Sierra Nevada National Park to the coast, Spain, 2006
Tuesday: A day to forget but not in a hurry
Left La Peza (relunctantly) and climbed to a view point a couple of miles away to take pictures.
The view of La Peza. I was very reluctant to leave, don't get me wrong there isn't a lot there, just a village full of really friendly Spanish people.
James relaxing after an arduous 5 minutes riding.
Some more climbing and a few stops to pick and eat the almonds that have dropped from the trees ignoring the signs which say something about guns and theiving (it's ok, we'll blame the guides).
Riding along by the olive trees.
It was already seriously hot so the pasty people in the group (hello) were already suffering.
Weird gates which led to nowhere. Might have been the entry to the National Park, but why was it locked when we'd already ridden part of the National Park?
Me and Leslie, about to have a mid morning break. Isotonic sports drinks and cakes as I remember, the fuel of champions!
About to take our detour. If we had known what the rest of the day was to bring I would have got off my bike and set it on fire.
Heading for a village a few miles away we then detour for a couple of hours to add an extra loop to the ride - we get shredded, cut to ribbons on the thorn and gorse bush...the tyres take a pounding... Mark stops for about four punctures...terrain so bad we are actually riding up an old aquaduct at one point as its easier than the track and the thorn bushes...excellent fun although everyone is suffering with scratches and deep cuts from the thorns.
My first introduction to hike-a-bike!
Leslie riding up the aquaduct.
Fixing the resultant punctures from all the thorns washed down the aquaduct!
As I remember feelings were running a little high about the decision to take this additional loop, although it was hardly our guide Sandra's fault, it was just one of those things.
Stop for lunch - everyone is repairing something so not much time for eating. Kind elderly couple are BBQ-ing peppers in a wheelbarrow (genius idea, the equivalent of Brit's using a shopping trolley surely) and give us dozens to eat for lunch (we were still finishing them off days later).
Fresh cooked peppers straight from the wheelbarrow and by the bagful-bueno!
Set off after lunch and immediately stop for a puncture on Mark's bike...half hour later we finally get the tyre inflated and set off to climb a hill, at the top I'm enjoying the view and wait for everyone to pass before starting the descent down the other side which is a very steep tarmac road dropping into a valley, then going up the opposite side of the valley...set off and like everyone else I'm getting as much speed up as I can to climb out the opposite side of the valley and about half way down the bike is already flying without much pedalling, I look across the valley to see people getting off their bikes and running back down into the dip where I can see Leslie lying by the side of the road with her bike in a large bush next to her upside down and pointing back up the hill towards me...shit, got that feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when you know your looking at something really, really bad.
The scene of Leslie's accident. Bad times.
Leslie + bike / road * speed = horrible mess
When I arrive Leslie is sat up and is visibly very shaken, she's being tended to by Sandra (our guide) and Theresa...Mark saw the crash and said it was horrific - he looks shook up too...there is a four foot long scratch across the road made by Leslie and her bike-jesus. Amzingly, her bike is fine...Leslie is not so fine though and somehow has holed right through the palms on both gloves but not hurt her hands, holed her jersey but has no injuries underneath although she says she has a huge bruise on her hip...about thirty seconds later we notice that there is a two inch square patch of skin completely missing from the inside of her elbow (it didn't stop bleeding for three days)...it looks unbelievably painful and she also is having problems with her shoulder. We patch her up as best we can and we then continue to the nearest village where we can get her a lift to the hospital.
Still smiling despite being in what must have been incredible pain. I don't know how she managed to keep riding for another hour and a half.
We leave Theresa and Leslie in a village for Benjamin to pick up and continue onwards as we have about another 20km's to go and the light will start going in less than an hour...with all the problems and repairs and Leslie's accident I'd forgotten to keep shoving energy bars and isotonic into me and was suddenly in a fair bit of trouble myself...no energy and absolutely exhausted...everyone gives me encouragement and stuffs energy bars and isotonics into my hands every mile or so (again, thanks!)...on the final fast descent into La Callahorra feel a little better and put my foot down but suddenly start to get sweat in my eyes...eyes quickly start streaming and becoming very, very painful, bring bike to a sudden halt and realise I'm miles behind the others who are nowhere in sight on a very long road...eyes are burning and I can barely open them and now frantically panicking to get my backpack off to get at the bottle of clean water in it (bladder in my backpack contains isotonic)...by the time I find the water I can only just open my eyes and I'm quite honestly shitting myself...water helps and after what feels like a minute or two I can see clearly again, albeit with very sore eyes...think it was a mixture of sun tan lotion, sun block and DEET - 100% jungle strength DEET I'd supposed to have been putting it on my clothes but I'd been putting it on my skin - big mistake, this stuff spilt in someone's bag and it took the paint off other packaging.
Overall a bad day, stunning scenery but after the attrition rate of the bikes, then Leslie's accident and my own problems it was a real struggle - approx. 3-4 hours riding, 5 hours doing repairs...Leslie joins us for dinner and feels a little better for treatment and strong drugs...she will miss the following mornings riding but we're all glad to see she's ok.
Fixing punctures. I personally fixed 5 tubes, not sure about Mark and James, think they ducked out early for beer, best plan really!
Beautiful sunset and view from the villa in Castarras.
Remains of Leslie's inner elbow. It didn't stop bleeding for two weeks and a couple of months later she would find out that she had smashed her rotator cuff (shoulder) and apparently on the x-ray it looked like a spiders web.
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