This post might surprise you or maybe not, but if you’re in for the long haul and have been following us for a few years or more (and thanks!!) you might just let out an exasperated sigh or roll your eyes and think “Oh, those Andersons!”.  Such flakes, but it’s just another abrupt u-turn in the road, the sort of thing that just seems to happen with us.

Not long after we returned from lunch we received a phone call.  It’s an agent from Budget Rent-a-Car wanting to go over our rental agreement, capture some information to speed up the pick-up process, and attempt to sell us some additional insurance.  Before hanging up when we’re done with his questions I have one of my own: am I correct that we can still cancel the rental with a full refund?  Yes, if we do it within the next two days.

Rachael’s been listening in, and picks up on my question - so it’s the opening for the discussion I’d been planning to broach with her tomorrow evening after we bike to Calpe.   Neither of us is fully recovered yet, but we feel nothing like we did four or five days ago when we decided to rent the car.  Back then I was still coughing badly, getting exhausted easily, and worried that maybe I was developing long Covid.  We didn’t really anticipate that we’d recover so quickly, and didn’t think we could afford to wait a few more days to find out.

If we felt then like we do now, we for sure wouldn’t have decided to do something as radical as rent a car.  We’d have continued on with the original plan and assumed that we’d just manage somehow if we came to days where we didn’t think we could bike or keep to our schedule.  I haven’t mentioned it to Rachael yet, but I’ve been silently thinking in the background.  I’ve confirmed that all of the bookings we made once we decided to drive - the car and seven or eight lodgings - are still fully cancellable.  I thought I’d wait to see how we did with the ride to Calpe tomorrow since it includes a significant climb before sharing my thoughts with Rachael.  Since the door has been opened though, we have the talk now.

It doesn’t take long to decide that yes, of course we’d like to ditch the car.  We would both much rather bike, now that we’re confident that we’re getting our health back.  The only real issue is whether we can find lodging for our new new plan since we’re closing in on Holy Week and some of the smaller places we’ll need to stay are getting booked up.

A planning frenzy ensues.  I propose an itinerary that is largely the same as the original one except simplified in a couple of significant spots to cut out some of the most challenging days.  We have some real challenges finding lodging here and there, especially along the coast between Almeria and Malaga during Holy Week.  After about two hours though we stitch together a viable itinerary and then start from the top banging out new bookings and cancelling old ones, acting quickly hoping none of our targeted stays gets booked by someone else before we get to it.  We’re done by about ten, mentally exhausted but happy.

So Competa, Berja, Baeza and Zuheros are out, along with about a thousand miles of driving, the car rental, and gas and parking fees; and Nerja, Malaga, Sentenil and Seville are back in, along with the same two vexing questions of how to get from Alicante to Aguilas and from Seville to Zafra that we started the tour puzzling over.

We’ll see if we can’t stick with this plan for a few days so you don’t get motion sickness.