Day 6 Palma del Rio to Cordoba

We're up at 6:30 to have our luggage out at 7:30, and then have breakfast. It's a chilly morning, in the 50s. Breakfast was wonderful as usual. Americans have so much to learn about serving breakfast in a hotel. I'm so glad the leaders fixed my bike in the morning because the brakes were dragging on the tire, making yesterday's ride harder than it needed to be.

The first 20 mile ride of the day was about a thousand feet of climbing and ended in a little town. Of course, we're last because we can't keep up with the people on e-bikes. It was a lovely ride. The second 20 mile ride has what looks like a very huge climb in it, so we were a little bit worried about it, especially since it was after 30 miles already on our legs and a thousand feet of climbing. But it wasn't too bad. That's what the granny gear is for. We passed fields of sunflowers and barley, and groves of oranges and almonds. We said hi to everyone. We passed, one of the workers in the orange grove offered us oranges, but we didn't take them. We said thank you anyway. I'm so glad that we were able to join up with the leaders before we did the big climb, because my cassette would not go into the granny. It was chattering and grinding, but just wouldn't do it. They needed to do an adjustment with the limit screws and they did and now it's perfect. Also the guide noticed the kickstand was dragging on the back tire. Great! I did extra work.

There is a castle on the hill.

The town just nestles up against the hill where the castle is.

Mural in a town we passed thru.

 At about 30 miles, we stopped for lunch at a farm, and they gave us ham and cheese sandwiches on croissants, a pasta salad, and some lovely desserts. One was a pudding sort of thing and the other was like a pie sort of thing. I don't know exactly what they are, but they were good. They had a pool there and they said we could swim if we wanted to. Didn't want to. Just wanted to recharge. Four people chose not to continue riding and took a taxi to the hotel, but the rest of us rode.

Somebody said we were only 10 minutes behind the people on e-bikes. I kind of doubt that.

We took taxis to the hotel from the bar at the end of the ride. Did laundry and I went to try to book an equestrian show for tomorrow night. Tomorrow is a rest day in Cordoba and we have a guided tour set up through VBT in the morning.