My November bimble, to … turns out Andaluzia and Alentejo

[Pedro]

Tomorrow morning I’m setting off on a few days trip, I’ve been strugling a little lately, bad emotions and an overall dark mood. Nothing sorts my mental health (such a millennial expression!) like spending a few days on the bike so that’s what I’m going to do. The plan is to head south and avoid rain as much as possible, I’m packing my passport because Morocco is an obvious destination, I like going South.

Instead of posting a big ride report like before, I’ll try to upload a few pictures each day and just a few words along with them.

One sidecase is packed, the other containing all the clothing and laptop still isn’t. Was just visited by @Mateiro and cooked a lovely oven codfish with tiny tatters for dinner, and am now enjoying rum by the fire and watching Friends on tv. Seems the other luggage is going to be left for tomorrow morning.

 

Temperatures are now getting colder, but I’m hoping for blue skies tomorrow, and getting on a small road taking my time heading south. Small roads take longer, but also allow me to take work calls without my clients (and more importantly, bosses/suppliers) realising I’m not in the office.

See you tomorrow.

[Clive]

Bon Voyage @Pedro

[Saul]

Can’t wait to read about it and see the photos.  Have a great trip

[Catteeclan]

You're watching Friends  That would do my head in.

Enjoy your trip.
 

[XTreme]

Nice one Pedro!

[boboneleg]

Good luck @Pedro, Bon voyage  

[Pedro]

10 hours ago, boboneleg said:

Good luck @Pedro, Bon voyage  

Thank you, but turns out I won't need much luck. A lot of stuff came up today and I will have to dedicate some time to work next week, so Morocco is out. Not much of a bummer because my heart wasn't really in it either, felt like I was going to do it for the sake of it. Regardless, did have a nice ride today leaving home and heading to the Algarve all the way on back roads.

Left later than usual, at around 10. Everything was really pretty now that we had some rain, 2 or 3 hours later stopped for lunch by the side of the road next to a pretty field, and had my sandwich. It felt a lot colder than the thermometer showed, so it was a treat to stand under the sunshine.

 

There was absolutely no traffic, three vehicles passed during the entire time, so I had fun taking pictures standing in the middle of the road.

 

 

20 minutes later, and I stopped for a post lunch espresso, like you do.

 

Heading South on the N2, this used to be Portugal's main road if you were to drive through this part of the country.

 

Getting to the Algarve, I took to some smaller roads.

 

weather, the twisties and the tarmac were perfect, but I took a detour via some dirt roads with some nice views. The destination would be the same were you to stick to nice tarmac roads, and only a 10 or 15 minute delay by taking these. 

 

Below the tarmac bit that will take me the last 10 or 15km to the seaside, which you already see in the distance in the previous pictures. I love this part of the Algarve, riding in hills and mountains but not more than 10 or 15km from the beach and with a clear view to it from above.

 

After a warm shower, I went for a walk. This is the same place I stayed in last year before leaving Portugal, watched the end of the sunset by the water, and started being attacked by mosquitoes, so went for a walk.

 

[Pedro]

 

 

Don’t know where I’ll go tomorrow, but it won’t be on a ferry to Africa.

[boboneleg]

That looks pretty damned fine to me @Pedro  . I'm a bit envious as I think you'd struggle to take a ride like that over here at this time of the year .

[XTreme]

6 minutes ago, boboneleg said:

I think you'd struggle to take a ride like that over here at this time of the year .

I don't think he's in any rush to be abused by Gammons again!

Our Johnny Foreigner deserves some goddam respect!

[Pedro]

22 hours ago, XTreme said:

Our Johnny Foreigner deserves some goddam respect!

[Pedro]

Felt deflated and disapointed with not going to Morocco, yesterday's dinner was also sad, a takeaway pizza alone at my room. It was made worse by the wifi not working in the room and the tv seemed to only display a short selection of german satellite channels. Not the happiest of dinners, later went for an overly expensive coffee and used the bar's wifi to post the report. Not happy and not entertained, I fell asleep early to then wake up at 3AM thinking it was already 8. A couple of hours of non sleep ensued to them crash and wake up at 8:30 with a call from Spain 

Breakfast was a pear and croissant bought the previous evening from the local supermarket, plus orange juice and a soluble coffee overlooking the already loaded GS, pure class!

