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.