Tour Summary
Long Bikepacking trip for around 20 days. Starting from Malaga in Spain through the backcountry of Andalucia to the most southwestern point of Europe mainland in Portugal. From touristic cities to beautiful and isolated national parks, following the European Divide Trail.
Stage 0 – Preparation
In April 2022 a friend (Sebastian) and me decided to try our first longer bikpacking trip. Sebastian already had some experience from previous weekly trips, like parts of the Bikepacking Trans Germany. For me, it was my first bikepacking tour, beside of some overnighters. And we immediately jumped to a tough one – in the end much tougher than expected. Since we both already had most of our bikepacking equipement and just needed some additional stuff, the preparation was not too difficult. The most important points were: route planning and bike transportation.
The route was a suggestion of Sebastian. He is more connected to bikepacking and knew the famous EDT – the European Divide Trail. April was the perfect timing for cycling the section in Spain and we also could get cheap flights to Malaga, so we decided to fly to Malaga, make our way to Cordoba either by bus/train or bike and jump on the EDT-Route directing to Portugal.
Transportation planning was interesting – first time to take the bike to a foreign country. Fortunately RyanAir offers bicycle transportation for around 60 Euro additional to the flight price. You just need a right sized carton, pack the bike and you´re ready to go. For getting a carton with right dimensions, I would recommend asking a bikeshop, they mostly have enough for free or for a tip. Packing the bike was more difficult than expected. Especially packing it cushioning it properly to prevent damage. But after some trials we also got this and could check in our luggage at the airport at the counter for special size luggage.
Stage 1 – Málaga to Córdoba
Arriving in Málaga was close to a nightmare and already the first challenge. Our flight was delayed, so we arrived at 1:30 AM. Try to find a taxi with space for two huge cartons at this time – nearly impossible. One guy offered a ride to our Airbnb: 8 km for 70 Euro. I declined and we searched for a taxi for the next hour, without sucess. Our Airbnb owner was still waiting for us, originally we would have arrived around 00:30. Since we couldn´t find a taxi we decided to unpack our cartons directly somewhere at the parking lot at the airport, mount our front wheels and all our gear and cycle to the city. We finished around 3:30 AM, packed our stuff, left the cartons and made our way to Málaga. The host of the apartment meanwhile decided to go to bed, but fortunately a friend of him, who was working as a security guard in a club at night, was able to open the apartment for us – crazy and exhausting first night in Spain.
The city of Málaga is just beautiful. You can enjoy a really nice old town, relax at the beach and go partying in the evening. After relaxing two days in Málaga, enjoying the sun and exploring the city we started our bikepacking adventure! From the easy, chilled life in Málaga to being exposed to any weather conditions in the nature on the bike.
The first stop is, as always, the supermarket. Refilling supplys with food, water and beer. Afterwards we started tackling the mountain next to Málaga – unbelievable steep and rough terrain. We had to push our bikes through the bushes and finally found our way to the serpentine mountain road. Arriving close to the top after 5 hours of uphill without a rest in the twilight, we stopped and pitched our tent on inclined surface in the bushes of the natural reserve „Parque Natural Montes de Málaga“ – due to the twilight and the ongoing uphill we couldn´t find a better place. At least the view on the city was beautiful and we could cook our first outdoor meal.
The second day fortunately started just with finishing this first crazy uphill for half an hour and a lot of nice, flowy ups and downs to the village „Colmenár“ – a kind of lazy, laid-back style of village. After lunch we headed to the city „Antequera“. We had a good start for this day and we didn´t expect the next days to be extremely tough – our enemy was called: crazy headwind. Nearly blew me of my bike. Sometimes we cycled with 8 km/hour, so these two days we just were able to make around 40/50 km per day. But didn´t matter, we had enough time.
The next few days, the track led us through beautiful countryside of Andalucia. Having better weather now, we cycled through olive groves, enjoying life and food of Andalucia. An old train route, transformed into a cycling and hiking path – the „Alte Verde“ – brought us to Córdoba. Córdoba is the third biggeset city and famous for its historical and cultural heritage. Due to its history the city is influenced by roman and moorish constructions, the Mezquita-Cathedral being the most famous one. This city is worth a visit, which is why we stayed there for two nights to visit the city and drink some andalucian wine.
Stage 2 – National Parks
