Introduction
It began, as all proper adventures do, with a harmless glance at a catalogue and the sudden, irrepressible urge to be somewhere utterly unreasonable. Southern Spain, with its twisting mountain roads,
Moorish echoes, and promise of both sun and storm, offered the perfect seduction.
What follows is not a mere travelogue, but a love letter to the road, written in curves and coffee, with the occasional bee sting for punctuation. Spain didn’t just offer scenery — it offered revelation.
And I, of course, said yes.
Wednesday. March 12th, 2025. Orange County, California.
In the months that followed, I approached preparation as a great artist might a final masterpiece. I revisited the memories of past rides, pored over maps like a cartographer on the brink of discovery, and subjected my wardrobe to ruthless aesthetic interrogation. One must dress not simply to survive, but to be admired in the event of a heroic rescue.
The only true alteration to my ensemble was my boots. My faithful Daytonas—valiant, noble, and utterly excessive—were deemed too large and heavy for another trip of this magnitude. In their place came a revelation: the Daytona AC Classic, a shorter, urbane specimen better suited to café tables and cobblestone wanderings. They arrived from Germany with the usual stern efficiency.
Likewise, my Roadcrafter suit, that staid garment of function, was replaced for this trip by something with gravitas: my new Rukka gear. It offered the rare combination of protection, elegance, and the subtle suggestion that one might be attending a very fast funeral.
Now, about the weather. I had been foolish enough—almost romantically foolish—to expect sunshine. But the heavens had other plans. My thorough examination of weather patterns revealed that March in Andalusia could be capricious, even cruel. There would be rain. There would be cold. There would be mountains of nearly 7,000 feet. Naturally, I was delighted.
On the morning of my departure, a Wednesday kissed by Californian drizzle, I declined to entrust myself to Uber, whose approach to airport logistics often involves a long walk, an awkward tram, and a growing sense of class resentment. Instead, I summoned a proper limousine—one from a firm that understands that a gentleman with two massive duffel bags should never have to drag them through puddles just to find the curb.
The driver, punctual by an almost military margin, arrived fifteen minutes early. The rain, as if respecting the formality of the moment, faded as we left Orange County, and within the hour, I was delivered to LAX, serene as a saint at martyrdom.
I had submitted a cheeky bid to Lufthansa for a business class upgrade. They accepted. I was therefore granted that rarest of airport experiences: effortless travel. No line, no quarrel, no human interaction at all, really—just a quiet ceremony in which my face was scanned, my passport briefly admired, and my bags taken as though they were relics of a higher order.
The TSA, for once, played its part with unexpected grace, and I soon found myself in the Star Alliance Lounge—an oasis of calm suspended above the Tom Bradley Terminal. There, I indulged in a proper lunch (the kind that understands both restraint and excess), and basked in the self-satisfaction that only a successful airport experience can provide.
And then, the aircraft: the Boeing 747-8, queen of the skies, resplendent in form and temperament. Business class was split between two decks. I was placed, quite perfectly, in the lower one—intimate, hushed, and curiously European in its manner.
Boarding was achieved not with tickets or passports, but simply by presenting my face like a royal crest. I was guided to my seat with the reverence usually reserved for the clergy or famous painters. There I discovered my seatmate: a quiet German, clearly a musician, who spent the entire flight composing or decoding symphonies on his laptop, never once listening to anything out loud, as though the music played in his soul alone.
The flight itself was sublime. The food arrived as though summoned by poetry, and the service had the casual elegance of people who know they are excellent. I reclined into a fully horizontal bed, pulled the blanket up to my shoulders, and drifted into four solid hours of sleep—an achievement for which I felt I ought to have received a certificate or at least a small round of applause.
We arrived in Frankfurt with Teutonic precision. The airport, of course, is less an airport than an empire of glass and conveyor belts. It took me thirty minutes of walking—past solemn corridors, into EU passport control, across vague signage—to reach my next gate. I felt like a character in a Kafka novella, but better dressed.
The next flight—a cruel demotion—placed me among the masses, in boarding group 5, a numerical insult I accepted only because I had no choice. The cabin was packed, and I found myself sandwiched between a woman of advanced maternal instinct and her masked son. There was coughing. There were whispered health reassurances. I, too, donned my mask—not from fear, but from a growing distaste for contagion in confined spaces.
Eventually, Málaga appeared beneath us like a sun-drenched sigh. At baggage claim, my luggage was nowhere to be seen—until I noticed a distant carousel for non-EU entries, a bureaucratic sleight of hand. There, thankfully, sat my worldly possessions, looking pleased with themselves.
Outside, I faced the eternal traveller’s dilemma: taxi or Uber. The signs for Uber were unusually dignified, so I chose it. Within minutes, a driver appeared, his vehicle humming with anticipation. I attempted to close the trunk gently—a gesture he corrected with mild disdain. “Softer,” he said, which I took as a personal criticism. I tried again. He nodded.
And then, the drop-off: the Old Town. “Here,” he said vaguely. I asked for the exact address. He gestured toward a cluster of streets and said, “Somewhere here.” Then he left. I was, as Wilde once put it, “in the gutter, but looking for street numbers.”
The hotel was meant to be at number 14, but I was on an entirely different street. Málaga, of course, is not a city designed to be understood. It is designed to be wandered, preferably with sandals and a glass of Rioja. I, carrying two cumbersome duffels in a light rain, was not quite dressed for the romance.
Google Maps behaved like a drunken tour guide, spinning me in circles and offering the occasional false hope. At last, soaked but noble, I arrived at the correct hotel.
Check-in was smooth, the receptionist kind, the lobby welcoming. I ascended to my room, peeled off my travel skin, and took a moment to sit and simply be. Twenty-five hours had passed since I left home, and I had traversed time zones, moods, and philosophies.
But Málaga was alive. The rain had not dampened its soul. I ventured out into the evening, past glowing restaurants, each more charming than the last. The streets were full, as if no one had yet heard that it was raining.
I stopped at a café—small, warm, unapologetically Spanish. I ordered modestly: wine and small dishes, the kind that arrive with grace and disappear with joy. I sat, not because I was hungry, but because I wanted to feel part of the scene.
By 8 p.m., I returned to my hotel. The sandwich I had begun in my room remained unfinished, like a haiku without a third line. But sleep—delayed, delightful sleep—was eager to claim me. I slipped into it with the contentment of a man who had travelled far, said little, and felt everything.
Friday, March 14th, 2025. Málaga, Spain
I awoke at six, which felt excessive for a country that collectively regards 9 a.m. as the start of a vague suggestion, not a day. I made a valiant effort to remain in bed, wrestling the sheets with the desperate poise of a man who both craves rest and cannot sit still. By eight, I surrendered. A shower, a sigh, and I stepped into the sunlit streets of Málaga—eerily quiet, as though the city itself was still nursing a bottle of Rioja from the night before.
I had my eye on a particular café that opened at nine, and I arrived on time—a mistake, as it turned out. The server greeted me with a wearied smile and the timeless Spanish phrase: “Ten more minutes.” It is, I’ve found, rarely just ten.
Thirteen minutes later, I returned to find the restaurant already full. Málaga, it seems, knows how to rush only when breakfast is involved. I claimed a seat outside, near a heater, and waited. And waited. The poor server—singular—was attempting to manage what felt like half the city.
After a noble twenty-minute silence, I was granted the honour of placing my order: eggs, mushrooms, bread, and café con leche. The food, when it finally arrived at ten, was delightful—sufficiently good, in fact, to almost justify the delay. Almost.
