Quite near to our home there was a boutique (!!) renting bikes at reasonable prices („Susana’s“). I got a brand new mountainbike and decided to test it on the „Ruta Transcabrera“, a round trip of about 60km leading up to and around the summits of the Sierra Cabrera, thereby offering great views of the coast around Mojácar and Carboneras and passing some of the lonesome farm houses in the desert of this mountain range.

I started early and for five hours the only people I should meet were the teenagers on their way home from the disco at 6.30 a.m. in the dawn. So my only companions on that route where the sun, the dust and the rocks – not to speak of sweat and thirst …