Day 16: La Mula to Pilon

A most excellent day! Worth every bump, pothole, hill (mountain), and buckets of sweat.

Thankfully the Campismo experience is over! Honestly the campismo itself was quite all right. It was the very loud partying people next door to us who let us sleep for a few hours then whammo! On goes the music, full blast just a few feet from out hut. Frantic, repetitive “undelay undelay yeehaw!” All. night. long. It made riding in the heat today that much harder but we did it, 75km. Right around Marea de Portillo we were about to capitulate and check ourselves into the all inclusive 2 star Club Amigo resort…oh, the lure of the beach, and the idea of a smorgasbord of bread and butter to nibble on (cuz usually the food is pretty bad in those places)… we rolled in and learned it was full. No space for us. We did however enjoy ice cream and cold drinks in the shaded lobby while we probed the front desk lady for intel on a Casa in the next town of Pilon. Everybody here knows someone who owns a Casa. Casa all arranged, we headed out another 13km to Pilon where the Casa owner met us at the edge of town on his fancy electric modern racing motorcycle and escorted us to his Casa. Things always work out here. 😃

The scenery today! OMG! For the first three hours of the ride we saw three vehicles, a man on horseback and three fellow cycle tourists from France. So many times we had to just stop and look behind us to actually believe the scenery that we are beholding. The camera can’t even capture it. You need to see it with bare eyes. The only way to get there however (realistically), is by bicycle, mule, or foot. We skirted the seaside much of the time while waves crashed right next to us, always threatening to erode the road even more. There were plenty of places where the pavement just drops off due to previous erosion so we are careful not to ride on that edge.

This southern coast is exceptional, breathtaking and not to be missed! We’d say it’s best travelling it on a mountain bike. A touring bike with fairly good sized tires works too. Road bike…Ha! forget about it!