Stupendous! Our superlative word for the ride today through the Sierras del Cazorla Park. The climb started gradually to Burunchel but then got ever steeper for an hour and a half through switch backs to an elevation of 1200m. As we slowly spun our wheels up through olive groves, we had reached a new high point of the trip and drank in the spectacular views back to El Irula, Cazorla, Jodar in the distance and down the Guadalquivir valley to where Cordoba is behind the hills. Once we rounded the last hairpin turn, the temperature dropped and the scenery completely changed from cultivated olives to a deep valley covered with natural forest. We stopped at the "mirador" to gaze at the pine trees on the exposed slopes and deciduous trees in the sheltered valley. It all looked particularly green as this spring has not been normal for eastern Spain with colder temperatures and an unusual amount of rain. Although it seemed impossible to think it when some Dutch cyclists told us, we could now believe that it snowed here in the park when they came through a week ago.
We layered up with warmer clothes and zoomed down. It's a steep 14km downhill to Arroyo Frio, a cute tourist village with a hip vibe, and another 20km of rolling, wonderful downhill to Coto Rios, a sleepy little village where we turned off for lunch in a small family run restaurant. An English father-son cycle-touring duo, whom we had chatted with on an earlier stop, were already there and gave the food a thumbs up. We ordered the Plata del Dias; the food was homemade, tasty and the scène entertaining. Along with the usual dogs barking and a cat visiting the tables looking for a tidbit, an elderly woman was pushing a stroller around the perimeter of the patio. We soon realized that the baby belonged to our young waitress and was getting ever more fussy. After serving our meals, it was his mealtime too. Grandma slipped into the kitchen, the chef in the kitchen took over waitressing and the waitress sat at a table to do what mothers do to feed their babies, while directing the stand-in waitress as to who was getting which desert, coffees, their bill, etc. Definitely family-run!
After lunch, more downhill until we rounded a corner and the spectacular Guadalquivir Réservoir came into view. This valley is the source of the Guadalquivir River which was dammed in the 1940s to create a huge reservoir. It's a stunning turquoise colour with no human habitation in sight and reddish brown earthen edges showing the water level to be at least 10ft below peak height -and its just the start of the long, dry summer. It remained to our right for 20km, until the dam and the turnoff to our hotel.
Not wanting to zoom through this beautiful, and uniquely natural section of our trip, we had booked a place in the tiny hamlet of El Tranco. Spanish has many different words for hotel (we are slowly learning what they mean) and this one was a Hospedria Rural; hospederia loosely translates to "inn" and we agreed that it was rural as we navigated a tiny lane for 1.5km along the side of the gorge to get there. We were the only guests, they served us dinner and breakfast and it was very peaceful.
