A day off, or maybe an off day in Antequera

October 19, 2017

The day was actually okay. It was still raining when I got up, but was supposed to stop by late morning. I had breakfast in the restaurant at the hotel, coffee and toast and jam. I need to figure out how to get a more substantial breakfast.

Then, as befitting a rainy morning, I went of to see the city museum. It has a good exhibit, with an audio guide in English, showing the city from prehistoric to almost modern times. It was worthwhile, but I can't show you because photos weren't allowed.

Then I wandered some, and found two bike shops where I asked about my route for tomorrow. I found a tour company (not that I'm using them, just for reference) that breaks the ride between Antiquera and Seville into 4 days. They actually do it in reverse, and their last day is from Estepa to Antequera. Maps.me and cycle.travel gave me very different routes. I had asked at the tourist office which road I should use leaving town, and they refered me to a bike shop, suggesting I could find a bike map there. One bike shop said one route was better, and the other liked the other one, and neither had any bike maps. Later in the day I stopped by another shop that rents electric bikes and sells kids scooters, and the guy there spoke better English which helped the discussion, and seemed to feel strongly that the second route was better. So route 2 it will be. That's the one from maps.me.

After the bike shops I walked to the archeological site of the Antequera Dolmens. Dolmens are megalithic tombs. They've been compared with Stonehenge, but the massive rocks were used and buried to make tombs. There is a visitor center with a video animation of how they think the rocks were cut and moved and formed into the structure. You can only go a short way into each of the two dolmens, Menga and Viera, that are at the site. There is a third one further out of town. What the video did not explain is why there were separate dolmens so close together.

Inside the dolmen. I had a few inches of clearance over my head.

A solar clock at the dolmen site. Not too useful on an overcast day like today. But the dolmens were built aligned with the sun, so it is relevant to the site.

View from the dolmen site. The large hill, decapitated by the cloud, was an important geographic reference point.

I had lunch and rested a bit, and then went back out to see the Giant Arch and the Alcazaba. The sun was trying to poke out, but a strong wind had picked up. I hope it has settled down by morning, or perhaps reversed directions. Otherwise it will be a headwind.

When I went back to the hotel in the evening, the internet in the upper floors was out. There was no one at the hotel desk, and the bar tender in the restaurant didn't understand, or perhaps didn't want to understand why I asked about rebooting the router. I worked in the bar for about 20 minutes when the hotel guy came back, and understood right away and came upstairs and showed me the router in a locked closet and rebooted it. Then life was good again.

Postre, dessert, enthusiastically sold to me by the man who functions as hotel reception and restaurant waiter. I think he tells me that it is most delicious and a specialty of his sister who is a cook in the kitchen. It really is most delicious, a creamy concoction of apples and nuts, and probably eggs topped with chocolate and then cinnamon and powdered sugar. In the check it is called bienmesabe. Google translates it as the name for many types of sweets of different compositions.

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