Where? Where? Where? Where? Where?

No sooner are we out of the hotel than I become very, VERY thankful that we didn't go to Andalusia this weekend. A cold front has blown in from the Atlantic and has shrouded the northern half of the peninsula in cold air, which means that if you're anywhere near a river, you're in fog. Thick, dangerous fog that makes biking treacherous, especially since there was no notice in the weather forecasts that this was going to hit this far south.

We're somewhat lucky in that most of the fog we encounter hits us on the way to Toledo, and even though the ride into Toledo requires a bit of zigzagging along some very large roads, we don't have to deal with a lot of traffic and the signage is more or less clear about where we need to go.

This is NOT the case with the Ruta del Quijote signage that we can't see for the life of us. Even though Toledo is effectively the trailhead for the Ruta, there's very, very little signage that directs us to where we're supposed to go to pick up the trail and get out of Toledo - not helped with the nonexistent maps that are in the guide book. Eventually we do find the road out, and head up to Cobisa, then hit the Ruta full-on, but until we get out of the Tagus Valley, it's a bit complicated finding where we're supposed to go.

And even when we're on the route, it becomes clear, very quickly, that you've really got to keep your eyes open for the signs. I'm not sure how, exactly, the signs were planned, but you have to be very, very vigilant for the signs. Paranoid, almost. We end up messing around for a couple of hours before finally giving up after a serious dog-leg; we blow down a secondary highway to the town of Mascaraque, have lunch and promptly give up the idea of trying to make it down to Consuegra before nightfall.

I don't want to criticize the people who worked to create the Ruta del Quijote, because there are some things about the route which are very well done - the rest stops, the signpost markers which tell you how far you are from the next town - but it's not the first time that I've been on the Ruta and come away with the distinct feeling that someone in a government office somewhere sat down with an army map and tried to loop together as many back roads as possible, without actually getting on a bike or putting on a pair of hiking boots and doing the route itself.

We roll into the town of Mora at five PM, check into the hotel and collapse on the beds, partly from exhaustion and partly from the effects of so much frustration in so little time. Fifty-six kilometres in seven hours. Even discounting having stopped for coffee and lunch, we're frustrated that we're nowhere near where we thought we would be.