We awoke the next morning with a farcical amount of ground to cover: about a 170 KM ride from Alméria to Granada and the stupid Alhambra visit, before booming off to Cordoba, another 160 KM across the desert to in the murderous late-afternoon Spanish sun.
In the face of this pre-programmed foolishment, our neuro-divergent Third Guy had himself a little meltdown. I was trying to fortify myself with the hotel breakfast. Tom was rushing me through it, the quicker to get on the road. This kind of conflict is standard and normal, and resolved a dozen times a day by verbal compromise and mental muttering. But that morning, as we lashed our bags to our bikes, Tom toddled off in search of a fucking baseball cap he’d left last night at Casa Puga—or was it that other bar we went to after, what was the name of it?
At this, I exploded, shouting angry words I don’t remember, in front of many alarmed or amused people outside our hotel, and stormed off theatrically down an alley, in phony search of the hat myself.
We were already beginning to laugh about it at the gas station on the way out of town, and the rest was washed into oblivion by the next hour’s ride along the coast, where the Mediterranean and the sky above it, shrouded in a horizon-blurring mist, gave us the impression we were riding alongside one great deep blue dream: riding alongside inner space.
And now, I will twist the throttle and sprint through the rest of this one mid-trip day, with the understanding that every day was like this—is like this, on a rigorously scheduled motorcycle trip:
A highway climb over the mountains and onto the plain to Granada.
A hot entry to Granada and steep, winding ascent to The Alhambra, which overlooks the city. Motorcycle jackets are okay at speed, but the moment you settle into city traffic you will do anything to get moving again.
Lunch at a restaurant there—gazpacho is served cold because midday in Spain is served hot—and into our idiotic hustle through The Alhambra, a Moorish palace and fortress begun in 1200 AD, which is beautiful but too big to see and comprehend in an hour. I call it, “awesome bushes and trees and stuff.”
Needing to make Cordoba, we tore off into a desert hairdryer, ripping on a fast road through a beautiful but lonely and eventually tedious landscape of one trillion olive trees. (Or were they dates?) We passed about four castles on the way, like they were car dealerships.
We stopped in a small town a little more than halfway through, for a breather and a beer. In that bar, we were both reminded vividly of many late afternoon riding stops in Midwestern country saloons—a happy pack of local day drinkers and a good-natured, wisecracking woman behind the bar. (From what international casting agency do these daytime barkeepers come?) On a TV, a weatherman explained in great detail that everywhere across Spain it was hot and sunny. His map showed 30 suns. That seemed about right.
On to Cordoba, where our GPS machines inexplicably melted down just like the Third Guy had that morning, causing us 45 hot and enraging minutes of circling blocks and cutting through alleys in search of our hotel.
Which, when we finally found it, became a comprehensive oasis. The clerk became our concierge, arranging, as we gobbled cold beers at the counter, a free parking spot for the bikes, a fast-turnaround laundry service and even a switched hotel accommodation in Málaga, where we wanted to spend our last three nights in a better spot than the airport-adjacent place our numb-nuts tour director had assigned.
Suddenly feeling settled and sane, we half-strutted down to Cordoba’s Great Mosque. Along the way, we discovered that Spain was playing France in an important semifinal football match in the European Cup. Many of the restaurants were packed with Cordovians eagerly watching it—some of them, proprietors of other places, which they’d closed for the occasion. “Viva Espania!” went the shout when Spain tied the game—a prelude to another echoing citywide exultation when Spain took what turned out to be the decisive lead.
We wound up having dinner at a fancy courtyard place at about 10:00 and returning to the hotel by midnight to rest for another massive, three-city endeavor tomorrow.
The next morning, the fucking hat turned up. It had been in Tom’s duffel all along.
Luvina Palma says
You have a way of making me feel like I’m there. I laughed out loud reading this!
Thank you for making my day. 😊