Friday, April 4^th, 2003  Algeciras – Ronda  exactly 100 km.

I knew that this would be the mountain stage. On the boulevard of Algeciras I set the altimeter at 15 meters. The first 50 km. went up and down until it climbed to  820 m. between Los Angeles (Spain) and Gaucin. At 15:00 I reached Benadalid, like so many others, a white painted village stuck on the mountain. The view was unique. A Belgium family with bag and baggage were the only ones eating lunch. You meet Dutch speaking people, I think, in the most remote corners of the earth. (Dutch is my mother tongue but I’ve lived in Switzerland since 1959). An hour later I went on , up to 1000 meters exactly (Puerto de Enchinas Borrachas). As I was observing the scenery I saw a young man on a fully loaded bicycle “crawling” up towards the mountain top. On the low-rider he even had big saddle bags and spare tires with spikes on top of the baggage. This Japanese man told me that he started his trip in Stockholm in February and was on his way to South Afrika. (It was a bit cold and icy on the roads up there, he said with a laugh) Today my guardian angels are with me because I have tailwind. I’m sure that the angels hate to fly against the wind – they probably organized something up there!

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