Fed but not fast, I wandered the cobbled arteries of Málaga for the next four hours. The streets invited exploration and the shops offered the kind of small temptations that only a leisurely day permits. At one point, I procured a modest sandwich of jamón y queso, which I nibbled like a pensioner guarding his inheritance.
At 1:00 p.m., I honoured a reservation I’d made the day before at the Picasso Museum—a required pilgrimage, given the man’s birthright to the city. The exhibition focused on a slice of his life from 1937 to 1940, a period filled with war, women, and wild geometry.
In one of the smaller rooms, about the size of a generous closet, I encountered ten people engaged in a sort of modern ballet: each turning slowly, phone in hand, like sunflowers trying to find a shadowless angle of a wall.
After the museum, I meandered toward the town museum and the nearby castle. But a sense of fatigue—and a keen awareness of the time required—made me postpone the visit. I decided I’d return after the motorcycle tour, when the city might feel like an old friend and less like an open tab.
Instead, I discovered a small plaza near the Roman theatre and settled into a stone bench like a man who had nowhere better to be. I sat for an hour, basking in the sun, watching the city move around me. Tourists clutched cameras. Children chased pigeons. A living statue, dressed as a tennis player, held a pose so convincing I mistook him for the real (albeit very quiet) Rafael Nadal.
Only later did I notice him blink, shift, and at one point—tragically—hike up his pants. The children were spellbound. He murmured “gracias” at passing coins without so much as a twitch elsewhere in his body. Art meets economy, as ever.
Around 3:00, I returned to my room, briefly surrendered to the afternoon, then ventured back into the city by 7:00 to pursue dinner and dusk. By 8:00, I had stumbled upon an organic restaurant where everything tasted like it had been grown by monks and plated by poets. My meal was excellent, and the euro-priced beer during happy hour tasted, in that moment, like the finest thing money could buy.
The rest of the evening passed among shopfronts and lamp-lit walks. At 10:00 p.m., I returned to my hotel, comfortably tired, quietly content.
Sleep, however, proved elusive. I drifted off around 11, only to awaken at 1 a.m., when the ceiling became a canvas for every missed conversation and unresolved detail of the day. I finally dozed off again, only to be summoned by the alarm at 8:00 a.m.—an interruption made more annoying by the fact that it had arrived on time, unlike my breakfast.
Still, the day had been rich—filled with art, sunlight, and a lingering sense of slowness that Spain seems to teach with every hour.
Saturday. March 15th, 2025. Malaga, Spain.
There are mornings in life which one does not merely wake into—but rather arrives in, like the final act of a well-rehearsed play. Such was the morning of March 15th. The city of Málaga, which had so wearily wept on my arrival, now stood dazzling beneath a sun determined to rehabilitate its reputation. I left my hotel at nine o’clock, feeling the kind of serene optimism only available to those not yet fully aware of what the day holds.
The streets greeted me like old friends newly reformed.
Then—without ceremony, but with considerable charm—I stumbled upon a small shop just opening its doors to the day. The lights flickered on as I approached, and the proprietor, cheerful in that early-shift European way, offered a smile that suggested we’d been expecting each other. I was the second customer, which is the most poetic number in any queue: no awkward firstness, no tail-end anonymity. The service was swift, the atmosphere quietly immaculate.
I ordered a bagel—crowned with lox and dignity—and a café that did not attempt to dazzle but merely to awaken. Around me, locals and other discerning wanderers preferred their meals to go, as if the streets themselves were their dining rooms. I, on the other hand, remained seated. One must never rush a good breakfast. It’s the only social occasion where it’s perfectly acceptable to be silent and smug.
With my appetite now suitably flattered, I turned my attention to the central market—an experience less like shopping and more like entering a living organism.
I roamed through the stalls with the detached awe of a botanist at Versailles, admiring vegetables arranged in improbable symmetry, nuts piled like miniature sculptures, and butchers who spoke in cleaver poetry. If this was not the largest market in Europe, it was certainly the most unapologetically alive. A cathedral for those who worship the senses.
At length, I meandered back to the hotel. The walk was slow and contemplative; my bagels had long since digested, but their memory lingered. I packed my bags—a ritual by now performed with silent gravitas—and made my way to the nearby taxi stand. A car appeared with timely grace, and off we went, leaving behind the charm of Málaga’s old town for the sun-bleached theatrics of Torremolinos.
The Hotel Sol Príncipe announced itself not with subtlety, but with scale. Three high towers stood like optimistic monuments to leisure, flanked by vast swimming pools of varying temperature and style, each more improbable than the last.
This was not a hotel. It was a resort, that peculiar invention where reality is suspended and time is measured in cocktails and buffet turns. The Mediterranean glittered just beyond the promenade, and between hotel and sea lay a strip of beachfront cafés, sleepy kiosks, and an endless stream of people strolling with nowhere particular to go and no desire to get there quickly.
I joined them. The air was thick with salt and something like nostalgia. I walked a mile or so along the beach road, pretending I had deep thoughts and succeeding only in having pleasant ones. It was all so perfectly idle, and I adored it.
Upon return, I claimed a beer with the authority of a man who had walked precisely enough to deserve one. I stationed myself beside the pool, allowing the sun to do its worst while I did nothing at all. A nap followed—not out of luxury, but necessity. The hotel was noisy, of course; all great dreams are interrupted by laughter and cannonball splashes.
At 4:30, I reconvened with the group—the riders with whom I’d share roads, weather, and hopefully not hospital beds. The briefing was held in a spacious room and presided over by Thomas and Franzi, our guides. Thomas was exuberant, theatrical, and spoke as if narrating a travel documentary at all times.
We discussed maps, customs, dangers, etiquette, and all the logistical drapery that surrounds a motorcycle tour. We asked questions. We received answers. It was all immensely reassuring and slightly intimidating.
Afterward came the ceremonial distribution of motorcycle keys. We were led, somewhat like a cult but one with better jackets, through the hotel’s maze to the lower garage. This journey required crossing the lobby, skirting the games room (filled with the peals of electronic despair), bypassing multiple pools of architectural whimsy, and navigating through the depths of a second tower. Down stairs, past locked doors, through echoing corridors—we arrived at the subterranean sanctum. I half-expected to find a dragon guarding the bikes.
I made this pilgrimage at least three times over the next few hours. One trip to survey, one to fit gear, and one because I had forgotten something profoundly unimportant but psychologically essential. Packing a motorcycle is like composing a sonnet: balanced, precise, and just short of madness.
At 7:30, a subtle tragedy unfolded. Thomas sent a message to the group via WhatsApp announcing dinner. But alas, my invitation was lost in the digital ether due to a broken link. I remained oblivious. Dinner commenced without me, as these things often do in Greek tragedies and poorly organised tech platforms.
Eventually, Thomas texted me directly, and I realized I had been dining in solitude without even the dignity of food. I rushed to the dining room, clutching hunger and embarrassment in equal measure. The group was already well into their meal. I slid into a seat, offered apologies, and devoured my late arrival like a penitent.
The evening ended with further trips to the garage, final checks, last-minute shuffles, and the familiar sense of surely, I’ve forgotten something important. By 10 p.m., I had done everything that could be done. I collapsed into bed, weary but triumphant.
And yet sleep, that elusive flirt, refused to settle. My mind spun—about roads, mountains, tyres, strangers, rain. Midnight passed. One o’clock crept in like a burglar. I closed my eyes and dreamed not of rest, but of the ride to come.
Sunday. March 16th, 2025. Torremolinos, Spain
There are certain mornings that do not merely begin—they arrive, like a telegram from Fate or a well-dressed stranger bearing news. This was one such morning. I had set my alarm for 6:30 a.m.—a cruel hour more suited to monks or milkmen—but duty, as ever, called from the saddle.
