The highlight of the week was a trip to a small town called San Juan de los Terreros, in the Almería province of Andalucía, about 200 km south of Alicante. The reason we went there was a golf tournament in which my wife was going to play, stretching over two days. Earlier in the week, we had a fun event at the office, an exhibition of counterfeit goods in connection with an enforcement event we were hosting.
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I continued to do my pre-work bike rides, and with sunrise around 8:15 a.m. right now, I get to see some glorious skies almost every day:
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On Friday, we had an exhibition at the office. Representatives of various companies showed fakes that had been seized by customs or police. I was of course drawn to the Specialized rep. Everything on this bicycle except the tyres is counterfeit:
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Why counterfeit handlebars can be a problem:
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Fake shoes:
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Fake toys:
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Everything gets faked, even mundane everyday products like laundry detergent:
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Back home, my mother’s Magic Cactus was at it again. It does not care that it is winter:
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I am the cook in our little household, and one day I made this recipe from the New York Times cooking section, sheet-pan salmon with broccoli and ginger–except that I used cod instead of salmon. It was delicious all the same:
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On Saturday afternoon we drove down to Almería, where my wife was playing golf Sunday and Monday. We stayed in a place called Pulpí, basically a large apartment complex with some restaurants and bars, a few km from the golf course. This was the sunrise we saw on Sunday morning, on our way to breakfast that was being served in a beach bar:
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The view from our breakfast table:
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Typical Spanish breakfast:
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My wife has what I call a typical women’s car, a Toyota RAV4. I am not a big fan of this kind of car, but it does have the advantage of being able to transport us, my wife’s golf equipment, and my bicycle. So while my wife went off to play golf after breakfast, I got on my bike and set out to explore the coast south of Pulpí. The northern part of Andalucía is Spain’s and Europe’s vegetable garden:
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The first 15-20 km of the ride were wonderful. This is the road with the town of Villaricos in the distance:
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I stopped in the harbour of Villaricos for a brief rest:
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I continued south, and little by little the beautiful views gave way to ugly touristy beach sprawl, like here in the town of Garrucha:
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So after 35 km or so, I turned around and cycled back to Pulpí, stopping to snap this image of a large lettuce field:
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Thus, having cycled 70 km on the day, I felt that I deserved a beer at the beach bar where we had our breakfast that morning, enjoying the same view but now with the moon in the frame as well:
