To get home is a challenge in itself. I seem to have a few options but none are ideal. I could fly from Malaga but I would need to get a box for my bike (and somehow get both to the airport with all my bags). A quick option, but with bike and two heavy pannier bags that are definitely not hand baggage the costs are high and there is the risk of damage to the bike during handling (a problem I experienced the one and only time I have flown with my bike so there is a little reluctance here on my part). Other options require me to head north to the ferries. My experience with trains at the beginning of the trip showed them to be a difficult option, though not impossible. An initial look at using those that would take bikes got me only about halfway to Madrid in a day with four changes. It would be a slow choice. I could post my bike to anywhere in Spain for fifty euros using a special postal service and I could then catch a fast train north with my bags and collect the bike from a post office. But while relatively cheap in itself the bike takes three days to arrive at its destination (excluding weekends) and I can only post it on weekdays so the fact I arrived at Almuñécar late Friday meant that it would be Thursday before it arrived in the north. Throw in the fact that there are only two sailings each week from Santander and Bilbao and the earliest I would be able to get a ferry would be Saturday and this cheap option starts to cost a lot with accommodation. On top of that there is always that nagging question in the mind: 'what if something goes wrong?'. Using a bus as I did to get to Vigo is not straightforward either: buses to Madrid from Malaga took bikes but those to the ports did not seem to. I could mix and match the options giving even more choices and decisions to be made but in the end I decided to hire a car and drive. It was not the cheapest option on the face of it but by the time everything was taken into account it was not prohibitive either. And I keep my bike with me and under my control which gives a sense of comfort.
A decision made, I cycled back to Malaga on Saturday, the reverse of my route to Almuñécar. It made me appreciate how uphill the journey to Almuñécar had been: I of course had to climb over the same headlands going back but in general my route seemed to involve a fair amount of free wheeling until after Nerja and the flat coastline to Malaga.
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| Leaving Malaga |
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| Leaving Malaga |
After a quiet night in Malaga, Sunday morning I cycled out to the airport to collect the car. I have yet to feel excited about getting home, probably because there are still so many small hurdles to jump that it remains far off in my thinking. There is little to say of the drive, a long ten hours to a hotel just outside Santander airport for an easy drop off Monday. I saw a lot of dramatic scenery and I was mostly on motorways and national routes that were for the most part very quiet which helped balance out other more negative aspects: the tank of a car, bigger than I needed and bigger than I thought I had booked; the long tiring journey; and driving on the wrong side of unfamiliar roads.
Early evening had me pulling into the hotel car park and with a sense of relief for having got to the 'right end of the country' without mishap. Home now seems within grasp. Tomorrow I drop off the car and cycle into the city centre for my last two nights in Spain.
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| The 'Tank' |
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