With the grace of someone who has no choice in the matter, I rose, showered with mechanical resolve, and began the delicate ballet of final gear selection. Packing for a motorcycle tour is a curious mixture of vanity and superstition: one wants to look prepared, feel invincible, and secretly hopes to never need any of it.
Downstairs, I found the courtyard already alive with purpose.
A small fraternity of Americans—five gentlemen originally from New York, each with the confident gait of men who’ve lived near a good deli—had moved their motorcycles from the subterranean garage to the front of the hotel. Their early action revealed an important fact: we were, apparently, expected to summon a custodian to open the garage door. There were no other cars; only our steel companions waited in the gloom like obedient dragons.
I, possessing the virtue of being marginally awake, approached the front desk. There stood William, our concierge of gentle chaos, who informed me (as he had the day before) that he would issue me a small paper ticket to scan at the garage exit. I accepted it like a boarding pass to misadventure.
Moments later, I gathered my duffels, donned my gear, and wheeled the BMW 1300 GS—a beast masquerading as a motorcycle—toward the exit. I scanned the ticket. Nothing happened. I scanned it again. Still nothing. One more time, for theatre. The door remained as unmoved as an Oxford don. Fortunately, salvation arrived in the form of the custodian himself, whose timely appearance, summoned by other impatient riders, spared me the indignity of ramming the gate with German engineering.
And so, I rode into the courtyard, sunlight bouncing off my windshield, tyres kissing the pavement for the very first time. Unlike previous tours, there had been no prologue—no warm-up ride, no slow flirtation with the machine. We were to begin at once, in earnest, like lovers meeting for the first time and immediately eloping into the mountains.
After a brief, vaguely military lecture from our guides regarding the day’s route and conditions, we mounted our machines and set off. Sunday traffic in Málaga was blessedly minimal, as though the city, too, was enjoying its lie-in. We climbed the city’s outer slopes quickly, slicing through the early light in a loose, confident procession.
But paradise, as ever, has its price.
Roughly forty minutes into the ride, we rounded a bend—and there, tragedy had already unfurled her curtain. One of the New York gentlemen had collided with a cliffside. A BMW lay splayed in undignified pieces, its oil bleeding into the gravel like an elegy. The rider was flat on the tarmac, motionless but breathing. His helmet was still on. Debris from his gear and shattered pannier lay strewn like a battlefield around him.
We dismounted with the urgency of men now suddenly aware of their mortality. I joined several others beside the fallen rider, directing that his feet be raised and his head held steady. His helmet was removed with caution. Red marks were visible across his forehead — a crimson signature of blunt force.
Thomas, our guide, sprang into action. He summoned an ambulance, the police, and the necessary bureaucratic forces that emerge when flesh meets rock at speed. The man on the ground repeated the same questions over and over—a troubling refrain that pointed clearly toward concussion.
As we waited for emergency services, his friends—stoic yet visibly shaken—explained that he was not merely an enthusiastic rider, but a professional. Captain of a police motorcycle team, no less. He had led others through complex formations, trained rookies, and once earned praise so effusive it had been suggested he be paid extra. That he now lay injured and confused beside a wrecked machine was the sort of irony even I found distasteful.
The consensus was that he had been caught off guard by the sheer power and precision of the BMW 1300 GS. A Harley man by habit, perhaps he had brought torque to a dance that required grace.
An hour passed. The ambulance finally arrived, followed by the police, who surveyed the scene with practiced detachment. To our astonishment, the injured rider rose—shaky but upright—and walked himself to the vehicle. He was taken to the university hospital, where he was later diagnosed with a fractured sternum and a concussion. The physicians believed he would be discharged the following day—a bittersweet ending, if such a phrase exists for broken bones.
Two of his friends stayed behind, along with our second guide, to retrieve the tour van and manage the wounded bike. The rest of us—seven now, down from ten—mounted our steeds once more and rode on.
By now, the sky had turned petulant. A light drizzle accompanied our ascent into the hills. We stopped at a charming café perched precariously above a valley, the kind of place where every view demands poetry and every coffee insists on contemplation. The temperature had dropped to around 50 degrees, which is nature’s way of reminding you that motorcycle gloves are fashionably overrated but functionally essential.
After lunch, the rain returned—not gentle this time, but with full dramatic intent. It poured for an hour as we climbed once more into the mountains, winding through narrow switchbacks like characters in a gothic novel. My confidence wavered slightly; rain and corners had, years ago, conspired to introduce me to a white Alfa Romeo in a most unpleasant fashion. That memory returned now, uninvited, in every sweeping left turn through the mist.
Our guide had warned us: These roads deceive. They appear safe, but betray their riders the moment it rains. I learned this lesson twice, as my rear wheel slid slightly in two separate roundabouts. Harmless slips, yes, but enough to return humility to the throttle.
Eventually, around 4 o’clock, we stopped for fuel, wet and wind-swept but otherwise intact. Soon after, we arrived at our hotel for the evening: a grand and glorious structure set in the folds of the hills, its elegance entirely unbothered by our muddy boots and helmet hair.
Some of the others stood in disbelief. “They let motorcyclists stay here?” one asked, as if we were invading Versailles on scooters.
At 7:30, we gathered for dinner in the hotel’s sumptuous dining room. The meal was pre-selected, thoughtfully arranged, and—miraculously—delicious. The table buzzed with talk of weather forecasts and potential route changes. Rain was expected again, heavier this time. Routes were debated, risks measured.
By ten o’clock, I was done—done with talking, with thinking, with being upright. I collapsed into bed like a weary poet and, for once, fell instantly into sleep. It was dreamless and absolute.
Tomorrow, the road would continue its winding tale. But for now, all was still.
Monday. March 17th, 2025. La Vinuela, Spain
One seldom expects to wake refreshed in the arms of a storm, but on this particular Monday, I did. The night had been dark, the rain persistent, and yet I emerged from slumber with a surprising lightness—as if the day had not yet decided to punish us.
Breakfast was taken at the civilised hour of eight, among fellow riders whose expressions oscillated between quiet stoicism and weather-induced dread.
The day’s forecast was less meteorological than mythological. A wall of rain—a veritable Atlantic deluge—was bearing down upon us with all the grace of a Shakespearean tragedy. Cold, heavy, indiscriminate. The route originally planned would take us 170 miles through mountainous terrain. This was once intended to be a highlight of the tour. Now, it had become a question of endurance versus common sense.
Debate broke out immediately. One of the Americans—wise in the ways of suffering—proclaimed that while 170 miles may look delightful on paper, it would in practice be 170 miles of hydrothermic penance. I quietly agreed. I’ve never been one to pursue heroism where good sense would do.
It was decided, diplomatically, that the group would split. Thomas, ever the adventurer, would lead those who sought glory. This group A would later be named the moto-maniacs. Franzi would take the rest of us, group B the Encantantas—those who sought shelter—on the shorter, more direct route. We would arrive by noon. I chose the latter, with the solemnity of a man who values warm gloves more than scenic vistas.
Two of our comrades—the brothers who had shepherded the fallen rider to hospital—had finally rejoined us the night before. Unfortunately, the older brother was now engaged in a brutal bout with Montezuma’s revenge, though the nearest pyramid was several thousand miles away. He looked pale, drawn, and several centuries older. They opted to skip today’s ride entirely and proceed to the next hotel via pharmacy.
