Wednesday is 'on your bike' day and we get 'pulled over'

Lo Pagan is well-known for the therapeutic mud that has been laid down in this part of the Mar Menor. Map here. It is supposed to be very good for many skin conditions as well as detoxing joints suffering from all forms of arthritis. It's fun too but it does honk as it contains high levels of sulphur in particular.

We planned to ride to Lo Pagan back when we first decided not to have a car; but it is quite a way ..... 15km each way. So we set off full of confidence (not) that we would reach our destination.

We cycled towards the site of the Saturday market, where we spotted a roundabout with a static steam train displayed on it, and then on towards the airport. From the airport roundabout we took the new cycle track to Santiago de la Ribera. It is a superb track; wide and clearly marked with lanes going both ways.

In Santiago we joined the paseo which links with Lo Pagan. Now ...... it is the norm here to ignore signs that say no cycling. They are all along the paseo in Los A but nobody takes any notice .................... so we were quite taken aback when the police pulled us over. I put on my best surprised voice because I was surprised and said we didn't know because we didn't! There were lots of Spanish cyclists as well some of whom were stopped as well. We had to push our bikes the last hundred or so yards til we rejoined the road.

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By this time it looked like it might rain. I had visions of us riding back soaked and miserable but kept quiet (for once). We found a cafe kiosko where we stopped for a cafe con leche. By the time we had finished drinking the sun was blazing and the worry had changed from being soaking wet to being too hot to pedal.

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We saw a lovely little idea while we were having coffee. A dear old Spanish couple came up off the beach; he was carrying a green plastic carrier bag. When they got to the pavement he carefully put it down but held on to the handles. She then put one of sandy feet into the bag which was a quarter full of sea water and he proceeded to jiggle the bag about to get the sand off her foot. She then put her clean foot into her shoe. After she had cleaned both her feet she helped him to clean his and then he tipped the water over the wall onto the beach.

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After our coffee we rode on further to the walkway where you can apply mud to yourself or just watch others. As my fingers are often painful I decided to cover them with mud and then go for a swim to wash it off when I could no longer stand the smell of it. The water was soooooooooooooo warm and I learned that the areas marked for swimming by a line of yellow buoys are in fact netted under the water to keep the jellyfish out. The down side of this is that in areas of the Mar Menor there is a lot of algae as the jellyfish are not there to eat it. It was a lovely swim and I was joined by about a hundred little fishes which was unusual. They must have sensed how fond I am of fish ... the pond and tank variety as well as for eating!!

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We sat on the beach and ate our peaches, 'peach on the beach', and had a drink and just enjoyed being there. All the time it was getting hotter and hotter! The trip back didn't seem as long as that going and we didn't get pulled over either. We had a couple of stops to take on water and collapsed back at the apartment for a cold shower followed by lunch at 4pm. ....................... feeling rather pleased with ourselves having cycled 30km.

The photo above shows some people who were having the mud plastered all over them this morning. More photos at: http://picasaweb.google.com/virginposter/Wed26Aug1?feat=directlink