I continued my journey towards San Jose. A (probably rather inconspicuous) town name that for me however just like “Santa Fe” or “Santa Maria” always means American/Mexican wild west. Also the landscape now looked even more like what you see in the old western movies. Despite 38 degrees I loved riding through the dry and hostile to life looking landscape. I felt like riding through one of Leones movies.

Petrol had become expensive since I had reached the southern coast of Spain. It might just be the usual fluctuations but in the north it was 25% cheaper.

However the food was still cheap at the supermarket. In fact it was very cheap. I bought half a kilo of strawberries (local) for 1.50 Euro. In London or anywhere else I would probably pay a few pounds for that amount. In retrospect I should have been more greedy buying a kilo or more and eat until I puke. They were really good.

Fruit generally is relatively cheep. And most of the time local.

I had just passed Alicante when I decided it was time to drop the bike again. From the main road I saw a little trail going towards the beach. I was dying to go for a swim and got onto the dusty path to check out if it actually lead to the sea. I quickly saw that it did so I followed the uncomfortably sideways angled path. A few hundred meters in the path split. The right one lead to a little parking lot and the left one continued a little further down the beach. I went for the left one hoping for a remote beach spot and some more off-road experience. The path got worse but I reached the end without any troubles. I wanted to turn the bike around to have an easier time taking off later but that was a mistake. The problem was that there was almost no space to reverse. So I had to move the bike very slowly. At higher speeds the bike behaves a lot better than slow. Often when there is an uneven off-road path it is better to ride it with a bit more speed to shoot over uneven ground. But when you are going very slow the smallest pebble can make you lose your balance. And that is what happened to me. It must have been painful to watch. I dropped the bike v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y. I was almost standing still but I had a bit of momentum from trying to turn left and I just couldn’t hold it. The only way I could have avoided the drop was with more throttle but there wasn’t enough space for it on this little spot.

As before the procedure was: trying to lift it with the luggage which of course didn’t work, removing all the accessible luggage, lifting the bike and packing it again. After I had lifted the bike I rode it to a flat spot so taking off would be no problem.

No damage at all.

This time I was rewarded with a great spot to relax and refuel my body with water and pastries.

 

Afterwards I went for a swim in the crystal clear water. My goggles were useless but I could still see the fearless little fish swimming close to me. They looked like what I had only seen in the aquarium so far. A great experience.

Relaxed I continued my journey through the dry landscape.

I came across countless little beaches one more beautiful that the other. Always the water was crystal clear. It looked like what you see in the holiday booking catalog.

More and more I could see why this landscape was chosen by Sergio Leone to resemble the American desert like west.

Right after leaving Valencia I noticed that the landscape had changed. There were very few trees, only a few bushes and other than that lots of yellow dry soil and sand.

After a little while I reached a city called Torrevieja which had been suggested to me by the Valencia hostel staff.

 

I stopped at Torrevieja to go for a swim, stock up my supplies and fill up the tank. I also bought cheap diving goggles because of how clear the water was everywhere I had been so far. Although this had already been the second pair I bought cheaply on the trip. The first one was too small for me. This one was just as useless. It’s got the same issue as my GOPro Camera housing. Above water the glass seems clear but below it is very distorted because it has a slight curvature and it’s cheap plastic. The German saying “Who buys cheap buys twice” applies.

After covering a good distance it had gotten late and the sun was setting. I needed to find a place to sleep.

Luckily I had my GPS to guide me at night. Except that night it made it’s first mistake. I am using a GPS app on my phone which works fantastically despite the fact that it is free.
On my 5000miles so far it had never failed me once but due to the fact that the road network is rapidly being expanded all over the place in Spain the GPS was showing a now discontinued road causing me a one hour detour. So instead of reaching the next bigger town I was now looking for a camp site, wherever. Just as I realized once again that it was really getting darker and that I really had to find a place to sleep I passed through the most desolate neighborhood so far. A little town that seemed completely deserted except for the odd old and grim looking villager sitting on their porch. There was trash everywhere and buildings in ruins. I wanted to leave this area as quickly as possible. The real problem though was that after having passed through this town there was no place to hide a tent and a motorcycle because there simply was no vegetation to speak of. No forests, not even individual trees or bushes.
Finally after riding for a few more miles I passed a little hill. Two hills actually. And where they met in the middle, a little elevated I saw MY campsite. It offered a nice view over the flat valley I had just passed through. The terrain was not the most inviting to ride uphill in bad light and I did not want to drop the bike at that time of the day. Slowly I climbed the hill in first gear and parked the bike for the night on the dusty plateau.

The sun hadn’t set completely yet and since I wanted to stay as invisible as possible, especially in that neighborhood I decided to have dinner first and set up my tent once the sun had completely vanished.

My top box doubles as wardrobe, dinner table and office desk.

The night was uncomfortably hot but I had the most fantastic view onto the night sky. I could clearly see the milky-way and all the star signs. A view that never fails to make me realize how tiny we and our problems are and how much more there is out there.

The night was hot but opening the tent beyond the ventilation net zips was not an option due to the many relentless flies and mosquito.
Why it really was the right decision to keep the zips closed became obvious the next day.
I was just about to take down the tent and wrap it up when I saw this 5cm guy under my tent.

At 5cm he was roughly 5cm too big. Quickly I got my big boots and stomped – away. When I came back he was gone. Probably crawled into my tent I thought. Still I had to get going so I folded up the tent extra carefully after shaking it vigorously and packed all my other things.

Sweating from the already glaring heat of the morning sun I left my campsite to continue south, always south.