Two weeks away and return to Totana

We have just had a couple of weeks away in the motorhome.  We had an orienteering competition near Cordoba and then two weeks later the Spanish Championships near Plasencia.  Between the two events we spent our time bike riding in Extremadura, riding on the Via Pecuarias.  These are the old drove roads and, on the ones that we rode, are very easy to follow.  We also spent some time at Los Barruecos and Monfrague to see some of the birds that are around at the moment.  My hit-list includes Rollers, Spanish Imperial Eagle and Black Shouldered Kite.  Needless to say we didn´t see any of the above, but saw many Kites, Black Storks and Marsh Harriers as well as hundreds of Griffon Vultures and White Storks.

We are now back in Totana and it seems that our Little Owls are nesting again at the bottom of the garden.

We have to keep up the biking, the trip to ride the Camino de Santiago is getting nearer.  We only have about 8 days for bike riding before we set off North, first to an orienteering competition in Burgos/Soria and then to Roncesvalles where we are going to begin the ride.

Cuckoos

This morning we heard, and saw, the first "ordinary" cuckoo.



Great Spotted Cuckoo in the canes at the bottom of the garden

At the moment 3.15 p.m. we are watching the battle of the magpies and the great spotted cuckoos.  The magpies have a nest in a pine behind our house and two cuckoos and two magpies are flying round and round.  Not sure who is chasing whom.  We don´t know whether the cuckoos chase away the maggies from their nest when the female cuckoo is ready to lay or whether the maggies just chase away the cuckoos whenever they see them.  We are no experts, but it is very entertaining (and very noisy).  We have been walking with some British friends and a Spanish friend and whilst having lunch together at our house we were entertained by the above.  Angela, the Spanish friend, has never seen the Great Spotted Cuckoo before.  Needless to say, neither have the British friends.

Camperstop

Unfortunately, to everyone´s disappointment here, the camperstop has been closed temporarily due to unforeseen circumstances.  As soon as any further information is available it will be posted on here and on all other blogs and sites. 

We hope that it will reopen as we have met some very nice, interesting people over the last year.

Trial Run

Well, we are back from our trial run for training for the Camino de Santiago.  We rode through Sierra Espuña and climbed over 1,000 metres over the Collado Bermejo into a fairly strong headwind.  It took us 3 hours 20 minutes approximately to get to the camping at El Berro.  After a shower and a beer in the bar, we went into the restaurant Espuña for menu del dia with Mick.  We had a very good meal, salad and bread, crema de verduras or chicken soup, and plata combinado.  Pork, egg, chips, black pudding and red peppers.  We then had a pudding.  Together with wine it cost 9 euros each.

Later that evening we went into Mick´s caravan to watch football!!

This morning we had a celebratory breakfast in the campsite bar.  We bought croissants and other breakfast pastries, to eat after our toast and tomato. It only took us one and a half hours to ride back the easy, more level way.

If this is a sign of things to come on the Camino, we are going to enjoy ourselves.

Back in Totana

We have been away for a few weeks to Portugal and the Cadiz area of Spain for orienteering competitions, and then we were involved with the organisation of our region´s annual orienteering event the ´Costa Calida´.  In the meantime it seems that Spring has now sprung.  The Little Owls and Kestrels are pairing again and the Great Spotted Cuckoos are very, very active now, chasing the magpies away from their nests to lay their eggs.  It will be interesting around June to see how successful they were.

Tomorrow we are riding our bikes up to El Berro to have a meal with a friend before he leaves the campsite there to travel back towards Britain for the summer.  We are going to stay overnight at the campsite in one of their cabins and cycle back on Wednesday.  This is going to be the start of our training to ride the Camino de Santiago in April/May this year.  This is a 800km route from Roncesvalles to Santiago de Compostela.  We hope to be able to complete the route in 12-14 days.

Great Spotted Cuckoo

This morning at 10.30 I heard the calling of a Great Spotted Cuckoo.  I thought I had mis-heard at first because I didn´t think they would be about so soon in the year, but a few minutes after hearing the call I saw a cuckoo being chased away by a magpie.  All the local magpies are now on full alert, and will have to be vigilant for a while to come if they want to avoid being foster parents to cuckoos.  Let´s hope the cuckoos are successful!

Back to winter

Last week I said that it seemed as though spring was here.  Last Thursday (Saints Day in Alhama - Candelaria) it rained.  It rained and it was cold, and since then it has been very windy, which has made it feel very cold.  On the plus side, winter won´t last very long and already today it seems so much warmer.  The sun has the same strength and if you can get out of the wind it is very pleasant.  Hope winter has finished now!