Thursday 19th April

The previous evening I’d been told by the hotel receptionist about a couple of Merida’s sights that were best to visit in the hours of darkness when they were nicely lit up. Unfortunately I just hadn’t managed to get out to visit them before retiring early to bed. Despite a comfortable mattress and clean crisp sheets, I didn’t sleep too soundly either. Hence, at 5am I was up, dressed and out the door to see whether the receptionist was correct. Here’s what I found;

I arrived back at the hotel in time to field some calls, wish my mum a happy birthday and make some breakfast. This morning’s receptionist was the brother; he was a keen cyclist and offered to check and inflate my tyres and provided me with an alternate route on traffic free paths to my day’s destination of Zafra. As it was only 60 kms, he suggested I take the opportunity for some more sightseeing. I was enjoying his city, so agreed his plan was a good one.

Off I went to the Roman Amphitheatre and theatre site; it is a splendid complex.

I had a coffee and a local ‘Tostada’ and was ready to depart the city by midday – by now armed with a new phone App, running under the receptionist’s logon details, detailing my new, traffic-free route. It was all looking good as I crossed Merida’s ancient Roman bridge and set off along the banks of the river.

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Within minutes however, I learned the truth.

It was rubbish!

The App’s mapping was difficult to manipulate and follow, but the main problem was the route itself. It may have been a great route for a fully suspended mountain bike, but it was awful on a heavily laden tourer. After one of my panniers was bounced off it’s racking whilst traversing one particularly rough section, I decided to navigate off the receptionist’s route and regain my own, previously planned line. Easier said than done. The apparent ‘road’ I chose to cross from one route to the other turned out to be an even worse, rutted, steep farm trail along which I had to push my bike to avoid punctures on broken glass as it passed through numerous areas of fly tipping. It was another 30 minutes before I regained some smooth tarmac, by which time I was pretty knackered and not in the best of moods at the loss of time and progress. Combined with my lack of sleep, the largely uphill route thereafter, against a very annoying head/sidewind and through boring scenery – the tone for an unpleasant afternoon’s cycling was set.

There are no more photos from the day – I guess that speaks volumes. I arrived at my small, but pleasant hotel in Zafra, collapsed on the bed and fell instantly asleep. I woke with only enough time left in the day to shower, make some calls, blog a little, drink a beer and fall back asleep.

Tomorrow’s profile looks much the same – about 100 kms of mainly uphill with a forecast head/sidewind.