Our reduced contingent—five souls braced against the Atlantic’s disdain—departed around 9:30. We hadn’t been on the road five minutes before the rain began its overture. Cold, theatrical, and determined, it accompanied us every step of the way. By the time we reached the hills, the rain had graduated to symphonic levels.
After 45 minutes, one of our number declared his independence, requesting to veer off on a solo route. Our guide, with the resigned smile of a women accustomed to eccentricity, granted him leave. And so we were four.
Around midday, we stopped at a gas station whose modesty concealed a miracle: a warm coffee lounge. The temperature had dropped to 44°F (7°C), and my gloves had reached full saturation. I exchanged them for a lighter pair, then retrieved from my bag a recent eBay treasure: Aerostich waterproof over-gloves, purchased used, with the proud elegance of a knight’s gauntlets. They had three digits—two massive fingers and a solitary thumb—giving me the look of a lost lobster, but they were gloriously dry.
Back on the road, the rain redoubled. I attempted, in desperation, to operate the BMW’s heated grips. I had been shown how—once, briefly, with the same clarity one receives when told how to fold a parachute. But I had forgotten. So, with frozen fingers and grim determination, I fiddled with switches, buttons, menus. At last, victory: warmth flowed into my palms like divine forgiveness.
The bike, it must be said, performed like a saint with horsepower. I had kept it in rain mode all day, and it handled the conditions with the grace of a ballet dancer in boots. The 1300 GS is, I now realise, both weapon and muse. Unlike my dear V-Strom, which must be coaxed and flattered, the BMW responds like a well-trained beast—willing, precise, and always slightly dangerous. It will do what you ask. It might even do more. The danger lies in forgetting just how far it can go.
We arrived at our hotel around 1 p.m., soaked, frozen, but intact. The building rose out of the mist like a blessing. Even more delightful: an underground garage awaited us. I felt as though I’d earned it in a previous life.
After lunch, I took a brief nap—more coma than rest—then ventured into the town of La Calahorra, whose only distinguishing feature was its dramatic absence of life. I walked halfway through the town and encountered precisely two people. I’ve known ghost towns in Nevada to be more sociable. The buildings were clean, the streets tidy, and yet it felt as though the town had politely excused itself for the afternoon and forgotten to return.
Atop a hill stood a castle, brooding and theatrical. We inquired about visiting, only to be told it was privately owned and only opened on Wednesdays. It was Monday. Of course it was.
We would see what the morning brought.
Dinner was a cheerful, generous affair. Our band of wet, wind-battered pilgrims ate well and spoke better. There was laughter, speculation, and the hopeful denial that tomorrow could be worse than today.
At 10:30, I retired to my room. The bed greeted me with open arms, and this time, I needed no persuasion to fall asleep.
Tuesday, March 18th, 2025. La Calahorra, Spain
I rose early, as all men must when the mountains call and the skies threaten litigation. Breakfast was at seven—bread, meat, and cheese arranged in stoic European austerity, all accompanied by the usual suspicious coffee and the resigned silence of riders contemplating the day’s weather.
At 8:30, the briefing. Thomas, who carries the air of a man who’s already survived the worst, informed us that today we would ascend to 5,800 feet, and that there may—casually—be snow on the roads. It would, he added with Teutonic calm, rain heavily for half the day.
I asked the obvious question: “What if we encounter snow or ice on the road?”
Thomas replied, “Then the road will be closed. We will not pass.”
A charming reassurance, like being told a firing squad will cancel if it rains.
We were then divided into two groups. The first—fast, fearless, and slightly deranged—went with Thomas. I chose the second, slower group: thoughtful, scenic, and in no hurry to meet fate. There were three of us. My aim, I declared quietly to myself, was not glory. It was survival. I had no interest in flying off cliffs or offering sacrifices to the gods of horsepower. I wanted to finish the day upright and intact.
The first group departed. We followed twenty minutes later, winding our way up through quiet towns and into the jaws of the Sierra Nevada. The scenery turned cold, clouded, beautiful. And then—naturally—we met the first group again, now at a dead stop at a roadblock. Snow and ice covered the road above. It was 2°C. The way was closed. The forecast had not lied.
And so we descended. Back through the damp towns we’d just left. Past our hotel. Past our doubts. We joined the highway—broad, grey, wet—and rode for another 40 minutes, rain falling with a kind of artistic determination. We stopped at a roadside
café. Coffee was had. Morale was rebooted.
For an hour, we sipped espresso while the hills outside steamed and sulked. Then, as if the skies themselves had tired of their own drama, the clouds parted. The rain stopped. Sunlight—not warm, but sincere—appeared. We mounted up and rode.
Up we climbed once more. Through winding roads and above the clouds—yes, above them. One of the more theatrical moments of the tour, it must be said.
Eventually, we found the first group, paused at a high clearing. They had encountered snow on the road but declared it “passable.” Which, as you know, is code for: perhaps foolish but not fatal.
We were instructed to leave wide gaps between bikes. Sensible. Cautious. Almost philosophical.
I took the rear position. We entered the snow.
For fifteen minutes, I floated forward, nerves tight, engine smooth. I whispered silent prayers to the gods of friction. And then—the road disappeared beneath solid, uninterrupted snow. Downhill. Treacherous. Unforgiving.
And then—the man in front of me fell.
There is a moment in every man’s life when time dilates. My options: brake (and fall), swerve (into what?), or collide (and become legend). I chose caution. I braked. The bike, deeply offended, fell.
I rolled off like a gentleman dismounting a horse in an old painting. No injury. No drama. Just a sudden awareness of the fact that petrol was pouring from the open gas cap like a libation to the mountain gods.
I fumbled with the cap, succeeded in closing it, and stood to see the guide waving at me urgently. The fallen rider was pinned—his foot trapped beneath his motorcycle. Four of us scrambled, lifted the machine, and freed him .
We continued down the other side, the weather now offering occasional, unpredictable spurts of rain like a toddler with a squirt gun. In time, we reached a café and reunited with the first team, who were, of course, completely dry and entirely pleased with themselves.
Then—human drama once more. A lone rider, standing beside the road. His bike had slipped off and into a ditch. We stopped. He was Israeli, born in Portugal, and very grateful. With six of us pulling, we returned his machine to the road. We may not have seen cars for an hour, but we did find purpose.
Throughout the day, we encountered almost no traffic—no more than five cars in the entire pass. The roads were narrow, but well paved. Not slick like Day One’s polished-rock nightmares. These were roads for riders, not gamblers.
At 4:30, we paused once again. A decision: continue the mountain route to Almería or take the highway. We chose the highway. No one said it aloud, but we’d had enough. We’d earned the right to be pragmatic.
Thirty minutes of smooth riding brought us into the heart of the city. And with that, the real challenge began: parking.
The hotel had no parking of its own. The system was thus: pull up, unload luggage on the sidewalk, check in, then ride several confusing one-way streets to a public garage nearby. The directions were vague. The signage worse. Eventually, after much buffoonery and the universal language of exasperation, we found the entrance.
It was a downward slope. A ticket machine. A helmet. A moment of absurdity.
So I eased forward, slipped into neutral, balanced the bike, reached up, pressed the button, collected the ticket with my teeth, and coasted into the abyss. There, we danced with parked cars and tight corners. Somehow, we found space. The bikes were parked. The ordeal was over.
Dinner, at last, was a reward: steaming paella in a warm restaurant, surrounded by old friends and reunited riders. The two brothers who’d split off earlier had returned, triumphant from pharmacy raids. We drank. We laughed. We lived again.
Afterwards, we retired to a café, lingering over drinks until 11:30—savoring the rare quiet that follows a day full of consequence. I went to bed with a full belly and the quiet ache of triumph.
