44. Jerez to El Rocio

Ready for action!

John was worried. Is he fit enough? Will his bum cope?

So I planned a nice easy start to his ride.

His first battle with the bike….

A fond farewell to Iain, flying back to Manchester this afternoon…and the boys were ready….

……for a lovely ride….

….to the small town of Sanlucar de Barrameda.to catch our ferry across the Guadalquivir Estuary, and avoid a 180km detour via Seville!! We were here in about 80 minutes. Only 50km to go! No hills to climb. Easy day!

Breakfast here…our ferry in the background.

Five minutes wait for the ferry…

…and the two of us were sufficient for them to make the crossing! 150 capacity….

…but just the two of us!

The distant views should possibly have provided a clue…

….the approach should have given us a better clue…

….but no…..no…..we were not ready for today!

If you see Kay.

If you see Kay

IF YOU SEE KAY

(now say that in a Belfast accent. It is a real quote from James Joyce’s Ulysses of 1922!)

F-U-C-K

F-U-C-K

F-U-C-K

The hardest day ever? 

I do not think that would be an exaggeration.

A full 30km of beach!! No track at all. No hard sand.

After just 1km…I had had it! Knackered. Heart-rate through the roof. John thought I might have a heart attack!! And we still had 29km to go!! Maybe we should have turned back.

One Spanish cyclist we met after 8km told us that the next 22km were impossible! 

The tide was coming in. Any hard sand that might have been there was fast disappearing.

300m ride. Stop. 200m walk. Stop. Repeat twice. One more km. Break at every 5km. Slowly, slowly.

John was good for the first ten km. I was not.

We were both hurting for the next ten. We both fell off. We both got bogged down in axle-deep sinking sand.

John was really struggling for the last ten. I am not fit…but I can keep going for a long time!! Hahaha

5km to go…and we’d had enough. It was baking hot. We did not have enough water. No food. (It was only a 90 minute…30km ride…..between cafes after all…!!). No shade whatsoever. 

We jumped into the ocean…which provided some real relief!

And gave us the impetus to carry on…..to finally reach ‘civilisation’!

And cold beers!!!! Phew!! To say we were both fucked would be an understatement. We sat…with beers…just dazed…in stunned silence….and actually thankful that we had actually made it , Mad, mad, mad! And John’s first very easy day!! Hahaha! That 30km stretch had taken us well over five hours…five of he very hardest hours….and five of the hottest hours I have had on the whole trip so far!!

I looked up the ride afterwards. It is in a National Park….and is only allowed with a guide! And it can only be undertaken at low tide!!

Tell Google maps that!!!

So from Matascanalas to El Rocio…it was a 20km cruise…on TARMAC!!! But when I say “cruise” we were both just so knackered…even that felt like hell!

And so to El Rocio. Interesting from a distance…

…..but from close up…is this the strangest town in Andalusia?

The wild West!

But the streets were not paved with gold…they were paved with fucking SAND! We could not believe it!! So once a-bloody-gain we were skidding all over the place!!

Great lodgings here though…with a view of the main square from the roof terrace!

El Rocio – it turns out – is a huge pilgrimage centre. Unbelievably…around 1,000,000 million folk arrive here each year, around the Pentecost…to view the Virgin of El Rocio…housed here.

These guys arrived when we were swallowing beers. They were a fortnight or so late…but were still warmly welcomed!

Lots of folk riding around on horse-back. Wagons. A truly weird place!!

But fascinating all the same. A great distraction from our broken bodies!