Europe

What We Carry and How

August 29, 2022

It’s been a couple of weeks since the last post. We’re back in England, and have been housesitting two amazing dogs, and living in a really cool converted 1886 schoolhouse. But more on that in the next post.

This post is about what we’re carrying, and how we manage to pack it all — and two people — on a 700cc motorcycle.

A number of people have reached out and asked if we could explain our camp setup in a video. It seemed like a great topic, and we finally had time to do it, so yesterday was the day.

First, let me reiterate, even though it’s obvious, that we aren’t “on vacation”. We didn’t pack for a week or two away at some tourist destination hotel. This is our lifestyle, and the bike is our house. Essentially we have everything we would ever need on the bike. We didn’t pack “for summer weather”, or with the idea that we can run home and pick up a different pair of shoes or another coat when we feel like it. On the other hand, we also didn’t pack like we were going to the moon; there’s no reason to carry a six month supply of toothpaste, or a spare set of tires, when there are stores everywhere, and motorcycle shops within a day or three ride everywhere.

We consider our motorcycle our two-wheeled house. After several months of living on the bike, you get to know exactly where everything fits, and what won’t fit. You also get to a point where when someone asks, “Where do you live?”, you point to the bike. We haven’t really arrived at that point yet on this trip, because we’ve been in civilization almost the entire time (and it’s fun to see the reaction when we say “Texas”). But we will later on; I speak from experience.

For the video, we didn’t go into deep details about what we carry in each of the boxes on the bike. We decided to just do a basic review. Most people seemed more interested in how we managed to get a complete living setup (bedroom, living room, kitchen, dining room) in that yellow bag on the back of the bike, so we spent the most time showing that. On the road, we’re often asked why we have side boxes (panniers) but no top box on the rear rack behind Diana. Many of the other riders we meet have all three, and they’re curious why we opted to skip the top box.

The top box is a great option if you’re out for a weekend or even a weeklong ride. It allows you to lock your helmet and jacket up out of sight, or it might serve as a “junk drawer”, collecting all the stuff that doesn’t otherwise have an assigned spot.

Some solo riders even have a large duffel bag like our 49 liter yellow Ortlieb bag strapped onto the rear seat and a top box behind that. I think these may be the people who ask about how we get everything for both of us on one motorcycle.

Without further comment, here’s the video (oh, and I apologize in advance for the background noise; I had no idea there would be a bulldozer backing up next door, and a small plane flying around every time we began shooting!):

And to fill in a little more detail:

In real time, it typically takes us about 30 minutes or so to set up camp. It takes us about 45 minutes to take it all down, pack it up, and strap it to the bike. It takes us about an hour in the morning, at a leisurely pace, from the time we start tearing down to the time we have our riding gear on and are rolling away.

Diana mentioned that we carry a couple of grocery bags that fit the panniers. Here’s what she was talking about:


These large foldable reusable bags are the same width and height as the panniers, and fit perfectly, allowing us to fit one bag, the milk and the 1.75 liter Coke into one pannier. We take the bags shopping with us and fill them as we go. When they’re full, we’re out of room. When not in use, they are folded up and reside in the bottom of Diana’s pannier.


Here’s the bag, milk, and Coke bottle in Diana’s pannier.

If you saw any of our nine day trip to Mexico last Christmas on the Honda CRF250L, then you realize that we travel pretty minimally for “short” trips like that. At that time, we fit everything for two of us in a very small tank bag and a small tail pack. No panniers, no duffel bags. We could easily have done that for this trip as well, but there was no reason to. We have a pack mule…might as well take the house, within reason.

As we’ve both mentioned before, this is our version of how we travel. Everyone has a different comfort level and a different method of doing it. I did a lot of research before my 2015 trip, and continue to learn today from others. We love to see how others pack and what they carry — especially bicyclists and riders of small motorcycles — as there’s always something to learn.

We hope this video answered some of the questions people had, and we’re always available to answer other questions.

Now back to your irregularly scheduled blog posts…

Bletchley Park: Home of The Imitation Game

September 2, 2022

While housesitting near Aylesbury, we realized that we were only about fifteen miles away from Bletchley Park in Milton Keynes. So we jumped online and bought a couple of tickets for the tour and rode over the next day.

If you’ve seen the movie The Imitation Game, you’re familiar with Bletchley Park. It’s the real deal. This was the place where some of the brightest minds in Britain came in the early 1940s to try to break the code of the German cryptography machine Enigma and later Lorenz.


The manor at Bletchley Park. This place was vacant after the widow of the owner died, and sold at auction. It included the manor house, with 27 bedrooms and eight bathrooms, a ballroom, a billiard room, and more. A developer bought the property, but shortly after the British government secretly bought it and turned it into a top secret code-breaking effort, employing up to eight thousand people at the height of the war.