Tomorrow, mercifully, was a rest day.
Which in tour-speak means: only a three-hour ride. No packing. No transferring gear. Just a gentle loop, back to the same hotel—with only the underground parking standing between me and morning.
Wednesday. March 19th, 2025. Almeria, Spain
I woke at seven, not from any rude alarm but from the soft insistence of light creeping through the hotel curtains like a well-meaning ghost. For a few minutes I simply lay there—still, unbothered, and mildly philosophical. It is one of life’s simplest and most civilised pleasures: to awaken without obligation, only the vague awareness that something splendid might happen if one were to rise.
Eventually, of course, I did rise and made my way to the dining room, where I took breakfast with one of my fellow riders—a gentleman of the quietly capable sort, the kind who folds maps with reverence and always knows how to order eggs in foreign tongues.
The cathedral was what one expects of European cathedrals: tall, echoing, and heavy with memory. Like its Italian cousins, it had ceilings high enough to shame ambition and the sort of solemn beauty that makes one instinctively whisper, even when alone. I took a few discreet photographs—souvenirs of silence—and then departed, spiritually uplifted and slightly chilled.
Back at the hotel, I finalised my gear, adjusted the balance of purpose and elegance in my luggage, and met the others at the underground garage at precisely 9:45. About half the group was already there, circling their machines like hawks assessing prey. Twenty minutes later, the ritual complete, we were ready.
As was now custom, the group split into two factions: the Brave and the Pragmatic. I aligned with the latter—our cheerful guide and three other souls. The rest followed the other guide, doubtless toward vistas and risks I had no appetite for that morning.
We departed the city and began the now-familiar ascent into the mountains. The road coiled back and forth like a silk ribbon tossed by a storm. But this time—miracle of miracles—the rain held off. The sun made a timid appearance, and the temperature rose to a merciful 60°F. For the first time in days, we climbed in light.
The roads were dry, the asphalt trustworthy, and I shifted the BMW into Road mode, which it accepted with the eager purr of a machine finally allowed to stretch its limbs. The pace was steady, the scenery divine. After an hour, I politely requested a stop—just long enough for a sip of water, a handful of nuts, and the mandatory motorcycle-tour snapshot of something vaguely mountainous.
Upon stopping for lunch, we were greeted with a scene far removed from coastal tranquility: one of the New York riders, a man built like a Broadway bouncer, was holding ice to his head. My first thought was, naturally, “Ah. He’s crashed.” But no. The A-Team guide and our own were locked in a hushed conference—in German, of course, which always makes a situation sound worse.
After the summit, I asked our guide what had occurred. She informed me with elegant precision: “One New Yorker punched another New Yorker.” I blinked. “Seriously?” I asked.
We went across the street to a Greek restaurant and I had Italian pizza. Sitting there we were informed that one of the New York people would be joining our group so we went from three of us to four of us in addition to the guide. When I was told this by Thomas, I said oh you’re kidding right. And he said "No, Germans don’t kid".
And so it was that our group expanded by one, absorbing a bruised-but-unbowed rider from the House of Queens into our gentler fellowship.
After lunch, we resumed our eastward journey, following a ribbon of road that swayed lazily along the coastline. The temperature reached 24°C (a balmy 76°F), which tested the limits of my jacket. Any faster and I might have felt cool; any slower and I’d have started stewing.
The BMW, now fully tamed, responded to every curve with elegant precision. On long, flat swoops, I pushed it slightly—testing throttle, trust, and temperament. At one point, while overtaking a sluggish car, I nearly lifted the front wheel. Not intentionally. But enthusiastically.
We arrived back at the hotel around 4:30, fueled up and weary. The underground garage once again received us like a kindly butler—dry, discreet, and faintly amused.
That evening, six of us—four Germans, two English speakers—went out to dinner at a nearby Spanish restaurant. Five ordered pork ribs. One, a solitary soul, chose fish. Conversation flowed easily, buoyed by wine, meat, and mutual relief at having survived both mountain switchbacks and American fistfights.
By 10 p.m., I was in bed, the day sealed in memory and scented faintly with gasoline and garlic. It had been, in the most literal sense, an excellent day.
Thursday. March 20th, 2025. Almeria, Spain
I awoke at six in Almería, that pale and sunlit city pressed like a well-folded napkin against the southeastern edge of Spain. The morning was quiet, not because the world had nothing to say, but because it was waiting politely for us to leave.
Breakfast began at seven, and though my appetite was modest, my responsibilities were not. I ate quickly, for there was luggage to be marshaled, gear to be packed, and a solemn descent into the subterranean city parking garage to deposit it all—an act that felt less like travel and more like participating in a low-budget opera about lost warriors and their expensive motorcycles.
At nine, we rode. The city peeled away behind us like the final page of a chapter, and ahead lay the mountains—quiet, imposing, and completely unaware of our schedule. The sun was benevolent, the temperature flattering, and our spirits rose with the altitude.
By noon we had crested the first range and paused for coffee, which in Spain is less a beverage and more a divine rite. We sipped and stretched, basking in that rare alignment of time, terrain, and well-maintained brakes.
Lunch came at two, as is customary in a country where time bends to appetite. Then began the long, meditative crossing between the ranges. For hours, we wove through silent landscapes: abandoned stone homes, shuttered villages, the ghost of industry lingering like cigarette smoke. Once inland, Spain empties itself out—spacious, solemn, and possessed of a haunting grace. We rode for what felt like forever without seeing another soul, save for our own reflections in each other’s visors.
The roads were typical of our adventure: perfect, then pockmarked, then poetic. Some barely wider than a shrug. Others wide and eager, begging for throttle. As I had done for several days now, I rode at the tail of our party of five—a position I cherished for its solitude and panoramic indulgence.
At around 3 p.m., we passed through an olive grove so vast it seemed to have no beginning or end. It was here I met my winged adversaries. Bugs—innumerable, enthusiastic—began hurling themselves at my helmet like drunken admirers. One, particularly ambitious, breached my visor and flapped about inside like a frantic dove. I rode one-handed, trying to coax it out without veering off the mountain. It eventually left, or perhaps was flung, and I continued, mildly rattled and wholly unbitten.
We stopped, as we often did, at a gas station. Spanish petrol stations, it must be said, are clean, cheerful, and delightfully self-aware. Their restrooms are spotless, their coffee credible, and the attendants speak the universal language of “smiling politely at motorcyclists covered in road grime.”
As we passed through a nameless town, we glimpsed a statue atop a rocky spire—an angel, posed theatrically in the center of a craggy square. It was utterly arresting. Naturally, we did not stop. Photography, it seems, is the one indulgence we are never quite allowed on these rides. Speed always wins the argument against sentiment.
As usual, I fell behind. Not out of incompetence, but reverence. The others danced with curves; I flirted with the landscape. There is so much to see, and so little appetite among the group for stopping to see it. Occasionally they waited for me to catch up, and I would offer the polite nod of someone who knows he’s broken formation, but not regret.
We emerged from the park and into a quiet town, where we paused for coffee and fuel before climbing once more into the hills.
And then, the bee.
Roughly ten minutes into our final ascent, an agent of chaos entered my helmet and stung me on the chin. I screamed—more from surprise than pain—and wrestled with the visor until I could hurl the creature out onto the road. All of this occurred while navigating a narrow, climbing curve. One does not expect to engage in spontaneous entomological duels while ascending the Sierra de Cazorla, but life is rarely considerate.
Our hotel was a charming thing—two stories, whitewashed, with thick stone walls and a dining room large enough to echo. It reminded me of a German château misplaced by a whimsical cartographer. The road ran along the valley floor, steep hillsides rising on either side like quiet witnesses.
