If you ever find yourself in Borbollones Altos, Andalucia, I highly recommend the small hotel where we stayed last night. Don’t be put off by the rather short and simple name: “Hotel Rural y Centro de Actividades Cinegeticas Carlos Astorga.” Or by the long gravel driveway that initially makes you think the horse stables are reception. It truly is a gem, a former hunting lodge located amid beautiful olive groves and hillsides of acorn trees and run by a lovely couple who work incredibly hard and put their hearts into the operation. And then there is the food! Single-handedly run by an affable Canadian (!) who moved to Spain via Cuba 25 years ago, the small kitchen produced an astonishingly delicious dinner of Spanish dishes including squid ink and shellfish rice, garlic soup, and bacalao with roasted tomatoes. Breakfast featured unlimited espressos and animated talk of soccer. Heaven.

As the cyclists reading this know, whenever you begin a ride with an amazing morning tailwind (creating an illusion of strength as you whip along effortlessly) you know that eventually you’ll face the opposite. Today’s ride took us through more olive groves teeming with bird life, a series of gorgeous red rock canyons that reminded us of Sedona and verdant farmland dotted with small islands of rock and trees. It also took us through a valley beneath a few dozen large wind turbines, where we rode straight into the (chilly) wind.

For lunch we had a roadside picnic sitting on the ground in an olive grove, enjoying fresh bread and two Spanish delicacies: egg and potato frittata and boquerones, delicious little anchovies marinated in vinegar.

After lunch it was back into the wind, leaving us depleted with tired legs and wind-chapped faces by the end of the day. But one of the many virtues of bike touring is that little pleasures like a hot shower at the end of the day, which in daily life can go unnoticed or get taken for granted, have an almost euphoric and reviving quality.