A number of “huts” were built on the property. The workers in each hut had a specific job duty, and were not aware of what was happening in the other huts. This secrecy prevented even the people who worked there from knowing the overall mission. Intercepted encrypted German messages would be brought to Bletchley by couriers on BSA motorcycles, and delivered to one hut. Of course the couriers had no idea what they were delivering. The workers in the hut receiving the messages would organize the coded messages and send them to the next hut, which would have a different duty. Another hut would translate any deciphered messages from German to English and pass it on to the next hut, and so on. The secrecy between huts was such that a passage was built between two huts, and the messages were passed through this wooden passage into the office above, through the sliding door in the wall.


A reproduction of a German Enigma machine. Poland had achieved some success at breaking Enigma codes just before the war broke out in 1939, and their work was the foundation of the British effort at Bletchley Park.


A reproduction of Alan Turing’s Bombe machine, which ultimately allowed Britain to decipher encrypted German messages in as little as two and a half hours from receiving them. It took this Bombe machine less than twelve minutes to test all 17,756 possible combinations of the rotors in the Enigma, and arrive at the correct settings. As mentioned in the movie, it was the inattention to required German procedure by the Enigma operators, such as re-using a prior day’s rotor settings, or the operator setting the rotors using his girlfriend’s initials, that allowed Turing and his team to more quickly break the code.


Alan Turing’s office in Hut 8.


In what was then the Motor Pool, the current museum has several vehicles displayed, including this 1947 Sunbeam Talbot that was owned by Mick Jagger and was used in the 2001 movie “Enigma”, which was produced by Jagger’s film company.

Bletchley Park is a large place and a magnificent piece of history. It wasn’t until the 1970s that it was finally revealed what actually took place here. It’s hard to believe that just thirty years ago it was in complete disrepair and was about to be razed by a builder to be replaced with houses. Thankfully people who saw the historical significance of it stepped in and saved it.

If you go, keep in mind that it takes a few hours to properly tour the facility and explore all of the exhibits.

After leaving Bletchley Park, I decided now was a good time to get the bike washed. Due to the current drought situation in England, the coin-operated type of self car washes were not available, but I found a hand car wash that claimed that they also washed lots of motorcycles. So I wheeled it in…


Here’s the bike being given the “Hard Wash” as I was told it was called. I’ve never seen that much soap, but it did a good job of removing four months of grime.

After the bike was rinsed off, I was asked to move it forward to the drying and detailing area, where it was hand dried. Then a guy walked over with a gallon bucket full of Armor All and a large paint brush, and proceeded to paint my tires with extremely slick liquid. Having just recently slid down the freeway in a diesel spill, this was horrifying. It took me a good ten minutes with dry rags to scrub all of the Armor All off of the tread surfaces of the tires, and even then I rode very gently home.

Llegando a España: Tucking Away The Bike

September 9, 2022

We left Aylesbury, England at the end of our house sit there, on a mad rush for Spain. Once again, this isn’t the way we like to travel — too many highways, too many daily miles, not enough stopping to chat with the locals — but we had limitations placed on us. The Schengen Rule says that non-EU citizens can only spend 90 days out of every 180 consecutive days in the currently 26 Schengen countries. We re-entered at France on September 3rd, which was Day 79 of 90 for us. That left us nine days to make the 1500 mile trek to Malaga, Spain, store the bike and get out again, with two days left for our overnight in Frankfurt, Germany on the way home at the end of this month.


Before leaving England, we discovered that a bolt had come loose and one of the “latches” that secure our removable metal boxes had fallen off and disappeared. This is what the original part looks like. You can see the aluminum tab on the right, with a bolt that goes through to the inside of the pannier, where a threaded knob tightens down and clamps everything in place. An acorn jam nut then sits against the knob inside the box.


After a day or so of searching around for a suitable piece of metal to fabricate a new tab, I realized that the answer came from within: within the pannier. My tire levers are just about the same width as the original latch. Cutting a short piece of the end left a shorter tire tool but still usable.


Not much different from the original. It’ll do.

,em>
If I was a conspiracy theorist, the sky this morning would have scared me. On our way through France we spent one night at a really nice municipal campground in Gacé. The next morning the sky was covered in contrails.


Tembleque, Spain. Many of these small towns looked like something from a horror film; no people anywhere.

Our first night in Spain had me re-thinking the country. We pulled off the road and into Tembleque, a small town of just under two thousand people (and shrinking), in the province of Toledo. The town is the typical La Mancha style: all of the buildings are white, painted in a lime whitewash. There were no people to be seen anywhere, but we found a hotel. No cars, no people, but a hotel, with an open front door. I parked and walked in and found the host behind the counter.

