Hog Runs

Oct 15th trip to juzcar

Firstly, let me apologise for not updating this blog in a while but the truth is that during the summer the runs were limited to destinations already discussed. With Denny going on holiday and Malcom busy, it was just me and since the aim of this blog is to share our experiences on the road it seemed kinda pointless - i mean there's only so much i can write on the sonorous effects of the sixth cup of coffee on my stomach (regardless of how entertaining it can be - though not to people nearby) . Runs also became shorter with more time spent at rallies with some bikers from nearby and with Malcom not being able to make it, even Faro became a day trip for chicken rolls and beer rather than three days of drunken debauchery.For future reference i would recommend Captain Cook's rally on the beach with the Damas del Alsfalto and the Hederos del Viento, two neighbouring bike groups - beach, beer, barbeque and bikinis is always a winning combination.

Anyways, back to the present. Two weeks ago we attended ,the Harley open house in Malaga. We have a new mate joining us who seems to have a fetish for tartar sauce, to the point where we considered not buying him lunch and just taking a bucket of the stuff with a spoon. Neverthelss we had a great time but Malcolm did not forgive me not taking us to the Venta Victoria for his cheese fix. To make up for this , this week i agreed to take them on a tour of some towns in the Sierra de Ronda - an area made famous by its association with the infamous bandolero "Curro Jimenez" ( not for any any real reason since this is a fictitious chaacter but because it was used for the filming of this early, post-franco spanish series.)
On the tour would be Alpandeire, a town made famous as the hometown of Fray Leopoldo :a famous monk whose biggest claim to fame seems to be using a stone as a pillow. At least this is all i remember from when my dad took me on a tour of this area. Then again we have to take into account that i was a fifteen year old teenager who had just spent five hours in a car on a road with more curves than Jenifer lopez's butt listening to Julio Iglesias. As you can imagine, i was not at all impressed by this stone which was being pointed out by an old lady who was apparently the friar's sister. Nowadays, however, the area has been much improved by the addition of a monument to the friar's memory, monument that now attracts its fair share of tourists to the area.

Juzcar itself is a little village recently made famous by Sony who decided to paint it blue to celebrate the premiere of smurfs3D. Yes, you did read correctly... I said blue. When you consider that this town is bang in the middle of la Ruta de los Pueblos Blancos, it becomes a bit of an oxymoron. As a tourist attraction however, it works better than topless sunbathing and cheap beer for english holidaymakers as the overflowing car parks and overworked bar tender ( please note at this stage that the carparks and single bar already constitute two thirsd of the town which does not even boast a church) will testify.

Anyway enough of the lesson and back to the ride. We were joined at Venta Victoria by Denny's brother who went home a happy and satisfied man from there with homemade, culinary award winning cheese in his pocket and a full stomach. Thanfully he decided to return home rather than continue with us as once again i ended up leading us through roads more suitble to ayone driving a four wheel drive goat. A least this time the roads were tarmac'd but they would definatley not have been enjoyed on a ducati monster. Ater a somewhat bumpy and windy hour we caught sight of the infamous blue town which tends to stick out like a syphilitic rat in a hamster cage. We stopped to take some pictures and noticed these chestnut trees. Proving that his missus is never far from his mind, Malcolm decided to go and grab some leading to the inevitable conclusion that both myself and denny had forseen.Thankfully denny was there to give him a helping hand back up as can be seen inthe pictures.

Although everyone at the town was accomodating enough, on finding out that we should have booked a table at the bar almost a few months in advance we decided to brave the remaing, vertigo inspiring roads and head for ronda to grab some food. We ate at a gas station grill shack which proved to have a vast selection of game on its menu - would say hunting game but am fairly sure there are no wild ostrich up there. After a very satisfying lunch which was enjoyed both by us and the local neighbourhood cats which became quite fond of our legs , we headed back down the famous ronda road. At this point, denny decided to speed ahead and leave us behind, inevitably leading to us laying bets as to the effect of the secreto iberico on his digestive system. (results to be revealed!) All in all, a very enjoyable ride with good food, good company and horrible landscaping and decor!

2nd July

Ride to venta San Juan.

Well I know I ain't written in a while but the rides we've done have been relatively short and to the same places so I thought I would wait till I had built up a small bank of experiences. Fortunately Malcolm joined us toda and he fills up the bank all on his own, usually to overflowing.

We decided to try Breakfast at Los Timbales , a recently refurbished restaurant that Denny discovered last week when he decided to brave gale force winds by himself while i recovered from a hangover.( actually i did wake up, looked out the window and thought, feck this! And went back to bed- sorry Den). Anyways, back to the breakfast. It's definitely not recommended, at least not the tomato.

We stopped for a drink at Gaucin to make the most of the view and lovely morning. After being told to remove the bikes from the pavement by a not so simpatico waiter, Malcolm proceeded to help me tighten a loose screw on my bike, unfortunately at the cost of burnt fingers!

