Day thirty eight

 

The road to hell? Well it certainly felt like it at times today, a slow grind through the mountains.

The hotel owner serves a very special artistic breakfast of homemade marmalades, breads, cheese, chorizo, cake and a melon mix drink, plus two cafe con leches (Spanish coffee is the best). I leave the hotel around 09:30, saying goodbye to a handful of mainly French guests sat having breakfast together speaking French and Spanish.

The Val de Gallinera pass proves to be a gentle climb for the most part and I am able to pedal most of it, albeit often at walking pace. I have plenty of strength in my legs but the kilometers pass slowly by, really slowly. Then Maps.me wants to take me off the main road and onto what looks like a very dodgy steep descending dirt track. I check Google maps and it recommends the same route too. However a warning shield suggests I have no authority to use it. 

I try to translate the Spanish but suspect it is written in Valenciano and as such untranslatable by Google. 

As the route is descending rather than ascending I decide to risk it. After several kilometers I reach an orange net barrier and assume the road it closed to traffic but walkers and bikers can use it. Anyway I had no desire to climb back up and return to the main road again. I manage to get round the netting and hop back onto the bike. Then I notice the bike is slowly sinking into newly laid cement! Well I have certainly left my mark here. I pedal back onto hard tarmac and after several more kilometers meet two road workers patching the road. Unperturbed one guides me around a newly laid patch of cement. I carry on nervously wondering what else awaits me. Maybe someone has already seen the tyre marks I have left in their newly laid road surface and called on others ahead to stop me. I am in a deep valley with no way off it and have yet to climb up to 850m. Visions of an angry Spanish mob of road workers getting their revenge begins to haunt me. However the Spanish are usually more forgiving and would probably see the funny side. Eventually I am taken back onto the main road I had left earlier and wonder what purpose this Maps.me diversion served.

Tracks like these are always patchworks of repairs, so I assumed the road was simply blocked to stop traffic. There was no mention of wet cement or warning signs.

Lunchtime I stop for a coffee and tomato tostadas at a small cafe to assess the main street that climbs steeply straight ahead of me for several kilometers. From then on things take turn for the worse. I first take wrong turning and find myself unable to push the bike up a very steep road. Thankfully it was my mistake but even once rectified I still find myself cycling along very awkward stretches sometimes impossible to cycle up and have to dismount and push. As I struggle to get away from this town the roads get steeper and harder. Then I am confronted by another barrier, this time with concrete blocks but Maps.me is clear this is the correct way, REALLY?

Concrete barrier blocking the way forward.

There was no way I am doing a U-turn, so I find a way through and eventually after 500m join civilisation again, well another road at least. It is a lot of stress as all the effort taking such tracks could end up in a dead end resulting in having to back track. After that the main roads got steeper, harder and I was beginning to loose the will to live. It was getting late and I was pushing the bike for kilometers on a narrow winding mountain road. It would soon be dark and I had no place to stay. Even beside the road it was impossible to rest as there was a barrier and a huge drop on one side and steep rocks on the other. Every twenty paces I needed a one minute breather, so even at walking pace my progress was hardly 2kmh. Thankfully there was not much traffic and the weather had remained cool for much of the day.

The sprawling town I finally left behind as I slowly climbed to 850+ meters

The climb today was endless, super tough but I did eventually reach the high point much to the amusement of several workers at the top. Then I began my descent towards Alicante. Now the road to the top was perfectly smooth but the road down, when I could have made up time, was so badly potholed that I was forced to stop sometimes to negotiate them. You just couldn't make it up. After some kilometers I reached a main road and was able to make up some time. I stopped at the first hotel I found in the first town and it proved to be truly marvelous. When I asked how much I was told 38 euros but understood it to be 83 euros and said that was too much. On my way out I realised that I had probably translated the Spanish incorrectly via German and went back to check. The receptionist could see my confusion and wrote the price on a piece of paper. The place was fantastic with my bike parked just outside my room. Another great hotel, making me wonder why I bother camping at all, lugging loads of heavy luggage and wasting many hours setting up the tent and decamping. There must be a better way. Today was without doubt the toughest day yet and it was really touch and go at times whether I would survive it. Tomorrow I will have to reassess how I navigate. I may uninstall Maps.me for good.

Total 55km today, which considering 95% of that was uphill was not a bad result. Today the tripometer clocked up 2050km meaning the bike has done well over 2000km since I got it in August, probably near 2200km.