MOTORBIKE: The Road to Granada

Leaving Spain’s beautiful East Coast at Almería and Cabo de Gata, the road would lead inland to Granada, one of the last Moorish strongholds before the completion of the Christian reconquista of the Peninsula and a city of which I heard tales of silver and gold from a friend who spent an Erasmus semester inside its walls.
The city, however, will be talked about elsewhere. It was the road leading there that surprised me most.
As said, the coast was left in favor of the shorter route inland, promising a sight of the snow covered Sierra Nevada.

It felt like traveling continents and five climate zones!

First, about half an hour into the freeway, the landscape turned red, brown and barren as we passed the Tabernas Desert. Then, there followed a swift rise into some highland plateau with thousands of windmills. The tall white ones that produce electricity, not the iconic grain-mills of Don Quijote. Guess what. We choose to drive about the windiest road in Spain on motorbike.

In the distance, however, we got a glimpse on the snow-covered summits of the Sierras.
 About an hour later, with the wind fading, the road would take another steep ascent and before knowing what happened the drive lead through passes between the summits, snow next to the asphalt shining in the sun and roadsigns indicating ski resorts everywhere. Like Switzerland in spring when the snow starts melting and its time to hit the slopes in a t-shirt. In Spain!

It followed a very steep decent into Granada, now, after the dry coast, the desert, the treeless highlands and the snowy mountains, green and covered with trees. A bit cooler than the Mediterranean shores, but surely beautiful.

MOTORBIKE: South in Search of the Sun

The story begins like this:

Graduating university. Working. Being “home” (my parents’ place, a nice and quiet Swiss mountain village). Caged. Cold and rainy. And itchy feet again after two weeks.

And the thought comes often when I drive my 30-year-old 125ccm Yamaha over the nearby hill on my way to work just to catch some sun above the thick layer of fog: What would happen if I just keep on driving?

The motorbike would fall apart, that’s what would happen!

So that had to change. New bike. New plans. New means of travel.

I used to backpack all over. This is somehow different and challenging. Note that I’m an academic (contemporary history). I can write you a sound analysis on any Arab Spring country. But engines kinda speak Chinese to me.

Off we go:

Poor planning was the start. Just the decision to be in Barcelona (sun!) for New Year’s Eve.

Then come a series of obstacles.

Used BMW G 650 GS has been test-ridden for a month and nice and shiny side-boxes been ordered to put the necessities for the road.

They arrive later than planned and with wrong tubes. Plan B is to put the whole crap in waterproof duffel bags on the back (picture).

If it wasn’t for the damn snow who sets in right the day (27. December, 2014) set for departure. Motorbikes don’t do well in snow. At least mine. In fact, it refuses to move completely.

So there where two options now to get from the north of snowy Switzerland to sunny Spain:

1 – Back to backpacking and book a flight.

2 – Load the motorbike into a rental van and drop it off once the Alps have been passed.

Guess…

Felt like Hannibal (history geek) after crossing the snow covered mountains and unloading the bike in Lugano, set to cross into Northern Italy. Or like one of his soldiers who froze to death, as it was close to midnight at the time the two wheels where packed and ready.

Still, he goal was the Mediterranean Coast near Genoa. After three hours of freezing at about 0 degrees, sparkling roads and dry snow still next to the highway I admitted defeat shortly after Pavia and rolled into a motel.

The daylight, however, brought no sun until the Ligurian Coast and there I shouted when it appeared over the ocean and for the first time on this trip saw a fellow motorcyclist.

I shouted again at the howling winds, which apparently haunt this part of the coast in the winter (poor planning), to a point where it lifted my rear tire off the road for a split second and left me with a heart attack.

Now here comes my favorite part:

I hitchhiked before. Just not with a motorbike. So now, with conditions making it impossible to ride an overloaded bike I looked for a bigger ride. After a few tries, found a travel companion in a Romanian truck driver who accepted a fare for a lift towards Spain.

Felt like winning a first battle when, with the aid of two friendly Frenchmen, we hauled the 200kg bike over our heads into the truck and attached it to 40 tons of Italian lasagne bound for Barcelona!

Six hours of road where passed like this, mostly eating, resting and sleeping (trucks have beds!), as the driver would have to stop 100km before the Spanish border to meet the regulation of work and sleep cycles.

Somewhat after Béziers at about 11:30pm we unloaded the again and I set to drive the last leg myself.

Half an hour later, in the middle of French nowhere a road-sign flashed “HAPPY NEW YEAR”. Yet, at this point I had long given up on being in Barcelona at midnight.

Four coffee stops later and frozen fingers I arrive in Spain at about 5am. Some say 6am, but i really did give a damn anymore…

Oh yeah, and I dropped my bike twice on this part while standing, once  on the handle leaving a little scratch and once on my toe to prevent another scratch. Worked with a hurting toe.