We parked in front. Thomas, never one to miss an opportunity for conviviality, handed each of us a beer and some potato chips. It was, in its way, the perfect welcome.
I retired briefly, showered, rearranged my things with the deliberate inefficiency of a man who has no true intention of unpacking, and returned to the dining room at 7:30.
Later, over more beers, someone declared, “This was the best day of the trip.” And no one disagreed. The weather, the roads, the views, the sheer sense of scale—it had all conspired to leave us quietly astonished.
At 9:30, I excused myself. My chin ached faintly, my legs were sore, and my soul was, in the best sense, full.
Tomorrow may bring rain. But tonight, all is well.
Friday, March 21st, 2025. Arroyo Frio, Spain
I woke at seven with that curious optimism one occasionally feels before the day has had a chance to disappoint. There was a coolness in the room, a heaviness in the clouds, and, naturally, a plot twist in the weather. I packed my gear and stepped outside, only to be greeted by a rain that could best be described as vengeful.
Attempting to load one’s luggage onto a motorcycle in the rain is a lesson in humility. My panniers resisted as if in protest. Rain lashed at my bags, my gloves, and, most hurtfully, my sense of composure. Eventually, I won the duel, though some of my gear emerged from the encounter a little wiser and considerably wetter.
The briefing was held in a hunting lodge of a dining room, the walls lined with the glassy-eyed stares of unfortunate animals. A large boar loomed above us, tusks curled in eternal disapproval. We received our route—mountains, valleys, vistas, and rain—with polite nods and one collective sigh.
Before we could depart, my key fob, ever the diva, decided not to work—again. This was its third theatrical collapse. The culprit, I’d come to learn, was the battery which, due to some Bavarian engineering whimsy, required constant fiddling. I couldn’t pry it open—my nails are for elegance, not electronics—so Thomas, passing by, kindly opened it and reseated the battery with mechanical grace. The bike sprang back to life, and we all pretended this hadn’t happened.
The BMW 1300 GS, I’ve come to realize, is a contradiction on wheels. It is simultaneously brilliant and slightly mad. Thomas, with a gleam in his eye, told us a story of one that caught fire due to a stuck starter motor—“it simply burst into flames,” he said casually, as if recounting a bad soufflé.
We left under a reluctant drizzle. Soon, though, the rain stopped and the road dried like a freshly shaken martini. A lake shimmered to our right. A herd of deer bolted up a hillside. Thomas pointed out a squirrel—large, possibly mythical—and a sign warning of lynxes. One must admire a country that prepares for feline ambushes with official signage.
My bike, however, refused.
Lights: on. Engine: silent. Panic: immediate.
I checked the usual culprits—the clutch, the kickstand, the gear. All correct. Still nothing. Thomas returned, asked if it was the fob (a fair guess), and I shook my head. “A new problem,” I said with the solemnity of a condemned man.
He tried the ignition himself. Nothing. Then, channeling the spirit of a Bavarian shaman, he removed the seat, detached the battery cable, and attempted to reboot the electronics. After a few minutes, still nothing.
He phoned headquarters. The head mechanic answered and, mid-sentence, Thomas hit the starter again—and it worked. Of course it did. Apparently, water can seep into the starter casing, and when it dries, it simply… works again. I was glad for the explanation, though mildly insulted by the timing.
And so we rode on, descending from the mountains into a new landscape—broad valleys, rolling hills, and an ocean of olive trees. As Thomas later explained, Spain supplies half of Italy’s olives for its olive oil. The romantic delusions I had about rustic Italian orchards were quietly shattered.
At last, we stopped for lunch. The sun had teased us, then fled, and the rain returned just as sandwiches were unwrapped. The original plan had been a picnic. Thomas glanced skyward and declared this “no longer ideal.” We ate indoors.
My Rukka gear, I must say, continues to earn its keep. It is waterproof, breathable, and rather dashing. I no longer need to perform the comedic striptease of putting on rain gear, removing it, then putting it on again five minutes later. It is a suit of armor for the indecisive climate of Spain.
After lunch, we rode through a maze of quiet mountain roads—medium altitude, low traffic, and zero company. In the space of a day, we saw perhaps one other motorcycle, briefly, on the highway. Otherwise, the land belonged to us.
In the small towns we passed, men loitered in cafés and bars, while women stood in tight huddles on corners, murmuring. One rider quipped, “They’re gossiping.” I waved at them on occasion. They rarely waved back. I began to feel like part of a rogue motorcycle gang led by a leather-clad Marlon Brando—disturbing the peace in villages that hadn’t seen action since Franco.
The rain returned. I switched the bike into Rain Mode, a setting that gives you the illusion of control while saving your pride and possibly your life. The 1300 is a marvel—its power band is so wide, one could practically complete an entire tour in second gear. The suspension floats, the acceleration sings, and the seat whispers, “Faster.” It is, in short, a dangerous love affair.
The windscreen, though, is delightful. It rises and falls at the touch of a button, shielding or revealing like a curtain at the theatre.
By 4 p.m., we stopped for coffee once more, the rain still determined to participate. Parking was awkward, but the caffeine was worth the effort. We rode another hour through twisty, beautiful roads, made comical by the frequency of cyclist-warning signs. We saw no cyclists. Not one. Just rain, wind, and signs reminding us of their theoretical existence.
At one point, a crosswind hit us on a ridge so violently it nearly knocked me sideways. The rain stung like sleet. My visor stayed closed, firmly this time. I’d had enough bees for one trip.
We arrived in Mangibar around 5:30. The gas station was packed—proof that civilization still existed. A man who had just filled my tank also turned out to be the cashier. Spain is nothing if not economical with its staff.
By 7:15, I was downstairs in the bar, joining the rest of the crew for beers and stories. At 8:15, we moved to the dining room. The menu, we thought, offered choices. It did not. We were given everything except the entrées to choose from. A tactical misdirection. The food, however, was excellent, and the wine—of course—flowed freely. Dessert was accompanied by a drink that tasted suspiciously like Bailey’s having an identity crisis.
Talk turned to bikes. Franzi complimented my riding. I had, she said, improved significantly after two days. I confessed that the first two days were spent trying to ride precisely for practice. After that, I simply rode. It made all the difference.
Thomas had been patient today, waiting when I fell behind to enjoy the views or the rhythm of a long descending curve. I appreciated it more than I said.
At 10:30, I retired. My chin, I noticed, still bore the faint swelling from yesterday’s bee sting—a small, buzzing reminder that adventure rarely arrives without a sting.
Saturday, March 22nd, 2025. Mengibar, Spain
I awoke at six. The alarm was set for seven, but alas, I had eaten too much, drunk too much, and slept too little—a trifecta of errors I believe Wilde once warned against, though perhaps not in so many words. The hotel room was, naturally, either too hot or too cold—I can’t recall which, only that it wasn’t right. There had been only one perfect night the entire week. The others had been chapters in a thermal novella called Discomfort in D Minor.
Still, I rose. It was, after all, the last day.
Seven days of riding, and yet it all felt as though it had begun yesterday—if yesterday involved rainstorms, bee stings, malfunctioning electronics, and the occasional goat. I gathered my gear for the final time, each strap a small goodbye, each pannier a closing remark. Outside, the courtyard puddled from an early morning downpour, but above it, the sun reasserted itself in a blaze of unearned optimism. Not a cloud in the sky. Spain had chosen to end our journey with light.
