Fortune's Hotel Room

When the bunch of us go out on scouting trips, we often don't make hotel reservations. I know that we should, especially on weekends like this when it's a holiday weekend for almost all of the weekend, but -- knock wood -- we've never had trouble. So even though we know that Toledo is going to be busy, I don't bother making a hotel reservation before we leave because there are only two of us, and there's always somewhere for us to stay.

We leave Aranjuez just after 11.15, and ride out towards the Tagus River, on a slightly ratty secondary highway which, blissfully, doesn't have much traffic. The ride between Aranjuez and Toledo is something thaty I've been wanting to solve for a while - it looks like it should be a fairly easy trip, but because of the way farm land has been settled in the Sagra Valley, it's not easy to follow the course of the Tagus and make a straight trip between both towns - let alone cross the Tagus and follow the river down to Toledo.

Generally speaking, it's not hard to follow the trails. The path rolls along the old rail line for most of the distance, which makes navigation easy. The only problem is how to get across the Tagus River, since there aren't a lot of and while we could take a hand-barge to cross the Tagus, the thing doesn't come with any kind of instructions. At times like these, it's best to go with your gut instinct and trust your tripas: If it looks too good to be true, it probably is.

But then sometimes you just have to let yourself be persuaded, which is what we do when we get to Mocejón. The owner of the Tic-Tac Café is intrigued at the sight of us travelling by bike, and asks where we're headed. Toledo, we say. Got a place for the night? No, not really. Mocejón isn't that far from Toledo; is there any place to stay there? He pulls out a cellphone, rings up one of the hostales in town and half an hour later, we're in a small (but VERY well cared-for) hotel. True, that leaves us with a twelve-kilometre ride before we get to Toledo tomorrow, but we'll manage.