 

Cool tree overgrowing it's allowed ground space

 

I headed to Spain, crossed the border same as going to Morocco but instead of doing the 400km motorway stint to Tarifa, got off and headed Northeast, the roads were more or less boring but ok, and I took no pictures as the landscape wasn't really interesting either. Stopped a couple of hours later to navigate and figure out where to go, a plan was made to sleep back in Portugal and make up for last night's sad excuse of a dinner, but to first ride to and through the Sierra Morena, which is North of Sevilla if you want to see on the map. It looked like a cool place on google maps, with just the right kind of green and squirely looking roads  

While I was parked two idiots stopped their horses to have a conversation, poor animals were a little frightened when the mighty GS rumbled to life, but they didn't seem to be in a hurry to go away, so there!

 

Heading into Sierra Morena proper, google maps showed a longer detour to get to the same location, 25 minutes to do a 10 minute thing and I took it, and was presented with the first proper road of the day. The 20kmh limit seems a bit extreme and I don't think I've ever seen one in Portugal, but after the corner there's a VERY narrow bridge, one motorhome can hardly make it:

 

In fact, if there's one thing this area is lacking is in proper roads. There's plenty of tasty dirt roads going off of the tarmac proper road, but there are a LOT of mines around and trucks are often diverted off the tarmac road and onto gravel ones, so the real nice GS'y roads are filled with dust and heavy trucks doing work things.

Anyway, at almost 13:30 I was desperate for a week and some food and found just the right place at the little town of El Castillo de Las Guardas. Stopped at a cafe/pub/restaurant type of place, and had a 20cc non alcoholic beer with carne con tomate, the beer was ok and the beef was super tasty and very garlicky. What you see in the picture is one of the few Spanish good things, a portion made for eating along with a drink, this beer is tiny, but the portion is made for you to order two or three as tasters along with a few beers or wine glasses, it works perfectly as a smaller lunch when on the road. If you're from the UK and traveling, just show up at one of the places where there are a lot of men going in at lunch (later than yours), and point at what they're having at the counter and job's done, people will be friendly (more so if you're on a big motorcycle).

 

While I was eating a couple of young dude rocked up on 50cc 2 strokes. The one on the Derbi traillie parked away, which was for the best as it would have contaminated my meal with whatever he was burning, but the little Aprilia parked next to my bike, from a far I was curious as to the bikes decoration, but it was all transparent when I looked at it upclose. It's an Aprilia RS50, probably a Nastro Azzuro livery RS50 belonging to a Rossi fan, the other side of the bike showed that it led an even harder life than this side does, so eventually it must have had a respray too many and as Rossi turned to Yamaha so did this Aprilia. The owner is too young to have bought it new, but there's no mistake his next bike will be an R1:

 

The town itself is worthy of a 20 minute longer visit than what I did, there's a small castle / fort / monastery thing, I rode one lap around it and fucked off as I wanted an angry day eating kms, not looking at things. 

Around this time, I made plans to book a room in Monsaraz, already back in Portugal, it was still far away considering the time of year and the early sunset, but there's a really great restaurant next to it and I was in need of comfort after last night's lonesome sad pizza. Rode into Cazalla de la Sierra, and got lost inside. A few streets' one way signs didn't match google maps' opinion so I ended up doing two or three laps of the inner part of the maze of old streets, turns out it's a cool town and I wouldn't have minded staying there for the night, but left and headed back home. 

Exiting Cazalla, almost still in town as the 60kmh signs state, phone started buzzing and I gave up and stopped to have a few conversations, it was now 15:30 (16:30 in Spain) and the weather cold, the sun starting to go down but gorgeous:

 

10 or 15 minutes, again with the bloody phone  :

The next bit of road, after that, though, made the whole day. It's a typical mountain road in the Iberian peninsula, narrow, shit surface, twisty and you can go miles in second and third gear in a normal bike, maybe third and fourth in a GS since gears are so short, I stopped this once just for you, to see the roads's camber going from one extreme to the other. If you're on a road traillie and you don't enjoy this then change bikes:

 

Don't know how many kms I did on that, maybe not that many since it's more intense than the ground it covers, occasionally the scenery popped through openings on the trees (only 15 minutes between pictures):

I did get a little too enthusiastic and caught a little air going from bend to bend, liked this road so much I stopped to take the previous picture just to have it on my phone in the maps app if I want to go back. A few more miles went past, didn't stop, the road turned from murdered tarmac to F1 grade surface, lost a little bit of character but by then I appreciated the smoothness. 

