{"id":10330,"date":"2016-12-18T13:59:34","date_gmt":"2016-12-18T13:59:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/snailpacecycling.co.uk\/?p=10330"},"modified":"2016-12-18T13:59:34","modified_gmt":"2016-12-18T13:59:34","slug":"day-136-periana-to-malaga","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/snailpacecycling.co.uk\/wordpress\/2016\/12\/day-136-periana-to-malaga\/","title":{"rendered":"Day 136 – Periana to Malaga"},"content":{"rendered":"

Day 136                                                      2nd December
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39 miles (Periana to Malaga) <\/span><\/span>Average 9.8 mph  Top speed  33 mph<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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A fantastic day which started very early. Up at 7, had lemonade and clementine for brekkie as there was no water for tea! Into town for coffee and cake. Then I headed west for a bath at Banos de Vilo. It was beautiful as the sun came up and although cold well worth the early start. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

View of Lake Venuela, early morning start<\/p><\/div>\n

Steadily upward for a few miles, then I saw the start of a big climb, but the baths were on the right so I climbed up there first. The gates were open and as there was no-one around I decided not to bother with the shorts and jumped into the coldest thermal bath I’ve ever known! The sulphur was very strong, but I don’t think they had turned on the heating!<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Cold sulphur bath – that’ll make you gasp!<\/p><\/div>\n

Banos de Vilo – no-one’s about<\/p><\/div>\n

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After drying off and feeling very rejuvenated, I rode on the long climb up and down into Riogordo where I found a very interesting clientele in the local cafe! There was a very drunk man with two dogs drinking beer at 10am.(Ermintrude: were the dogs drunk too?)<\/strong><\/em> The old lady he was talking to would not let him have a tennis ball for the dogs to play with, so he grabbed it from her bag and dropped it into the road, and let go of the lead as the dog was hit by a car. Thankfully the dog was OK but a very heated exchange ensued.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

View towards Riogordo<\/p><\/div>\n

Then I met Terry and Jackie and we discussed my journey and the English community here. She also told me that it was uphill all the way from here and wished me good luck! I then climbed up to Colmenar where I overtook a few walkers and bought some bread for lunch and a monster energy drink. Then it was lots of uphill all the way, especially as I went down to the bottom of town before going into the mountains of Malaga. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Panorama view of the mountain scenery<\/p><\/div>\n

It was certainly worth all the hard work as I was rewarded with some amazing scenery as the sun came out. It was so good I forgot to eat my lunch!<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I reached the top of the climb!<\/p><\/div>\n

When I eventually got to the end of the climb and stopped to drink my monster drink, I met Paul and Fiona, who live in Colmenar, and we had a great chat about cycling in the area and, of course, my trip. They were on mountain bikes and had been to the off road part of the mountains. They left me with a warning to take it easy on the bends on the way down into Malaga. I heeded their warning and donned my helmet and coat for the brilliant but cold ride down. It was great fun keeping up with the car in front, and I was struggling to keep below the speed limit. Beautiful scenery and a great view of the port. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

View of the port at Malaga from the road above the town<\/p><\/div>\n

I arrived in good time to meet my Airbnb host, so went in search of some new shoes in Decathlon La Rosaleda which proved a bit problematic as there were barriers everywhere, but just as I was looking for another option, an old lady in a wheelchair opened the disabled access and I followed her through and into the shopping centre. I discovered that Decathlon was on the lower level so squeezed into the lift and then went up and down about 5 times getting out at the wrong level each time! At least I knew how to get around the car park by the time I finished. The security guard asked if I needed the repair dept so I said yes just so that he would let me through with the bike. They had the shoes I wanted, but only in the wrong size. All that effort! and then I asked if they could order them in – they said no, but the other store out near the airport had some in stock. I managed to find my way back out eventually by taking that damn lift again.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Back at the apartment I was still a bit early so I had a beer in the Chaplin bar and bought some more in the shop opposite to have with my late lunch. Checked in with Victoria who offered to help again with my bags, but this time I had it all organised. After a shower and a small rest I went to Recyclo to see what could be done with my bike.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Recyclo Bike shop<\/p><\/div>\n

I had a few test runs outside the shop but could not replicate the earlier noises, but I asked to check the chain for stretch and he said it was a long way past its best! So I left the bike at the shop for a service and to replace the chain and rear cassette. It should be ready for Monday so that I can carry on to Benahavis. Then I found a photo shop that sorted me out with passport pics.   Bed at about 1am meant I’d had a very long and eventful day which proved very successful.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Airbnb Victoria<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Day 136                                                      2nd December   39 miles (Periana to Malaga) Average 9.8 mph  Top speed  33 mph   A fantastic day which started very early. Up at 7, had lemonade and clementine for brekkie as there was no water for tea! Into town for coffee and cake. Then I headed west for a bath at … [Read more…]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[619,473,613],"class_list":["entry","post","publish","author-ermintrude","post-10330","format-standard","category-spc_blog","post_tag-day-136","post_tag-malaga","post_tag-periana"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/snailpacecycling.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/snailpacecycling.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/snailpacecycling.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/snailpacecycling.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/snailpacecycling.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10330"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/snailpacecycling.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10330\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10345,"href":"https:\/\/snailpacecycling.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10330\/revisions\/10345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/snailpacecycling.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/snailpacecycling.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/snailpacecycling.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}