TRANS-ANDALUZ, Day Five - STUCK!!!
Mood:  incredulous
Topic: Travelogue
They knew. The two Guardia Civil agents who were parked behind the hermitage, high above the small town of Pruna, probably knew that I'd camped wild, just by looking at my Gore-Tex pants.

I thought I would have been able to escape my camping/hiding space on the side of Mount Terril and make a clean (and I do mean clean in the original sense of the word) getaway. But shortly before six AM the staccato pip-pip-piriririp of drizzle began hitting the tent. It let up shortly before eight, giving me ten minutes to strike the tent and get the hell out. And that was the first time I hit mud.

Never camp in an olive grove if it's raining. Not just because olive trees offer precious little in the way of protection against rain, but because most of them tend to be planted in clay-y soils -- something I didn't know until I got stuck.

I did get out. I managed to scrape the four inches of mud off the wheels, out of the brakes and chainstay (hint: don't pack your bike in the rain -- push it to the nearest road-like surface and put on everything there.)

So when the Guardia Civil officer took one look at me, one look at the bike and one look at the mud drying on my trousers from the knees-down...hell, they knew. I got a knowing little smile, I didn't get a lecture, and half an hour later, I got stuck. AGAIN.

To get to the Via Verde de la Sierra, near Olvera, I thought, shit - shortcut. The main road going into the town of Olvera, where the turnoff to get back down to the Via Verde itself, involved five hundred feet of climbing and a rodeo of an extra mile and a half. So when I saw the shortcut, I thought, hell, the station is only five hundred metres from the highway if I don't go up to town...

I have to say that, once I managed to pull the bike out of the mud, the workers rebuilding the gardens of the Olvera Station-Restaurant, were quite helpful... once they stopped laughing and staring. They lent me their hose, they provided horse-hair brushes, and the everlasting questions, once they got going, were acutally quite welcome. And I learned something new about burying your bike in clay: Nothing, absolutely nothing, beats water, a nail brush with firm bristles, and a good sense of humour!

The second highlight of the day was getting to see the wonderful Andres Ordo?ez, leader of the Patrulla Verde (a group of local young people dedicated to the preservation and development of the Via Verde). I'd first met Andres four years ago, when I was writing an article about the Via Verde, and things have gone swimmingly for him since then -- to the point where they've even opened their own rural apartment for rent in the town of Coripe, a six-bedroom loft facility with full kitchen and (hurrah!!) satellite TV. (A hundred chanels with nothing on is a lot more appealing when you haven't had TV for a couple of days.)

And it's worth pointing out that noting that Coripe doesn't just have the nicest people in that part of Andalusia; they have one of the wildest and non-traditional Easter Sunday celebrations in Andalusia. Residents basically select Jerk of the Year (past candidates have included former Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar - for getting Spain into Iraq - and Telefonica President Cesar Alierta - in 2002, when the town lost phone service for six weeks.) Rather than burn the Jerk in effigy, the effigy is placed at the front of the church and anyone with a firearm is welcome to have a go at the effigy.

My jaw must have dropped a lot more than I thought it did: "Doesn't the priest get, um, a bit peeved at the gunshot damage on the facade of the church?" I asked.

"Why?" asked Andres, smiling. "Every year he gets the church repainted for free!"