Day forty three

 The top of the first pass where Stefan and I pause to admire the view before going our separate ways.

After a breakfast of orange juice, cafe con leche and a toasted croissant, I depart the Hotel Mojacar Playa at 9:00 and head for Almeria. With three peaks to climb it was never going to be easy. While ascending the first climb I am joined by Stefan Ludwig from Munich who has already been to the North Cape of Norway via Sweden and now his journey continues on to Gibraltar. We chat all the way up to the top and I think that helped me a lot, in so far as I was not looking at the climb ahead with dismay but enjoying his company and chat.

Stefan at the top of the first summit.

After the first summit Stefan leads the way down, but I soon notice I am no longer on my Maps.me track and I had missed a turn off. Stefan is using the 'Komoot' app., and so probably had a slightly different route. I do a U-turn and find myself once again on a dirt track, which just leads me back onto the road again further along. The second summit is the highest and much harder, endless false horizons, long steep narrow roads and a fair bit of traffic. I soon need a piss but out here there is nowhere to hide, no shade, no services, no water. I cannot even stop for a quick lunch as the lack of shade makes it unbearable. I am soon cursing the hills. 

My bottle of s.pellegrino water falls off the back and rolls down the road. This is the third or fourth time I have lost a water bottle and always on a hill with no apparent reason for it breaking free. I cannot even lean the bike against anything and drop it to the ground. The bottle rolls across the road and under a van coming in the opposite direction but luckily the tyres miss the bottle and I manage to retrieve it in one piece. Water is everything out here, the environment is as good as desert. 

Later in the afternoon I find myself on the EV8 and reach the plastic wrapped Murcian landscape near Almeria and end up riding straight through the middle of it. For the next three hours I long for a pee but all I can do is plod on upwards, pedalling at walking pace, often pushing, walking or resting.

The EV8 and beyond the start of plastic wrapped Murcian landscape.

In the end I think the heat and exertion do the job for me as I manage to last until I reach a Repsol petrol station, the first signs of civilisation after plastic landscape.

A close up of a plastic greenhouse providing Europe and maybe much of the world with cheap fruit and vegetables.

Plastic is everywhere, bottles, aluminium cans, plastic bags, torn strips of black plastic clings to bushes fluttering in the wind. There are no bars or services here, I ride through no villages or towns, just plastic as far as the eyes can see. The greenhouses themselves seem quite modern, robust and well kept but the alleyways between them are full of rubbish. I even ride past a group of cobbled together shanty buildings obviously used by the farm workers who seem to be mainly of African origin.

I look back at the plastic landscape assuming it was at last behind me but over the next horizon ahead the same view greets me again, just more of the same.

It's a dismal sight, not so much the green houses themselves but the amount of rubbish surrounding them. People clearly do not care and no one is taking responsibility. New buildings are under construction so this is just the beginning.

In my effort to break clear of this awful environment I approach Almeria and the Repsol petrol station where I can at last have a pee and buy something to eat. I buy two small ham and cheese rolls and a can of Red Bull sugar free. That is all I have eaten all day since the croissant I had for breakfast, apart from a few M&Ms. However I don't feel it did me any harm and a day without much to eat often usually has positive effects. 

It was 96km to Almeria from Mojacar and I had no intension of reaching it today but the route I am taken on had no hotels. I do pass a campsite sign but I was reluctant to camp again and often these signs vanish suddenly once you have begun to follow them. I carry on instead and soon it is dark. By 21:00 I am riding through Almeria's nightlife following a Google route to a hotel. Once again it is not an hotel but a private residence of some description. I search again and find another hotel just 2km away in the city. I am in luck, but the bike has to enter a two-man lift again to reach their garage. Amazingly with some help from the receptionist we manage it. So here I am. As so often on this trip the morning part was great and the afternoon a nightmare, why that is I don't know. Maybe I am just too tired to appreciate anything by the afternoon. 

This was the second worst day of my trip after 'Day thirty eight'. Still, I have Stefan to thank for making the morning part enjoyable and hope that he found somewhere equally comfortable to overnight.