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.