Into the mountains

The weather turned wet in Grazalema so we decided to head over to the coast until things improved before heading back inland. We ended up staying one night at Torre Del Mar, a typical Spanish seaside resort and not really our thing, but at least it was dry. On the morning we left we had a quick spin along the promenade (10km or so) and in my mind Torre Del Mar was redeemed by the excellent churros shed that we came across. Churros are a Spanish donut but served as a long strip, rather than round with a hole in the middle, and are excellent dunked into super thick hot chocolate – the breakfast of champions.

An excellent find!

Master churros maker in action

Looking at this photo not sure that I have the churros to riding ratio quite right

On the subject of donuts the best donuts can be found at the beach side cafe at Dunwich in Suffolk – perfectly fried dough balls crisp on the outside cut half through with a generous dollop of jam – worth a detour!

With the weather improved we headed into the Sierra Nevada mountains and in particular to Tremelez reported to be the highest village in Spain at 1460m. It was a great drive up from sea level with the last 30km on a narrow twisty road with plenty of unprotected drops to focus the mind. We arrived at the campsite a further 2km up the road in bright sunshine and snow! Luckily not prolonged or settling at campsite level.

The campsite owner is into climbing and has loads of information on local walks and rides etc. all relayed verbally but with an eye for where navigation can get tricky and useful advice on how to find the correct trail. So armed with the knowledge of a 5 minute conversation and our stated desire to do a high level route we set off on our trek. The directions and advice were spot on and we climbed the 1000 m from the campsite to the top of the ridge with excellent views over Tremelez below. We started off with the sun on our backs but as always in the mountains the higher you go the colder and more changeable it gets and by the time we crossed the snow line we were in hats, coats and gloves. The round trip was just less than 15 km and took 5 ½ hours so now time to retire to the bar from where we are sending this update.