Day 2 Ride to Ronda

Again this is a long video, ending with a walk around Ronda, so please feel free to skip through.
Well today was for me at least a very early start for some reason I woke up at a ridiculous time of 4:20am which in reality is 3:20 Portugal time I tried like crazy to get back to sleep but failed mainly because I was so dehydrated and like idiots none of us got any water last night to help us through the night and with AC running all the time  (absolute must) I awoke totally craving water, so after taking a very slight sip of the tap water which BTW was warm to hot (and that was the cold) I decided to update the VLOG, so by this morning when at 7:30 I was ready to face the world I was a tad tired, either way i got ready and as we agreed to meet for breakfast at 8am headed down to the cafeteria. I had a bad feeling, as I descended the stairs as I could not hear a single thing and sure enough the place was empty, not a sole anywhere, so totally dehydrated and hungry I went upstairs to the guys rooms and broke the news. As you can see from the video not blessed pleased. But almost immediately as we were ready to blow  the front door opened and our lady from yesterday appeared and started to prepare breakfast.
We sat down and watched as a steady stream of unusual things turned up on our plates deemed as breakfast, to be honest a good coffee and a large bottle of cold water was all we needed but it kept coming, we were very grateful and felt so much better with a semi full breakfast, with that we were ready to check out at around 9am and head off to Ronda.
Now as usual all daily routes have been meticulously planned in advance so it was a huge surprise that almost 10 minutes after we left our town we were on dirt tracks for miles and miles, I didnt have the video running for this which was a shame but eventually when it didnt look like things were going to get any better I turned on the cameras and carried on.
Well in about 200 yards the road or track ran out into a lake, quite literally into a lake.  Well did I get the piss taken out of me for that, as we had to about turn and head back over the same track back to some kind of normal road, BUT the biggest problem was that Cliff had mentioned that his fuel was running very low and we just wasted about 15 miles on a crap track and now we were lost. We eventually turned up into a town and asked for directions to a petrol station and was told the closest one was 10kms in the wrong direction, but we had no choice as Cliff was showing only about 15 miles till empty.
We rode in accordance to the directions and found the exit and Cliff celebrated with a blast down the off ramp to the petrol station which was closed. FFS, we were seriously in a bad place and decided to use Google maps to show the nearest petrol station, well as it turned out it was 6kms form the place the couple told us to go 10kms in the wrong direction, we had to ride on a motorway and Cliffs bike was showing only a few miles left till empty when we finally rolled into a BP garage and was so relieved, as this could have been a nightmare, also as we pulled under the cover of the gas station it started to rain so we dodged the rain also.
So the first part of today was a complete nightmare and waste of time BUT it did give the guys some ammo to take the piss out of me re the dirt track off road experience.
We finally got back on track and headed on the motorway towards Mérida it was about a 100km blast and when we got just south of Mérida we stopped for a coffee and a chance to change our route to get back on the interesting roads towards Ronda.
After our coffee break we re routed on N roads and found a great route down to Ronda through lovely old towns and villages.
We stopped in a town called Alanis and had lunch we had previously stopped next to a bar but was told “No Food” and we walked to another place that looked well dodgy eventually we settled for a busy place and had a nice lunch.
After lunch we headed off en-route and was so surprised that almost immediately we hit great roads with twisties and great road surfaces. We pushed on stopping at occasional photo opportunities and gas stops and a quick water top up but generally we was on time to arrive in Ronda at 5:30pm.
So after about 460kms later we rolled up into Ronda and parked up next to what we thought was our hotel. We locked up the bikes and tried to check in. “Computer says no”, OMG we were knackered and hot as hell and now we thought we had nowhere to stay, as it turned out Derek earlier thought that this was out hotel, so a quick 150meter ride down the road to our actual hotel completed our very long day.
We checked in offloaded the bikes because we are here now for 3 nights and showered and met up for a well deserved drinks or 10.
We wondered around the corner to the main square and found a good bar for some drinks and reflection on the day. We were so happy with the trip so far and eventually we walked around town to have a proper look, this town is seriously beautiful, we walked to the famous bridge took some photos and then decided to eat in a restaurant right next to the bridge. OMG the views were amazing and the food was pretty good not as good as we would expect but the prices were reasonable and the views sold it. We had such a great time and eventually we walked back to the square to finish off with a few more beers and chat about the day, poor Cliff was shattered understandably and decided to call it a night, myself and Derek had one more for the ditch, it was funny because if we wanted more we could not have got them as they plonked the bill down next to us cleared off all of the chairs and tables around us and just left us there in the middle of the street.
Today was a amazing day great memories not all of them wanted but a great day nether the less.
Its great to have such  great friends that share the same interests and at our old age can still get together and make lifetime memories.
A special day.