So Day 1 starts with a high speed version of camp dismantling, gear check, quick food grab of and off we go. Not at all how we imagined our day to be! We both felt stupid to have made such an easy to avoid error but also agreed we canât start off with a delay at our first day. Some quick calls whilst leaving Tarifa were made with the team, last shots were recorded and a new slightly quicker route was made. Compass heading North – North East. Dawai!
The route was also the first try-out with our new set stages so we were looking forward to see how we would fair. Although the route being long for the remaining day we set off in good spirit and the views surely did help with that! Wow!!
We circled the Alcornocales national park on the west side (also due to a weather system in the region of Malaga) leading us to the beautiful little village of Bornos where we enjoyed a quick bite at Bar Titi next to the town square. Great Iberico! We turned east at Villamartin in line with our set destination Gaudix. After our second ferry crossing near Espera we met up with a great guy named David! He took a look at a new light brightening up Lex his dashboard. Engine failure.. Which came to life straight after a pretty deep pothole in the road. On the positive side Lex his steering wheel seems more straight now than before. After a few quick checks he seemed confident we could carry on so we did.  David, you rock!
A mix of fields, hills, small villages grazing the hill sides, farmland and nature parks slide across our low horizon vantage point in the Bukhanka and as we approach Granada, the Sierra Nevada now filled the horizon with grey silhouettes.Â
The weather system caught up with us and after some beautiful cloud formations we looked at earlier it turned to pretty heavy rain. Good to clean some of the dust from our vans but slowed driving a bit too.
We discovered again that hill climbing is not the forte of our Bukhankaâs. At some stretches we went uphill in second gear at 30kmph. Fortunately the rain moved further north and with the fresh smell of rain in nature we searched for our camp site.
In Sierra de Baze national park near Gorafe you can find 240 Dolmen (ancient burial sites of approx 5000 years old). We located an awesome spot on the edge of the canyon and set in for the night.Â
After a quick dinner we enjoyed the appearing stars and signed off for the day.
Day 1 of the trip completed! Not quite as planned but still very very nice!