“Tienes habitacion?”, I asked. (Do you have a room?)
“Si”, he replied.
“Cuanto?” (How much?)
“Cincuenta” (Fifty euros)
“Puedo verlo?” (Can I see it?)
“No.”

Normally this would be the point where I turned around and walked out. But it was hot and we had ridden nearly five hundred miles today. Way, way more than we should ever do in a day. So I took the room sight unseen. It turned out to be a nice room, with air conditioning. But the encounter left a bad taste. We hadn’t experienced anything like this in the last four-plus months.

We walked into town to one of only two restaurants that were open, and sat down, but after twenty minutes without finding anyone to place an order we left and walked to the other restaurant. The bartender there was much more friendly, even though he spoke no english, and we were able to at least order a couple of sandwiches.

We made it to Malaga from England in four long days, which gave us another four days to just chill before catching an early morning flight back to London. We stayed in an apartment one block from the beach, and our host Pedro was the extreme opposite of the hotel clerk in Tembleque. We’ve already made plans to stay at Pedro’s place again when we return to Malaga to pick the bike up.


Sunset in Malaga.


Walking along the beach, we passed by this restaurant with an outdoor grill, where they were preparing espeto, a fish common to this area, on skewers.


26,489 kilometers (16,423 miles) since May 3rd.

The Schengen Rule doesn’t say the motorcycle can only spend 90 days of each 180 in the 26 Schengen countries. Therefore, as of this morning, the bike has been tucked away in Spain for a little break, while we fly back to the UK to do a few more house sits before flying home. Why not just fly home? Well, it’s complicated. The easy answer is that we have an agreement with our house sitter through September 25th, so we don’t really have a home until then. Staying in England for a few weeks isn’t really much more expensive than being at home when you don’t have any lodging expense and can eat in rather than going out to eat all the time.

This isn’t the end of the ride. Quite the opposite actually. It’s simply a short break to re-group and head off in a different direction for the rest of the year. There’s a lot more world to explore and we intend to explore it on two wheels. Because as we always say: “If not now, when?”

En El Camino Otra Vez

March 5, 2023

Quick recap: after five months criss-crossing Europe last summer, from Douglas, Isle of Man to Dubrovnik, Croatia and from Nordkapp to Malaga, Spain, we stored the bike in Spain and spent two months riding rental Hondas in Thailand and Vietnam. Now, after a couple of months at home, we are back on the road, with no specific plans for the direction and the time interval.

We picked the bike up from storage at IMTBikes in Malaga. I can’t say enough good things about these guys; they are great to work with and take great pride in their services. We spent a couple of days in an apartment in the suburb of Huelin, literally next door to where we stayed last September, so we were familiar with the area.


The view from the rooftop terrace of our apartment peeked between the taller buildings at the sea and harbor.


One of our bags stayed in Houston as we flew to Frankfurt and on to Malaga. When I filed a lost bag claim with the airline in Malaga, they told me the bag was in Frankfurt. I showed them my phone and explained that I had an AirTag in the bag and it was actually sitting at Terminal D in Houston. They weren’t happy about being called out on it, but my bag arrived the next day. I was able to watch it transfer in Frankfurt and arrive in Malaga. Liking these AirTags.


Our apartment had a “Candy” oven in it…


The oven had two knobs. The knob on the left was “C”…


And the knob on the right was F. But not dual temperatures.


We actually found a great gourmet hamburger place a few blocks from the apartment. Spanish restaurants are pricey here (ALL restaurants are pricey here), though we’ll eat that too. We even ate Thai noodles one night. I thought after Thailand it would be longer before I could look at Pad Thai.

After some minor adjustments on the bike, like installing a new Quadlock phone mount and tank bag, we loaded up and headed about an hour out of Malaga to El Camino del Rey, or The King’s Little Pathway.


This series of walkways built on the side of cliffs was built in the early 1900s to connect two electrical power plants.


Over the years, the pathway became an adventure-tourism attraction, eventually leading to several deaths and the need to completely reconstruct it in a safer manner.


The entire elevated portion of the walkway is about 2.9 kilometers long, and the entire hike is about 7.3km.

We had a few sprinkles of rain on the way back to Malaga, and the two or three hours on the bike gave us a chance to “shake down” our setup again before heading further south to visit friends near Manilva.

Manilva, Spain

March 6, 2023

It was good to be back on the T7, and heading south to new adventures. We left Malaga and rode along the Costa del Sol towards Manilva. It’s a busy highway with occasional views of the sea, but still a good ride. At one point we hit stopped traffic and crept along, barely moving. Scooters split traffic and passed us by, but with the width of the T7 with the panniers, we were (mostly) content to just sit in traffic and wait. The temperatures were warm, but not hot.

