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.