After a quick breakfast, I returned to my room for a final sweep. By 8:30, we were gathered again, sipping coffee and enduring the bittersweet logistics of endings. Thomas informed us that our ride would be lighter: 156 miles, roughly six hours, a blend of mountains and valleys—like a metaphor for life itself.
At 9:30, the garage door rose like a curtain on our final act. We rolled out into narrow streets that offered no forgiveness, just cobblestones, uncertainty, and the occasional chicken.
Spanish mountain villages never fail to surprise. Their roads, likely once intended for carts and contrition, now serve as test tracks for large Bavarian motorcycles with the temperament of prizefighters. No two roads align. Some climb. Some drop. Some lean left, then instantly regret it. One never knows what’s around the corner—possibly a car, possibly a pensioner, possibly a cliff.
We left the town and took a broad two-lane road for about 45 minutes before veering upward into the hills once more. The scenery mirrored Southern California in spring: rolling green, distant mountains, the occasional ruin. These ruins often had “Se Vende” signs attached—though I’m unsure who buys a roofless stone rectangle with graffiti and ghosts. Perhaps it’s the view that’s for sale.
By 11:00, as tradition demanded, we stopped for coffee. Nothing remarkable. A typical Spanish café where the espresso is divine and the service considers punctuality a bourgeois notion.
The climb resumed. By 2:00, we reached our lunch stop, only to learn that the kitchen had given up for the day, possibly in protest. Sandwiches were offered instead—ham, cheese, perhaps tomato sauce if you felt particularly extravagant. One eats what one is given when one is soaked, hungry, and philosophically spent.
By now, of course, the sun had turned to rain—again. At least twenty times it had switched over the course of the day, and we had come to expect nothing less. One moment, gold; the next, grey. The average temperature stayed between 4°C and 13°C in the mountains. At the coast, it teased us with 20°C before retreating again.
The roads were technically challenging—more than I’d anticipated. There was a new turn roughly every ten seconds. Most were mild. Some were violent. But the 90° left-hand turn remained my white whale. It is always the left turn—always—where you fear what waits beyond. Especially after Italy. Especially after being struck on a curve by an Italian with somewhere important to be and no time for physics.
Traffic increased. Tourists, locals, madmen. Some cars politely made way. Others occupied the road like royalty. And still others played chicken near sheer cliffs with no guardrails, where an error means more than embarrassment—it means legend.
There were delays. Pedestrians. Cars. And, yes, chickens—a whole flock, feathery and unhurried, blocking the road like a protest march. I did not honk. I waited. They moved on. And I, of course, was left far behind.
Eventually we reached the final mountain pass. The road to Málaga was now clogged with weekend revelers heading in the opposite direction—toward bars, toward restaurants, toward whatever calls people uphill on a Saturday afternoon. We threaded through chaos and prayed to whichever saints cover twisty roads and overconfident hatchbacks.
At last: the highway. A stop for fuel. Then the city. Then the hotel.
We parked beside the Edelweiss transport truck, where our faithful machines would be cleaned up and returned to Austria. There was something poignant in the process. One by one, we opened the panniers, removed our belongings, ensured the registration and toolkits were intact, left the keys. Franzi inspected, nodded, smiled. With that, the bond between man and motorcycle was, officially, dissolved.
I checked in. Retrieved my stored bags. Attempted to access my room. The key, of course, didn’t work. Because the gods demand one final joke. I left my gear in the hallway and, hot and exhausted, descended again to the desk. I climbed back up. The door yielded. And I exhaled.
At seven, we assembled in the game room. There were beers. There was laughter. And then, curiously, we were ushered into the hotel cafeteria—an anticlimax, considering the many restaurants of the week. But no one complained. We were together. That was enough.
Wine flowed. The table stretched long and comfortably mismatched, like a sentence with too many commas. We were grouped much like we had been on the road—Group A, Group B, bonded by proximity and stories.
After dinner, we returned to the game room. The bar was overrun by strangers performing mysterious acts on a makeshift stage. In our corner, Thomas spoke. He offered a reflection, and then opened the floor.
When my turn came, I stood—not out of drama, but to meet their eyes. I spoke of Arroyo Frío, of the ride through the national park that resembled Glacier. I told them how I had slowed down to see it—really see it—and that perhaps only one or two others had noticed the angel carved into stone in a town we passed. It had been right in front of us, and still, it had almost gone unseen.
Then I told them about our angel: the dream Martin and I shared of buying a village café, a gas station, maybe something more. A fantasy, yes—but the kind of fantasy that survives the rain.
The night lingered. One by one, people drifted away, their goodbyes soft and final. I was one of the last three to remain. At ten o’clock, I left without ceremony.
It was time.
Sunday, March 23rd, 2025. Torremolinos, Spain
I woke at seven—not because I longed to, but because my body had given up negotiating with hotel pillows. The room was, as usual, either a Turkish bath or an Alpine hut. There is no middle ground in European hospitality, only extremes of insulation and philosophical discontent.
At 7:30, a vigorous pounding shook the door. I opened it to find one of my fellow motorcyclists blinking at me with the disoriented panic of a man who has mistaken both time and geography. His friend, it turned out, was in the room next door. He laughed. “Well, I’m glad it was you and not some poor civilian.” I nodded, not entirely sure I agreed.
I dressed and descended to the cafeteria, where I joined him and another from Group A—two men I had rarely shared time with during the tour, separated as we were by the invisible social lines drawn by guides, gear, and road rhythm. Over toast and coffee, we bridged the gap in minutes. There’s something oddly intimate about a post-tour breakfast, like the morning after a play’s final curtain.
Our guides—Thomas and Franzi—were seated nearby, speaking with another visiting guide, all in a crisp cascade of German. I joined them, and to my surprise, we didn’t speak of curves or fuel or panniers. We spoke of politics, of culture, of the oddness of people. There was relief in their tone, as though delighted not to be asked one more question about tire pressure. We talked for nearly an hour. Then, with that peculiar sense of parting that follows extended togetherness, I said my farewells and returned to my room for the final pack.
By 10:30, I was downstairs, bags in hand, freedom in sight. Checkout was at noon, and I preferred to vanish before the stampede.
I hailed a taxi and was quickly informed of a new obstacle: the Málaga Marathon had taken over the city’s veins. My driver, however, was of the resourceful breed. Through phone calls, radio, and taxi-conductor instinct, he wove a route and eventually delivered me—triumphantly—to the Don Curro Hotel. It was too early to check in, naturally, but they were kind enough to take my bags.
I queued, rather nobly I thought, for entrance to the Alcazaba and Gibralfaro—Málaga’s twin citadels. The ticket was €5, the value incalculable. First came the Alcazaba, its classic Moorish symmetry still echoing with centuries of poetry. Water ran down the centre of its paths, as if time itself was retreating from the walls. Then I exited and looked up.
There, perched high on a hill that seemed to laugh at ambition, was the Castillo de Gibralfaro. Its name, romantic. Its ascent, brutal. It rose above the city like an exclamation point carved in stone.
The climb was long. Relentless. A pilgrimage of wet stone and determination. I removed my raincoat halfway up—not because the rain had stopped, but because I was melting from within. Twenty-five minutes of upward contrition, and at last I reached the top. I presented my ticket again. Bureaucracy, like gravity, applies equally to all.
Within the fortress, I discovered ramparts that offered views and vertigo in equal measure. I walked the walls and imagined the futility of medieval siege engines against such impregnable smugness. The castle dared you to try. I declined.
Descending carefully, I passed the remnants of an English tourist—trousers torn, dignity more so—who had fallen into a garden. I helped him out, and he thanked me in a dazed sort of way, as if unsure which century he had arrived in.