That’s when this happened:


While stuck in slow-moving traffic, a car pulled up beside us. The driver rolled down his window and stuck out his hand, giviing us a sticker for our bike. “Chancletas” translates to “Flip Flops”, and is a group of riders from Malaga.

We took his sticker and exchanged thumbs-ups, and he inched forward in traffic. It took me a while to wrestle one of our stickers out of a pocket, but once Diana had it in hand, we split lanes back up to the car, and handed him one of our stickers. Just another friendly exchange between riders without a common language. We meet a lot of people this way, but rarely have we swapped stickers in traffic.

A little further south, we arrived at the winter home of our Polish friends Marcin and Ela. Unbeknownst to me, there was a conspiracy between Diana and Ela…and I walked right into it.


Walked right into a surprise birthday cake. Thanks to Diana, Ela, and Marcin. Didn’t see that coming. I later swapped the candles to “26”, but nothing about my mind or body says 26 any more.


We spent a couple of days at Marcin & Ela’s. Marcin had decided to take Ela’s MT-07 and join us for a week on our travels south, and his brother Lukasz was flying in from Poland, renting a bike in Malaga, and joining us as well.


The port near Marcin & Ela’s apartment.


It’s a nice walk along the beach here.


“Espetos”, or sworded sardines, are a traditional seafood along the coast here, cooked over an open fire on the beach.


If you’re not a fan of these awesome sardines, perhaps some giant (and I do mean Giant) prawns will do.


I stopped at the local Yamaha dealer near Gibraltar to pick up an oil filter and oil to do a quick oil change, and had a chance to look around at models not sold in the US, including this Tracer 700…


This MT125…


And this XSR125. Very cool.

After an oil change and a “see you soon”, we were back on the road and headed to the end of it in Southern Spain.

Hopping Continents: Different Worlds

March 8, 2023

I spent my early years growing up in the Los Angeles area, in an urban concrete jungle. When I was thirteen years old, my parents decided we were moving back to Texas, where I was born, and where I had visited relatives on occasion, but hadn’t lived since I was two years old. In my mind, all I could see was dirt roads, cactus, and a little red brick school house. That was my stereotypical view of Texas, based mostly I’m sure on what I had seen in movies, on television, and in magazines. Many people from other countries have this same view of Texas today: they think we all ride horses, wear big hats, and carry six-shooters.

Okay, maybe they’re not really that far off.

Growing up in the United States — and I’m sure it’s true of most if not all cultures — I was shown stereotypes of other cultures, countries, and people in this same way. Delivered via movies and television programs, we’re shown that the French wear berets, striped mime shirts, and neck scarves; that Australians are all like Crocodile Dundee; and most wrong of all, that nearly every other place outside of the United States is dirty, dangerous, and full of criminals that hate Americans.

Nothing could be further from the truth, and many of these stereotypes were about to be proven wrong once again as we headed south.

Diana and I left Marcin & Ela’s place on Wednesday morning, and Marcin and Lukasz were just a bit behind us. We planned to meet up either at the ferry at Algeciras, or further south. It turned out that the guys just barely missed our ferry, and had to take the next one, but they were close behind.

At least at that point.


On the ferry, tied down, and headed the short hop to North Africa.

By mid-afternoon we were in Tanger-Med, Morocco. The immigration and customs (vehicle importation) process went quickly, and within twenty minutes or so we were headed to Chefchouen.

Riding south from Tanger Med, the scenery was not at all what we were expecting for Morocco, and it showed our lack of knowledge of the area and our stereotypical thinking. We had expected to immediately be in a desert-like environment, with rocks and dirt and very little vegetation. Instead, we experienced the opposite. Everything was bright green, with lush farm fields and rolling green hills.


We rode through lush green fields and green hills on the way to Chefchouen.

Unfortunately for the Polish boys, the same border process for their ferry was not as smooth, and they arrived in Chefchouen hours later, just after dark.

Chefchouen was our introduction to Moroccan city design. If you pull up a satellite view of Chefchouen, or Marrakech, or most cities in Morocco, you’ll have a hard time determining what is a street and what is an alley. And it’s like that while driving also. A street may be a street for a short distance, but suddenly there are steps. A large portion of Chefchouen has no vehicle access. GPS directions usually will take you to the end of a street, then draw a gray dotted line to the address you want, which may be several blocks away and via a maze of alleyways, because there is no vehicle access to that point. This is the norm.


The view from the terrace atop our apartment in Chefchouen.The bike is parked near the large tree in the middle of this photo.