By 17:30 I was getting really cold. Stopped to fuel up with cheaper (than Portuguese) Spanish petrol, and as the sun was setting, put on my neck warmer and warmer gloves, have a hot a nasty coffee to warm up before the last hour to the border and room for the night:

 

Well in the cold darkness, and after a car in front of me almost running into a lost sheep crossing the road, now getting cold I set the cruise control to 110kmh through faster country roads and enjoyed the GS's powerful high beams when I could, I made it to Monsaraz after an hour, a brief stop by the castle for a picture or two in the darkness, and then to my home for the night:

 

I enjoyed my dinner in the "Sem Fim" Restaurant quite a lot, it's an old olive oil cold press warehouse, now converted to resrtaurant. I love it. I enjoyed a bottle of delicious local Monsaraz wine, which I will buy at home and see if it tastes as good taken away from it's original location, and had a very typical entree of garbanzo beans a codfish, and then the baked mutton and small tatters. All was great, I walked back to my room through cold streets now feeling comforted. This area, Monsaraz near the Alqueva dam, is considered the best star gazing location in Portugal and one of the best in Europe because of it's clear skies and absence of light pollution, this means that when it's cold at night, it's really cold.

 

I really like these old school Alentejo streets.

 

See you tomorrow, I'll figure out what to do at breakfast, either going straight back home, or whatever.

[XTreme]

Great stuff Pedro.......unlikely the GS would spook the horses.

They're not going to be any strangers to noise, cos they're probably taken to bars, processions and fairs on a regular basis.

And you know what the Spanish are like for setting off bloody fireworks all the time!

[Pedro]

8 hours ago, XTreme said:

.....unlikely the GS would spook the horses.

but it did, it was all quiet when they arrived and when I started it they weren't happy for a moment.

[Sir Fallsalot]

I see horse riders a lot when out on the trials but It's not often i see men on horses, here it seems to be a female thing. Only time i see men on horseback is when there was a hunt on is it the same there  

[Saul]

19 minutes ago, Sir Fallsalot said:

I see horse riders a lot when out on the trials but It's not often i see men on horses, here it seems to be a female thing. Only time i see men on horseback is when there was a hunt on is it the same there  

From my experience, waiting for my daughters, horse riding is mainly a girl thing.   My oldest who is at college doing some equine course says that there are no males on the same course.  

[Pedro]

I had a great night's sleep, ate and drank very well, and then shut down the fridge and air-conditioning in the room so all there was was complete silence in the Alentejo countryside. Woke up quite late to a very foggy chilly morning.

 

After a quick breakfast, things were looking a lot better.

 

The plan was to get a little bit of an off-road fix around the Alqueva lake, and then head home or at least a little bit north. It was around 10AM when I left the hotel and 10 minutes later set wheels on some very nice gravel roads.

 

@boboneleg, the Desert Sled would love it here:

 

Old crumbling church in need of a fix up

 

And a little bit of exploring dirt roads around the lake.

 

Found an ideal spot for a picnic in the future, which turns out to also be accessible by a very nice tarmac road:

 

Some pretty colours for the season:

 

3 hours into it, I stopped by the lake to eat my sandwich previously bought from a small cafe. I did give it a few moments before making myself comfortable there because there were a few sheep around, and although the typical Alentejo cattle guard dog doesn't care if you're traveling and are usually pretty chill, when you stand between them and whatever they're protecting they turn into a fierce thing, they're big, fast, and don't bark or give you any warning. After a minute I got my sandwich out, a very simple ham and cheese but the homemade bread made it marvelous. 

After eating, I sat there for a while contemplating, you heard a few of the sheep, the cranes, and even the odd fish jumping out and making a splash.

After a bit, someone drove over, I knew I was trespassing but the nice man wasn't bothered at all. He came to check on the sheep and came by to say hello. We ended up chatting for a almost an hour and a half, Joaquim Santos, nicknamed Malaquias is 85 years old, and lives alone after having lost his wife and son. We got along well and he ended up telling me all about his life, since going there at 18 months old after his mother passing and living with his aunt and grandparents, having had planted 1300 olive trees when he was 13 to have them all submerged by the current water level, to going to war at 18 years old to Africa, to them building the dam that created this huge lake on land that looked very different before, emigrating to France to work on farming beetroot, to his current life and current ailments. After a while he drove off and went to search for the sheep who by that time had half wandered back home by themselves. I promised to return, and will do so for sure, a friend has been made.

