Lost Andalucía: Rediscovered On a Bike

4/5 ( ratings)

Michael Wall was having a birthday. One with a zero. And he really didn’t want a party. All he needed was an excuse that would ensure that he was far away from home on the fateful day. He finds the perfect solution in a lonely, little-known, 2000 km bike riding trail in in Andalucía, Spain, called the TransAndalus. All he needs to do is to ride it.

His quest will be a Quixotic one: he has no riding companion, he speaks no Spanish, and his experience of off-road riding is minimal. He has also only recently recovered from a traumatic cycling accident that smashed his pelvis, requiring seven hours of surgery and many months of rehabilitation.

Furthermore, the birthday with the zero was his seventieth.

Undeterred, he prepares the best he can, flies from New Zealand to Spain, purchases a mountain bike which he names Tortuga and finds himself – one crisp morning in early May – saddling up in the hilltop town of Ronda.

He is determined, but still deeply ignorant of what lies ahead. He is also beset by trepidation.

Lost Andalucía is the story of what happened to him as pedalled out through the fabled province of Granada, beneath the snow-clad Sierra Nevada, into the movie-set province of Almeria, then north into Jaen province with its Renaissance towns. Turning west into Cordoba, riding down through the ports of Sanlúcar de Barrameda whose glory days are all but forgotten now, Cadiz, and Algeciras, he would finally face the tortuous climb back to the point from which he started.

This is a highly entertaining tale of off-road cycling in far-flung places. This is an adventure story with a spattering of history and culture, and an undeniable whiff of danger.

His was one hell of a ride.