From there we proceeded to La Venta San Juan, a lovely little place situated in the valley on the road from Algatocin to Estepona and straddling the river Guadiaro at almost it's source. This place is well worth a visit, though try to get there before 2 or finding a table is virtually impossible. The two staples at this idealic location are the chicken or rabbit In a pot and the hazelnut Flan- both garanteed to add a few, well enjoyed inches to the waistline! Now today we had a new rider with us who had in fact purchased Denny''s old bike. Malcolm took it upon himself to discover if Santi, the new guy, was related to the owner of the restaurant who, according to malcolm, looked like his long-lost twin.In normal circumstances, this would have been funny enough but the fact that the owner thought Malcolm was serious and proceeded to give us a breakdown of his family history, interspersed with insightful comments from Malcolm, soon had us all in tears. Well except Santi who by now was a bright shade of red as he was forced to list any relatives from the area. Any of you who have happened to come across an old spaniard who thinks he's related to you will Know that they are like a pit bull worrying a leg!

From here we proceeded to cross la Sierra de Jubrique. This ride is particularly recommended for nature and bird lovers. Griffon vultures will ride the updrafts coming extremely close to the roads and offering some extreme close up of these majestic birds in flight and the panoramic views from the myriad of miradores are stunning, particularly when you cross the saddle and find yourself looking down onto estepona and the sea. Before you come to this point,however,there's a little spring, known to those who travel this area for the water's freshness. Today there was a young couple enjoying the solitude of the area, the romantic atmosphere of the almost virginal mountains, a young couple who almost went into shock at the site of Malcom diving head first into the fountain. Now let me digress a minute and explain that ever since my dad would take me exploring every Sunday into these mountains, it was customary for us to stop at these local springs to cool down. My dad unfortunately , would insist on drinking from every one of these springs to my mums dismay- dismay because she was well aware of the runs that would inevitably follow, and I'm not talking about jogging! My dad, nevertheless thought they were well worth the moments enjoyment. It was with this thought of cooling down that I suggesting stopping at the spring. The sight of malcom's legs sticking out of the basin I think is one that I will never forget. Nor, in my opinion, will the young couple!
Well after this, it was just a straight ride back to gib to finish off the day with our usual coffee at al fresco!

Well I hope you enjoyed this weeks adventure. In a couple of weeks we'll be unleashing Malcom in the the bike rally in faro. So won't write till then as that will probaly become a whole ten episode saga.

Oh forgot to mention that I have now attracted my own personal stalker thanks to this blog ( waves at cris). Apparently he hates my photos and detests my writing but still reads and analyses everything thoroughly enough To critic it worse than my old Exeter university literature professor, guess I must be doing something right!

Well its 0800, sun is shining, birds are singing and I'm here thinking, wish someone would shoot the little feckers, still have another 15 mins lie in. Other than that,welcome to the second entry in this travel log. If you read the first one and are still here, then I'm pleasantly surprised and I guess I must be doing something right. If you have not read the first one , then why not???

Now before you start imagining deny, Malcolm and myself dressed in matching suits with felt hats and sunglasses, the title refers to deny's new toy. Since I made the mistake of lending him my crossbones, he has been addicted and finally, after many trials and tribulations he's traded in his road king for a bones. Tears were shed and loving goodbyes whispered into the wind as he saw it ride away, but they will quickly be forgotten when he hits the first bend with his new 200 back tyre !

Unfortunately Malcolm wasn't able to join us today and he will be sorely missed but happily we did meet frank who decided to join us. Unfortunately he couldn't make out if his bike had started between the rumbling of the two bones.

10:14 breakfast in pelayo in the Pavo real . Lovely toast and coffee in the garden. Wondered where all the pretty women were coming from - turns out the house next to the bar is a puticlub ( brothel in the local lingo )- guess all the hearts on the wall should have been an indication and not just crappy decor taste like I thought!

11:30 beer stop at arte vida on tariff coast.We were actually going to go to a bike bar in tarifa called el coyote but it was shut. This place though was a poor substitute- views were lovely but at two euros a coke, not sure i'd recommend it to anyone i cared about. We are not doing too well on the bird watching front though, couple of horses on the beach and some old hippies with their family jewels hanging. we did manage to make friends with the barmaids after Denny asked for a pajita for frank.