 

On the picture below you can see him near the water to the left, 85 and walking around like that seems very impressive to me.

 

By this time it was now 14:30, I had at least 3,5 hours to make it home if riding properly non stop, today is Saturday and as such all the other places I usually end up in are a little busy and loud, so I called my previous nights accommodation and bargained the same low price for today as well. I was now glad I wouldn't have a long ride after all these dirt roads, and instead did a little more exploring reasured to have another great dinner tonight and a good night's sleep.

After loosening up a little on the bike, I was now a lot more comfortable than in the morning. Trails weaving through trees and hills were now being done more a lot more relaxed than before, in third and fourth gear with ease, and I found out how lovely it is to slightly jump out of drainage ditches. They do these concave concrete paths so that water can overflow from one side of the road to the other between fields, and if you time it right you get a little air coming out the other side, makes me feel like a hero but more importantly helps the bike glide over the bumps usually present on the other side of those ditches.

Another stop trying to get the elusive BOTM picture, my phone and my picture taking didn't make the light justice, it was gorgeous out there:

 

I went up to the castle to get a nice scenic view of the sunset over the big lake, didn't even take pictures except of a nice couple who showed up on another GS and helped them take a proper picture instead of a selfie.

Then, as I was enjoying peace and quiet and the view, spaniards showed up and fucked everything up for me with their incessant clucking, really, have a listen:

 

I gave up on the quiet sunset view and went to the hotel to have a warm shower, and am now sitting comfortable posting this after a hot coffee.

It was a lovely sunset, too

 

Basically today I rode around all day with my luggage on and went nowhere 

[Pedro]

53 minutes ago, Sir Fallsalot said:

I see horse riders a lot when out on the trials but It's not often i see men on horses, here it seems to be a female thing. Only time i see men on horseback is when there was a hunt on is it the same there  

I think women here tend to do more horseback riding in proper stables where they jump over stuff, or around the beach.

The countryside in center and south Portugal has a lot of tradition for men to ride horses around though, comes from the culture with the bulls and cattle, so I think here there are mostly men riding around towns and fields than women, but I might be wrong.

We do have a big thing with breeding Lusitanos, our very Portuguese horses, similar to the Spanish ones but more friendly and easier. I think around those kinds of places you do see women and girls riding around too, but those are maybe rich people buying horses, not really a countryside thing.

 

Edit: I forgot that was in Andaluzia, so there IS a lot of bull culture there.

[XTreme]

Pissing myself at the Spaniards turning up and fucking everything up! 

At least they weren't letting off fireworks and playing that wailing Gitano music!

[Pedro]

Just now, XTreme said:

Pissing myself at the Spaniards turning up and fucking everything up! 

At least they weren't letting off fireworks and playing that wailing Gitano music!

They're the rock in my shoe 

[XTreme]

Just now, Pedro said:

They're the rock in my shoe 

You should have gone over and played the Portuguese Gammon with those Johnny Foreigners!

[Sir Fallsalot]

1 hour ago, Pedro said:

I think women here tend to do more horseback riding in proper stables where they jump over stuff, or around the beach.

The countryside in center and south Portugal has a lot of tradition for men to ride horses around though, comes from the culture with the bulls and cattle, so I think here there are mostly men riding around towns and fields than women, but I might be wrong.

We do have a big thing with breeding Lusitanos, our very Portuguese horses, similar to the Spanish ones but more friendly and easier. I think around those kinds of places you do see women and girls riding around too, but those are maybe rich people buying horses, not really a countryside thing.

 

Edit: I forgot that was in Andaluzia, so there IS a lot of bull culture there.

I was chatting to some bird on a horse a few weeks back when i stopped for her to pass, she also rode bikes and had a Desert Sled and was a really nice girl we had a good chat but by fuck she fat her stomach was resting on the horses neck all i could think was the poor thing must be suffering (the horse not her) it was a sturdy welsh cob and she was miles from home on it 

[Sir Fallsalot]

Funny enough Pedro it's like that here when Swansea twats turn up 

[Saul]

And here with the Hooray Holibobs.  

[Pedro]

Classy bike outside the restaurant now