I set my alarm so I would be out before dawn as I knew it was supposed to be quite hot today. Naturally, I got delayed by a few things like discovering there was a leak in the toilet out pipe. I suspected there was a problem in Room 3. I also had to stop and get money. I wasted an attemptnat the nearby Caja Rural - note to self don't go there again. It does one of those things where it makes you work through 10 screens and when you finally get to say, "Give me 150€, please". It says, "Sorry, no can do for you".
There was some haze in the air which made for some good morning photos. I took the main road south out of town and was on it for about 10km. A little more traffic than on a Sunday but still not bad.
I turned of at Ermita Nueva and immediately started climbing. Going through or around town was a little confusing because when you plan the route a lot of the time on the maps a street looks good but when you are there it isn't a street at all. Anyway, I was following the beaten path and the routing was telling me I was supposed to turn at a place there was no street.
After the small town I had a really nice long climb. Zero traffic and amazing scenery.
Near the top RideWithGPS was telling me I had several km of unpaved road. It was paved. It was in bad shape but you could break without sliding out. I had to go slower but it was not unpaved. The rough section was the last 50m of the climb and the descent to a bigger road.
As I approached the bigger road I saw it had no shoulder and a giant truck sped by. Right behind that a speeding car. I had a bit of a bad feeling about the road. Turns out those two vehicles were an anomaly and the road was mostly quiet. I merged on to a slightly bigger road with a little more traffic but this had a shoulder. By North American standards, on all these roads there was very little traffic.
About 10km from the rough road I came to Montefrio. It translates as Cold Mountain but I don't get it. It's not. It is a striking town. It definitely warrants a tourist visit.
I stopped at a bar and had a couple of coffees. My 1.5L bottle of orange Aquarius was about 1/3 full. I wanted a little more for the remaining 25km but did not need another 1.5L so I asked the bartender to fill the Aquarius bottle to the 2/3 mark. I had several big gulps left at the finish.
The rest of the ride was nearly carless. There were two long climbs and then against my previous adages, a long downhill into Alcala la Real. So USUALLY there is a climb into town. This one approach is downhill into town.
I had my usual post ride cafe con leche and churros. They know my order and no longer seem to be afraid of me.
I'm kind of winding up things at the house. The leaky toilet will have to be dealt with next visit. 3 working toilets should be enough. I've made the place as comfortable as an inexpensive hotel. We have some basic furniture, some decent beds, some security, monitoring and remote control.
Tomorrow is the last day and I have the leave here at 4am Saturday. So probably will need to clean and pack all day.
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