We would have never found our apartment if the host hadn’t met us where we parked the bike and guided us to it. Even after we were there, the only way I was able to identify it again was this blue heart next to the door. Otherwise, it was a blue door on a blue building in a sea of blue buildings. There were no other identifying aspects. It was about three hundred meters from the bike, up a series of blue alleyways, with several turns. After a couple of failed attempts to carry stuff from the bike to the apartment, I finally was able to establish a route and not get lost. Even once inside the building, the doors had no markings. Our door was on the third floor, and you had to count floors to make sure you were at the right door because they all look the same. So much so that one of the couples in the apartment below us walked into our apartment one evening by mistake. We all shared a good laugh.




The final walk up to our apartment.


There are a LOT of cats in Morocco. Walking the streets of Chefchouen, they were everywhere. Very chill cats.


This cat at dinner had his act figured out. He sat on the rail near me, acting very chill and aloof. After we finished dinner, Diana took this photo. Look closely at what he’s looking at. Seconds after this photo was taken, he jumped onto the table, stole my chicken bones and ran. There’s definitely a reason he was fatter than most cats in Chefchouen.


Breakfast the next morning. Same restaurant — we enjoyed it — but no chicken-thieving cat this morning.


The kasbah, near where we stayed.


View of the Spanish Mosque from our terrace.

Asking the host of a hotel or apartment on a site such as Booking.com or via WhatsApp if there is safe parking for a motorcycle at their location will get you a sometimes vague answer. Typically the answer is “yes”, which means that there is parking within some walkable distance, usually in a public parking area, and yes, it is safe.

It’s taken a while to adjust to these ideas. We’re Americans. We think other countries are less safe than home, or that people in all countries steal things the way they do in America. It isn’t like that. Yes, the public parking area where we parked our bike for two days in Chefchouen has “guards” that watch over things, but it’s not like some countries where they are armed guards. These are guys who just hang out and watch the lot. Nothing ever happens. You don’t have to pay them extra to watch your vehicle. It’s hard for us to explain or accept.

While packing up on the morning we left Chefchouen, we were approached by a group of guys from Dubai on BMW GS1200s. Several of them live part time in Morocco, and keep their bikes here, getting together to ride once or twice a year. The gentleman who approached us introduced himself as “Frank”. He said he noticed that we had put the cover on our bike overnight, and told us that wasn’t necessary. Later, in Midelt, I asked the owner of an apartment where we stayed if it was safe to leave the bikes outside there. He replied, “It’s a small town. There is no crime here.”

Of course I am the eternal pessimist, so I am slow to let my guard down, and still lock the bike up, often even placing the cover on it. Our Polish friends laugh at my over-protectiveness. It’s just the way I am: I see the bike and all we carry as our home, and we can’t afford to lose it. People look at us confused when we walk into a restaurant with our helmets in our hands. They don’t understand why we don’t leave them sitting on the bikes like everyone else.

Diana made a comment the other day to Lukasz and Marcin about how certain models of Hyundais and Kias had become targets of theft lately in the States, and Lukasz asked, genuinely, “Why would someone steal a car?”

The idea of auto theft was a totally foreign concept to them.

That kind of says it all.

Spain, Part Four?: Ronda & Cádiz

March 21-29, 2023

Spain is a big country, at least by European standards. Spain is about 75% the size of Texas. And like Texas, it’s big enough that the landscape and the climate varies by region. This is at least our fourth time traveling through different parts of Spain, if we include the first couple of times fifteen or so years ago when we flew to Barcelona and rented a BMW GS to head through France and Italy. And it’s not the last.

Last September we rode across Spain from northwest to southeast, to store the bike in Malaga for a several months. We rode through some nice mountain passes and a lot of open plains before getting to the seashore in Malaga.

This year, after picking the bike up in Malaga, we headed a little further down the coast to catch the ferry to Morocco for a couple of weeks, and then returned to Spain with the plan to head west to Portugal.

After a day at Marcin and Ela’s place in Manilva, and a change of tires, it was time to head west toward Cádiz.

A Voice From The Past

A few weeks earlier, while relaxing in Malaga, my phone rang. I looked at the screen, and it was an unknown caller, so I did what I do 99% of the time with unknown callers: I ignored it. About twenty minutes later, it rang again. Same number — a European phone number — but not a number I recognized. Since it was a European number, I decided to take a chance and answer it.

“Hello?”
“Is this Patrick Williams?”
“Yes, it is. Who is this?”
“This is the Adventure Authority. I’m afraid I have to advise you that you are in violation of the Adventure Authority Code which states that you must make your location known to all other adventure motorcyclists in the area while traveling in Europe.”

Silence while I tried to figure out who this might be.

Finally, he gave in.
“This is Daniel.”

I couldn’t believe it.

