Andalusia, whichever way you look at it, is, in every sense, immensely rich and there is no shortage of joy, bravery, culture, and history either. We do not need to mention the climate or its beauty, and what can we say about our gastronomy?
However, and contrary to what we think, not everything in this land appears to be known, and not only by the outsider, but also by some locals, fellow countrymen and many types in between. It could be a kilometre from their front door, and they might not know about it.
Certainly, the monuments are very famous, but are not as numerous as the not-so-famous and unexplored ones. And, perhaps, the beautiful streets of its beautiful and peaceful cities are not as old as those of our rural Andalusia. Although each and every one of them has been written about, and a lot, everything in Andalucía has been exploited in different ways. However, to me it does not appear to be enough! Maybe that is why I saw this, the biker point of view, as one area in which everything has not been fully explored until now, neither has its grandeur nor the beauty of this land.
No, I’m not a biker. I still remember when I applied for a licence for mopeds and motorbikes. Rarely before had I ridden a motorcycle, perhaps, looking back, I might have stolen my father’s Puch Mini cross a couple of times, and with very little success. I remember that, on the first attempt, I fell off the bike as I tried to ride through a fence rail. Everyone laughed, which didn’t matter to me because basically a lack of experience is what I had.
Sometime later I went for my test again, having already failed before, but by then I was prepared, because my uncle José Antonio had lent me his 80cc Yamaha. I spent a whole week in a field practising, in between the long crevices caused by the rains and that were firmly marked in the ground.
On that second occasion, I was approached by a guy who came to ask me how I thought the second attempt would go.
“You were the one who fell off last week, weren’t you?”
“Yes! I said, and you, who so skilfully spent an hour practicing with a bag on your back, also failed?
That is literally how it was.
There was also a third participant who failed the first time, this was a guy who spent every day with his greyhounds, walking through the lands of Albino of Lantejuela.
The three of us all passed on that second occasion, and that was the end of that little stage of my life. Although after that, I always wanted to take my first steps in the world of two wheels, but I never knew how to take the right step. My hobbies would run more on the 6 strings and on the sheets of music rather than on grey roads. However, I have travelled with my steering wheel in hand and with my trips to music festivals enjoying many of its curves and contemplating on many of its sunrises and sunsets. I have climbed to some of its highest milestones with heavy vehicles, I have experienced again and again what are now the disappeared curves of the old roads, such as the Saucejo. Now and for decades having been converted into a long and straight road, and I have crossed its fields and rivers by many of its long and high bridges. I have driven with the windows of my car down, so that as if it were a motorcycle, and as if I were a motorcyclist. I have smiled in the breeze that happily blows through the Sierra Nevada, when it is not dressed in a white gown of snow, or when I feel that fresh breeze that runs through the Serranía de Ronda.
No, I’m not a biker, and yes, I still have a lot to see in this beautiful area called Andalusia. It still has so much to tell and is represented with its curves and straights, its ups and downs, its beaches, its valleys and its mountains. It is here, with so much enthusiasm, where we have captured the real essence of these lands and present it to you in this book.