Antequera

We left Jerez at about 10.00 this mornig, having picked a scenic route for the 100 odd miles to Antequera. Once off the motorway it was up small twisty roads through the mountains of the Grazelama National Park to Ronda. Despite the zumo's best efforts we managed to avoid driving through the town centre although we were plagued by roadworks on the bypass. The scenery around Ronda is lovely, very open with gentle hills dotted with regualr plantations of olives. At this time of year it is very green with masses of wildflowers though I doubt it stays like this through the summer.

We then entered the mountains again and rather than go on the main road had chosen the only alternative route along minor roads. When planning it we hadn't quite realised how minor they were! We turned off the bigger when instructed by the zumo then stopped as it seemed to be someone's drive. Oh no, off to the left was the road which went through what looked like a big pipe under the main road and then turned to patches of gravel. We followed it up as it twisted up through a village, mostly patched tarmac, some gravel and a long stretch of concrete. Out of the village we were back on tarmac winding through the mountains with magnificent views into the valley. Although there was no traffic it was too narrow to stop for photos unfortunately. After a few miles we came to a sign saying the "camino montana" was "mal estadio", well we'd realised by then it was in a bad state! The left handside of the road was littered with rocks off the mountain, on the right there were places where the tarmac was slipping over the edge and every now and then we just had a strip of gravel to ride over! I loved every minute of it! The GS's are just superb bikes for this sort of thing. Once down the other side normal conditions resumed when we reached a small town. That just left us 40km of non stop twisties, still on a pretty narrow road, through agricultural land until we reached the turning into & down through the narrow streets of Antequerra to our lovely spanish hotel, (with fast free wifi!) the Coso Viejo. We're staying here two nights and are spoilt for choice as to what to do tomorrow. If we can cram it all in we'll be visiting flamingoes, dolmens and El Torcal Natural Park!