I had last talked to Daniel Rintz in Buenos Aires, Argentina in March of 2016, when I shared my apartment with Daniel and his girlfriend Joey while preparing to ship my bike to South Africa. They were nearly three years into their round-the-world ride on two BMWs, and were also shipping their bikes to Africa, though they would be quite a ways behind me, as I was on a little 250 and could afford to fly it to Cape Town, while their big BMWs (and their budget) meant that they would be putting them on a ship. Also, I was taking the easier eastern route north through Africa, while Daniel and Joey were taking the more challenging western route, eventually heading home to Germany.

That was the last time I had seen them.

“Where are you?” I asked.
“We’re in Spain, not far from you.” I was unaware that they were following our travels.

We talked briefly, and made plans to meet up after Diana and I returned from Morocco.

But first, we had one last trip to make with Marcin and Ela and their daughter Lilly. While Diana and I took the bike, Marcin and family drove their car to Ronda, an hour and a half from their home in Manilva. Ronda is a quaint little mountaintop town overlooking a deep gorge. It is famous for the stone bridge across the gorge that connects the old town and the new town. Oddly, we learned about it several months ago, while watching old episodes of The Amazing Race. In one episode, contestants had to cross a tightwire strung under the bridge. Because of this American television show, we immediately recognized the bridge in Ronda.


On the way to Ronda, we stopped in Gaucin for a coffee, and ran into these two Dutch guys. They run a tour company that does “self-guided” motorcycle tours in different parts of Europe. They were here scouting new off-road sections for one of their Spain tours.


The bridge in Ronda. If you look just below the arch section, you can see a doorway and a walkway with a railing. This is where the cable was strung across from one side to the other for the Amazing Race contestants to walk across to the other side.


This happens to us frequently, but Ela picked up on it in Ronda and took a photo to paste on her Instagram page. She referred to us as “celebrities” because people kept approaching us asking about the Texas license plate. It’s definitely a conversation starter, though it happens so often I’ve said I’m going to use a Sharpie and write “Yes, Really” on the back of the Rotopax water container above the license plate, in response to the common opening line: “Are you really from Texas?”

While enjoying churros with Marcin and Ela in Ronda, we mentioned that we were headed to Cádiz to meet up with Daniel & Joey. “I love Cádiz!”, Ela said. So a couple of days later, we met again in Cádiz.


We had a day in between Ronda and Cadiz, so we camped in Zahora, right across the road from the beach. Happy to be back in our tent (our “home away from home”). We haven’t camped as much as on past legs, mostly because we were staying with friends or it was cheap enough in Morocco to afford some decent lodging. We’ve got a few house sits coming up as well, which will reduce our average lodging expenses, but I really like the tent when we have a nice place to stay (ie, a table to cook and eat at, and decent showers/bathrooms are a requirement for Diana).

In Cadiz, Ela showed us around the seawall, with some beautiful parks to walk through, then took us to the local market, where we had an assortment of local delicacies, from sea urchin to chicharrones.


Cadiz is a beautiful city, with a large old section that is very walkable.


These trees near the seawall were massive.


Some of the branches on these trees were as much as five or six feet in diameter. This tree had a section that reminded me of a “waif” or a mummy or ghost, with his arms drooping down in tattered clothing.


Parques Genovés.


The lovely Ela and Lilly.


Looking across to Castillo de San Sebastian.


Ela led us to this open-air market where we had chicharrones (deep-fried pork rinds and pork belly). Healthy? Uh, nope. Delicious? Yes.


We also had fresh oysters and sea urchin. I don’t normally recommend consuming raw shellfish right off of a folding table on a sidewalk, but Ela had never tried either before, so why not?


Miraculously, we all survived.

That evening we met Daniel, Joey, and their 15-month old son Joshua at San Francisco Plaza. Over beers, we reminisced about our earlier travels, and talked about future plans. The conversation came easy and we enjoyed their company so much that we arranged to meet again for breakfast the next morning, and again later that afternoon. It was great to catch up with them, for Diana to finally meet them, and to meet Joshua. Although they’ve ticked the box for “Three Years Riding Around the World on Motorcycles”, they continue to live the life, now with a toddler, in a van pulling a trailer with a Suzuki DR400.


Joey, Joshua, and Daniel. Daniel and Joey made two movies about their motorcycle travels, the award-winning “Somewhere Else Tomorrow” and “Somewhere Else Together”. We hope to cross paths again, perhaps in Portugal, or maybe in Germany.


We were unaware until we walked into the lobby of our apartment in Cádiz that it had a “Round-the World” theme. This is the floor tile mosaic as you enter the lobby. The building was built in the 1700s, and recently remodeled into these beautiful apartments.


And this is just outside our apartment.


Our AirBnB in Cádiz wasn’t cheap, but it was extremely nice and comfortable. We saved enough by camping and staying with friends to afford to stay here for a couple of nights.