12:40 cruised into zhara de Los atunes. Just as we ride into town , revving away, we start wondering why all these smartly dressed people are staring at us. More importantly , why are they all congregated in the town square. This is until we notice the church and groom in the background and realize we've driven straight into a wedding. Don't think they were impressed with us. Maybe we should have offered to drive the bride! Went to stop at a litle bar called triana. Turns out the owner's parents were from gib and they moved to about 100 meters from Den in London. Talk about a small world.
Unfortunately it was closed so we stopped at this other little bar next to it called El Espinel where apparently olives ain't know as aceitunas like the rest of spain but olivas and menu doesn't exists .To top it off we just had a Moroccan salesman try to flog us king Juan carlos' watch for 60 euros - always figured the monarchy had better taste (and resources ) but hey, you learn something new every day.Guess the recession has hit Spain harder than i thought. Think we've hit the motherlode of illegal salesmen as they seem to be crawling out of the woodwork- either that or they smell blood ( in the form of frank) . well he got one for 20 euros- must have belonged to the prince only!
Decided not to eat here, owner wasn't very impressed but he did start singing and offered to dance for us. He's in his sixties, bout 5'4, fat and balding.Think we have all just pictured him dressed in a belly dancer's outfit so we are getting out of here, pronto !

1400 had lunch at roadside venta in taraguillas, turns out sat is tapas day so it was a good call!Would definately recommend it to anyone ( watch this space - will include the name next time i drive past! oops , gimme a break, i'm new at this ) For those of you that watch this kinda of thing ( i only know because my mum was addicted to it ) i'm sure the owner is the winner of the first spanish Big Brother, that dude called Ismael something or other. We were going to ask but felt it may have been slightly awkward and not in-keeping with the tough biker image we were trying to portray!

15:20back at al fresco to finish off with a lovely coffee

Ps. Frank ain't too happy about me blagging on here to everybody about the price of his new watch so if you happen bump into hiim and he shows it off, just feel free to mention that it's just like prince felipe's and don't ask the price!
Best thing is frank filmed us on the road on his phone. Thankfully no coppers saw us, can't imagine how we would have explained that."are you answering your phone while driving? No sir, just filming!"

Ok, I'm a failed writer, avid biker and enthusiastic photographer. Why am writing this you may ask? Well you can blame my mate and his wife who thought it would be a good idea as it brings together everything i enjoy. To be honest, I think he just wanted to stop me setting up a bar so he would't have to hear me complain about dirty bogs! But the objective remains the same, to get me to use my free time profitably and stop me doing something stupid !

9:30 Well I was hoping for a better start to the first trip of this diary. With this in mind I didn't even go out last night when I could even have pulled. Instead I was up, bright-eyed and bushy tailed at 8:30. Unfortunately things went downhill from there. It took me an hour to find the bike papers which I'd cleverly hidden in my camera bag! Deny was waiting at casa antonio's ( local seedy coffee place ), black coffee ready, and Malcolm was already raring to go.

10:00 First stop was what we refer to as the bacon and egg stop-a little, family-run roadside cafe. Unfortunately the recession seems to be hitting the place quite hard and between the stale bread and elevated prices, I don't think its an experience we are going to be repeating. Deny lighting up and getting told off by the waitress turned out to be the highlight, especially as we thought she was flirting with him ( well, the sounds she was making sounded sexy - honest! )

11:00 Well shopping at open house in Harley Marbella was a big success. Not even women at the January sales could compete with us working our way through the discounted items. Only real problem we had was stopping Malcolm walking into the changing room to try on stuff when other people were already there.In all fairness the curtain did not exactly offer much in place of privacy. Funnily enough the lady's boyfriend turned out to be quite friendly and a new friendship was born

Just stopped at the beach front and we've all got huge smiles on our faces due to the bulging saddlebags overflowing with goodies. Unfortunately the synchronized parking (designed to impress all those who had turned at the sound of three big twins hitting the quiet and tranquil oasis-like drinking spot) was spoiled by me stepping on an ants nest and doing an improvised version of a flamenco dance. Forgot to mention that we made contact with the guy in charge of organizing the route 66 ride and managed to get some promising details.Anyways back to the beach. We were hoping to see some hotties sunbathing but the youngest woman on the beach was well north of 60 and unfortunately not the the nicest sight in bikini! Met a funny old German bloke who seems to have taken a shine to Malcolm ( he's currently discussing sex with Malcolm and we're starting to get very worried!)

1340, stopped for lunch in the Straw Donkey at La Duquesa, well the souped up version I.e owner is now wearing a suit instead of crappy, Hawaiian shorts, the place ia called Oscars ( no idea after whom as the owner's called fred) and garnish looks fancier. Food however, is the same and just as good. Malcom 's eyes have lit up at the butchers next door and Denny is drooling over a pie on the window. I took a shine to a huge scotch egg that we inititally thought was a basketball : looks like we're going to go back smelling like a french butchers stall on a hot day!talking of smells, the old geezer that left the john as we came in was well ripe. Left a lingering odour behind him that did not at all contirbute to the uptown feel the new management was trying to portray , in fact it was more reminiscent of the toilet area at faro after being used by tens if thousands of bikers for a couple of days!

15:15 Well lovely day, lovely ride and a nice coffee at alfresco to finish off. Icing on the cake