Back at sea level, I was ravenous. I assumed, foolishly, that restaurants would not open until 2:00. Not so. They were not only open—they were packed. At last, I spotted a couple rising from a small table near the awning of an Italian restaurant. I claimed it like a victorious pirate.
The waitress smiled. I smiled. I did not care what they served. It turned out to be pizza, and it arrived just as the heavens opened in a rain so comical, it felt choreographed. Water poured off rooftops. Pedestrians vanished. The awning above me sighed under the pressure, then began to leak—strategically, directly onto me.
No matter. I adjusted my cap, pulled my collar high, and ate my pizza in the rain like a man who had finally understood Spain.
Afterwards, I wandered. Most shops were closed, as Sundays tend to be taken seriously in Mediterranean countries. I returned to the hotel. Checked in. Napped. Reviewed my notes. Organized my luggage with the melancholy efficiency of someone rehearsing reentry into normal life.
By 7:45, I was out again, drawn southward into parts of the city I had not explored the previous week. I wandered toward the cruise port—an area alive with possibilities, and the scent of salt and departures.
On the walk back, I passed an ice cream parlour and discovered Malaga—a flavour of raisins and vanilla, of memory and indulgence. It was perfect. I ate it slowly. I don’t usually eat ice cream, but that night, it felt necessary.
Back in my room, I watched television for a few minutes, not really absorbing anything. The window was cracked. The city breathed outside. Tomorrow, there would be flights, passports, queues. But tonight, there was still Spain.
And I, at last, went to bed—grateful, full, and perhaps just a little sunburnt beneath the rain.
Monday, March 24th, 2025. Malaga, Spain
I descended to breakfast with the quiet confidence of a man who expected solitude and an empty buffet. Instead, I found the room teeming with life—elderly couples, business travelers, the odd family already locked in pre-flight existential crises. Only one table remained, and I took it.
Afterward, I set out for one last stroll through Málaga. I returned to the market, drawn not by necessity but by ritual—and the promise of jamón. One of my fellow riders had recommended a specific vendor with skill in both flavor and shrink-wrapping. I located the stall, exchanged €22 for a vacuum-sealed piece of culinary glory.
From there, I wandered back to La Cheesería, the café I’d visited on my very first day. The same young woman was working the counter. She greeted me in English, and I responded—poorly but proudly—in Spanish. “¡Café con leche, por favor!” She smiled as if I had just composed a small poem. Victory.
I strolled down the parkway near the ocean, but the castle grounds were still soaked with yesterday’s drama—mud, gravel, and melancholia. I avoided the mess and instead grabbed a sandwich from a familiar stand, the same one I’d patronized a week ago, as if to close a quiet loop. I even ate the apple I’d been carrying in my backpack for four days. It had survived Europe. It had earned its moment.
Back at the hotel, I charged my devices, checked out, hailed a cab, and made my way to the airport—arriving fashionably early, as all melancholic travelers do. My flight departed at 4:20. There were no bees. No cliffs. Only delays, duty-free shops, and the slow erasure of adventure by routine.
On the flight, I was seated beside a young woman whose daughter, several rows away, kept darting past us and making faces. This, naturally, led to conversation.
She was originally from Singapore, had lived in Pasadena, then San Francisco, and now—curiously—resided in Sweden. “How did you end up there?” I asked. Her answer was refreshingly simple: “Love.” She had married a Swede and now ran a business with him, somewhere among the fjords.
She spoke of Sweden with the conflicted fondness of an adopted citizen. She liked many things—but not all. “Stockholm has become dangerous,” she said. “Gang violence. Really bad.” We talked of places we’d lived, things we’d escaped, jobs we’d left. Germany, she said, had been unbearable: “I lasted six months and then quit.” I raised an eyebrow. Not even Bavaria could charm her.
The plane landed without fanfare, as though it too had grown weary of movement. I made it through the airport maze with surprising ease, had a late dinner, and tried to sleep.
Tuesday, March 25th, 2025. Munich, Germany
I woke at the grotesque hour of 4 a.m., which I believe is illegal in most civilized countries. My flight boarded at 6:30, and I, still drunk on punctuality, stumbled into the terminal long before anyone had turned on the charm—or the lights.
Unsure of the airport’s layout, I wandered like a ghost from a Hemingway novel—sleep-deprived, overpacked, and vaguely suspicious of the signage. Having cleared the necessary formalities with grim efficiency, I located a bank of vacant seats and, like a fallen aristocrat, stretched out upon them. I napped beneath flickering lights and the distant wheeze of industrial vacuums. It was all rather poetic, in a post-apocalyptic kind of way.
Eventually, I was summoned by the gods of Security. A German man manned the body scanner with all the warmth of a cathedral gargoyle. I had, regrettably, forgotten to remove my passport from my pocket. As I stepped out of the scanner, he surged toward me like a linebacker, apparently convinced I was concealing an international incident. When he discovered it was only a passport, he looked visibly disappointed—like a boy who opens a gift and finds socks.
Having passed the ordeal of border theatre, I boarded my short connecting flight from Munich to Frankfurt, a journey as uneventful as a silent movie in the rain. Frankfurt, of course, greeted me with all the industrial charm of a well-organized spreadsheet. I retraced my steps through its steel arteries, customs gauntlets, and duty-free echo chambers.
And then—the flight. The grand finale. Boarding began at 9:40, and it was a masterclass in confusion. Passports were checked not once, but repeatedly, as if each review might reveal a secret allegiance or a second face. The lines were less "queue" and more "philosophical experiment." It was Kafka, with carry-ons.
An hour into the flight, food was served, though my stomach had already declared neutrality. I picked at it politely and then slept—glorious, unconscious sleep.
Four hours later, I awoke with a deep sense of unease and the growing certainty that I was about to be betrayed by my own body. And so it was that, after hundreds of thousands of air miles logged, I finally met the moment all travelers dread: the barf bag. I used it.
With the dignity of a man carrying a live grenade, I approached a flight attendant and asked what to do with the offending item. She blanched. Horror etched itself across her features. Still, to her credit, she did not faint. She suggested, in tones reserved for the unclean, that I “flush it.” And so I did, thus ending that episode with a kind of aquatic absolution.
Sleep refused to return. The final hours passed in a blur of ignored meals and questionable in-flight entertainment. My soul, like the coffee, remained lukewarm.
Upon landing, I waded through customs, that final act of national skepticism. But fortune smiled: I retrieved my bag quickly—one small mercy in a day stitched together by turbulence and inconvenience.
Then, like a crimson vision of salvation, came Monica—my driver from a past life, in her unmistakable red Tesla, waiting just outside the gate. Her appearance was not just timely—it was symbolic. One must always exit the stage with grace.
I arrived home at 4:00 p.m.—thirty-seven hours after leaving my hotel in Málaga.
Conclusion
And so, the final engine has sighed into silence, the last roundabout has been circled, and my boots — once noble, now weathered — rest quietly beneath a bed that is far too stationary for my liking.
Spain, with all her moods — tempestuous, sunlit, savage, sublime — has taken me in, spun me around her ancient roads, and sent me back with more than I expected: not just memories, but perspective; not just kilometers, but clarity.
The BMW 1300 GS roared and whispered beneath me like a poet with a throttle, and though I return with a few bruises (some emotional, one inflicted by a particularly disagreeable bee), I do so with a heart immeasurably lighter.
Adventure, after all, does not end with the last day’s ride — it lingers. It clings to the edges of your thinking. It reshapes how you walk, how you wait, how you breathe.
And if you’re lucky — truly lucky — it sends you home not as a tourist returned, but as a wanderer merely pausing.
Until next time.
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