After a couple of nights in Cádiz, we were finally ready to head for a new country, but we had one more city in Spain to see first. We’ll be back through Spain again before long though, but it’ll be a different part, again.

Sevilla

March 27-28, 2023

We have a house sit coming up in the Algarve region of Portugal, but with a few days yet before that starts we decided to take a slow journey in that direction. Just eighty miles or two hours up the road from Cádiz is Seville, or Sevilla. Since (once again) I’m not a city-tourist person, I assigned Diana the task of laying out a route of where she wanted to go in Sevilla. Based on that, I searched for a place to stay with the usual requirements:

1. Within our budget
2. Within walking distance of where we want to go.
3. Parking for the bike that looks/feels relatively safe, which usually means off-street and/or within view of the room we’re staying in, and/or secured.

In this case, we ended up in Central Sevilla, which is not the first time that the most exciting part of the ride involved trying to get to the place by going in decreasing concentric circles while maintaining awareness of the direction of the narrow, one-lane, one-way streets I was turning into. After a couple of landing attempts with a go-around, we managed to find the correct block of the correct street, but still hadn’t located the exact apartment building.


Look far enough down this row of scooters, and you’ll find the one open spot where we could temporarily park the bike while searching for the apartment. Hint: look for the yellow bag on the rear rack of the bike.

We decided to have a coffee at the sidewalk cafe (La Gorda) next to the bike, while I set off in search of the address. The apartment address was listed as Number 4. I walked one building to the left and saw Number 2. Then I walked one building to the right, and saw Number 6. So I asked the waiter where Number 4 was located, and he just shrugged. There was no number on the cafe, but of course it turned out to be Number 4. There also didn’t appear to be any other door to gain access to the upper floors aside from the entrance to the cafe. Eventually we wandered around the corner into the alleyway, and about half-way down the alley, out of sight from the street due to a bend in the alley, was a door. Bingo.


Hiding in plain sight. Across the street was the entrance to a large underground parking garage where we parked the bike. Parking here, like in Cádiz, does not come cheap. I could have parked the bike in this alleyway with the other local scooters for free, but I wasn’t comfortable with that. Just me being paranoid.


The architecture alone in Seville is worth the visit.


The Catedral de Sevilla.


Plaza de España, built for the Ibero-American Exposition in 1929. This panoramic photo flattens out the building; it’s actually built in a large half-circle, with a fountain in the center (just to the left and behind where the photo was taken).Tip: save your money and go here to see a free Flamenco dance presentation./em>


Parque de Maria Luisa. This 99 acre park sits on what was originally the gardens of the Palace of San Telmo. The park was built over a fifteen year period (1914-1929) in preparation for the Ibero-American Exposition of 1929 (which, sadly, took place just as the US stock market crashed). We could have wandered this park for hours.

We spent about half a day wandering central Seville, and saw many more historic sights in addition to the ones here. We chose not to enter several of them (such as La Giralda and the Catedral de Sevilla), due to either the entry fee, the large crowds and long lines, or both.

That evening, we attended a Flamenco presentation at the Teatro Flamenco, which was also just a five minute walk from where we were staying. It was interesting to watch this native gypsy dance, but we both found the guitar player to be even more impressive. As I said above, I would highly recommend a walk to the Plaza de España to watch the free Flamenco presentation on the steps at the center of the circle before spending the money on tickets to a theater show.

Sevilla is a beautiful city, if pricey, and if we were “tourists” in the normal sense (ie, spending a fortune on a two week trip), we could have stayed here for a few more days.

After bailing the bike out of parking prison ($20 a day), we somehow managed to easily find our way out of downtown and towards our last night in Spain.

Isla Cristina

March 29, 2023

Just another 137 kilometers or 85 miles from Sevilla, near the border with Portugal, is Isla Cristina. This small island is a popular tourist destination for Spanish tourists, and in particular those from Sevilla, who come here during July and August for the beautiful beaches.

We arrived at the end of March, long before tourist season begins, and it showed. We stayed in a campground that was primarily taken up by full-time trailers, or caravans, that are parked here year-round but used only for a short time each year. There were perhaps a dozen or so motorhomes, mostly from Germany and Netherlands, that were occupied. Even though it was off-season, the primitive camping spot that we were given was still $27 a night. On the positive side, the facilities were clean, and there was a small cafe that served breakfast on site.


Our home for a couple of nights in Isla Cristina.

We were just across the road from the beach, and a pathway led from the campground to the beach, which then turned into a boardwalk which led about a half mile to the town of Isla Cristina. We decided to walk to the edge of town for dinner at a restaurant that showed up on Google Maps. When we arrived, there was a private party going on there, and the other cafes across the parking lot were closed. So we decided to continue down the boardwalk into town.


