't difficult, even in the dark. As long as we kept close to the sea, we would eventually spot some motorhomes and know where we were.
As for San Juan, it seems like a nice place. I'm not sure how much of it we will see, as tomorrow will feature more eating and catching up, rather than sight-seeing.
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