Cycling from Castilblanco de los Arroyos to Cantillana, Spain

Leaving the 🔊 noises and the 💣 Explosions

2022-08-15

I did like Castilblanco but had my "fair" share of the many fireworks-explosions at all moments of all days and all evenings. They are very 😡 annoying since you can't avoid them.

And once more I noticed nobody else cares. My annoyance grew by the day and that means only one thing. I left Castilblanco on the mainroad in the opposite direction as I pushed into it. Which means I was freewheeling down through the town.

Which2 often means (as it also was here) that one has to slowdown very often because of the bad roadsurface. I had to ride slow anyway since the town was completely full of people having coffees and breakfast. People of all ages, at 10h00 on a regular friday.

The free ride lasted only shortly ...

But as usual there were nice details to see, except ofcourse for the endless fences and cameras ...

The typical spanish landscape, cork oaks and olivetrees are everywhere. Did you ever think about How do trees grow ? 🖱️.

I neared the Embalse de Los Melonares but it is not possible to visit the dam since all is fenced.

The downhill to this Embalse was the final end of my stay in the Parque Natural Siera Norte de Sevilla. In 4kms I descended 350vms to end up at 50mts above sealevel.

The Embalse de Los Melonares is part of the Rio Viar and so I crossed it's bridge. There is hardly any water left in it although it is much more then in average.

And that water of life makes for a nice green oasis in a yellow landscape.

As usual climbing starts where bridges end. I had to climb a last 100vms to really get out of the hills.

Everybody should be jaleous on these horses ! Probably.

This was the final "in the hills" location. Here I turned right, to the south, bye bye hills and mountains. For the time being that is ...

The remains of a small fire along the road, I always ask myself how such a fire started. Was it on purpose, ie by a cigarette ? And was it handled by the bombeiros (the firebrigade) ? Or was it a matter of some luck that the fire died ?

And a roadkill of a boar. They weigh some 60kgs to 100kgs so they make quite some impact at ie 100kmh.

And close to today's finish several fans of mine showed up. The question always is if they will be on time to see me passing by.

After quite a long and tough trip I entered Cantillana.

The highlights of today are :

These guineafowls

These have there habitat in this valley of the Rio Vial.

They are quite seldom

and this is how they sound.

I saw a few of them only three times in all my life. Where the last time was at least 20 years ago ...

Helmeted guineafowl originate from Africa, where they traditionally live on warm, moderately dry and open plains with some trees and shrubs. In the fifteenth century, the Portuguese brought them from the coastal areas of Guinea (hence the English name Guineafowl) to Western Europe for their meat and eggs.

The bird is fifty to sixty centimeters tall, with a round body and a small, bald head. So it is up to somewhat above your knees. On average, the guinea fowl weighs between one and one and a half kilograms.

And these are the Trees of the Day :

Everytime I see one I honour it. By the way, The European tree of the Year competition 🖱️ is worth having a look at.

Click 🖱️ to open

I couldn't find a decent place to camp in town nor close to it.

Last chance was to cycle to the end of the town where there is a parque. And it was, but some 20mts below townlevel. I parked the OnTheRoad 4.0 to a tree and walked down to have an impression.

The parc turned out to be a fitnessarea and childrens playground and I was not convinced I would have a nice and quiet stay there. But since it was the best situation I had seen I decided to take the guess and put up my tent. I actually expected to be send away by the first policeofficers to pass. Probably even before dark ... To my surprise that did not happen, I saw a policecar passing by but they did not react. So I was in Cantillana now.

Today I cycled 37kms with 403vms included. The heightprofile seems to show an easygoing downhill-day but my gps has really counted those "403".

And this is the interactive map of today's YesTrip.

Castilblanco here I am. For how long I'll have to find out.

◀️ ▶️ Route 🖱️ ⏫