This won’t be the last time I say this, but this is the perfect time of year for someone like me to visit Spain and Portugal. The weather is great (not too hot), and the crowds — outside of places like Sevilla — amount to a family or two.

It quickly became apparent that this is indeed a tourist town, and it was indeed not tourist season. This is a positive for me, as (have I mentioned this?) I hate crowds, and having the entire boardwalk and beach to ourselves was wonderful. However, it’s also a severe drawback when trying to find something to eat. The town looked deserted. There were a few locals milling about, but nearly every business was closed. We eventually discovered Telepizza, which is sort of Spain’s answer to Domino’s, but with a few tables so you can actually dine in. The normal Telepizza customer gets their pizza delivered by a guy on a red scooter. Not us.


We found this one bar that was open on the main street of town, and had a drink while waiting for Telepizza to open at 7:30pm.


Telepizza. Sort of a Domino’s/Pizza Hut/Little Caesar’s kind of pizza delivery, but with a few tables for people like us.

The pizza turned out to be quite good, and the walk back to the campground at sunset was great.


Sunset from the boardwalk. There are vacation homes and hotels all along here, and not a single one of them open or occupied.

We slept well, had a nice “tostada” (toast) breakfast in the morning with cafe con leche, and made our way to Portugal.

Algarve, Portugal: 55 Countries and Counting

March 30, 2023

Portugal marks fifty five countries for me, and thirty six that Diana has been along for the ride. That leaves a lot of the world still remaining, but hey, If Not Now, Soon?

We only had eighty miles to ride today to get to our house sit outside of Silves, Portugal. I’m not a fan of riding toll roads or motorways any more than we have to, and in much of Portugal the toll roads don’t have toll booths; you have to pay electronically. Either you have a transponder, or they debit the account you create online each time the toll reader scans your license plate. This all sounded like more hassle than we needed, so we chose to take the MUCH more scenic backroads to Silves.

It’s easy for an American, and especially for someone from a state as large as Texas, to forget how relatively small countries can be here. This was the first time I realized how close together many of the world championship Formula One and Moto GP race tracks are. For example, it’s only about 200 miles from the Circuito de Jerez in Spain to the Algarve International Circuit in Portimao, Portugal. That would be like having a world championship motorsports race at Circuit of the Americas in Austin, and another in Dallas or Houston. Not only that, but there are multiple wold-class tracks just in Spain and Italy alone. America struggles just to keep one round in a huge country.

The Algarve is a popular tourist destination, and also a large attraction for ex-pats. Over the years, many Brits and Americans have moved here. Portugal has made it easy for foreigners to buy land and obtain residency (that is changing as I write this, as the floodgates seem to have been opened a bit too wide as far as locals are concerned). The beaches and the weather here are prime attractions, as is the lower cost of living.

As usual, we aren’t here for the beaches, and in fact we are skipping the towns most well-known to tourists in the Algarve. Instead, we are riding through beautiful, twisty, mountain roads, past incredibly fragrant orange groves as the blooms erupt this time of year, and through large stands of eucalyptus trees. The road and the area reminds me of riding through Southern California in the 1960s and 1970s, before so much of the land was bulldozed and turned into sprawling subdivisions. Back then, you could ride a dirt bike almost anywhere outside of town, and go for miles through the hills of Southern California. In places, it feels like riding through Griffith Park, the landscape and the trees looking more like there than any other place I’ve been as of yet.

Our destination for the next five days is just outside of Silves, a town with a population of about 11,000 people that was once the ancient capitol of the Algarve.


Silves Castle. Originally built as a Lusitanian Castro around 201 BC, between the 8th and 13th centuries, the Moors occupied and expanded it. Today, the restored outer walls remain, but little of the interior exists.


The Silves Cathedral, built in the second half of the 13th century.


The cathedral and castle are lit at night, providing an imposing sight over the city of Silves.


Our home for the next five days is this one hundred acre estate in the countryside. We’ll be caring for these three great dogs, along with a bunch of chickens, some doves, and of course the home.





Each day we take the dogs walking on the trails around this large property. Good exercise for all and great views.





Gum rock-rose.


Lotus Berthelotti. From a distance these flowers look like tiny flames.


These loquat fruit have a sweet taste when picked at the right time.


Home made breakfast, including eggs from the chickens, and fresh picked oranges and tomatoes.

During our stay outside Silves, we received a message from Paula, the niece of my good friend Tom. She and her husband, who are from Louisville, Kentucky, were in Albufeira, about forty minutes away. We made plans to meet for lunch.


Paula and her husband Anoosh (on the left) along with Anoosh’s niece and her husband, met us for lunch in Albufeira. We had never met before today, although it felt like we already knew each other fairly well through Tom. We had a great time in the couple of hours we spent together, and are already discussing plans to go see them again when we’re back in the States.