ton’s cannons and stormed during the
Napoleonic Wars roughly 200 years
ago. Our hotel was again a castle con-
verted to a parador, and once again, it
was terrific. And good news. Miracu-
lously, the mechanic had successfully
drained, cleaned and reassembled
the BMW, and One of Our Number
was already on his way to rejoin us.
He actually made it in on time to join
us for dinner!
Brian had saved some of the best
riding for our last day back to Madrid.
It became downright chilly as we
climbed back into the mountains that
formed the border between Castile
and Leon and Extramadura. Some
of the topography was almost alpine.
As we came down into Extramadu-
ra, we had an interesting encounter
with the Guardia Civil. Apparently
at an intersection twenty kilometers
from nowhere we all unwittingly
made an improper left-hand turn. A
few kilometres later, we were pulled
over by those flashing blue lights
and had to produce all of our papers.
Thankfully, we had all been behaving
ourselves otherwise, we also had our
rental papers in order and available.
The cops could see we had no idea
what they were talking about, and
were just a bunch of happy dumb
foreigners on a holiday. They were
actually pretty friendly, explained
what we had done wrong, suggested
we not do it again, and sent us on our
way.
We were once again in the land
of brick houses, much more fertile
than Portugal across the mountains,
full of pigs, cows, sheep and herders.
It was beautiful, but today we had
to be back at the AC Marriott early
to unload and turn in our motos by
4pm. Pretty soon we picked up the
four lane and sped the rest of the way
to Madrid. After getting cleaned up,
Brian took us to a nearby Spanish
steakhouse, where he treated us to
some of the biggest and best steaks
we had ever enjoyed. It was a terrific
TRAVERSE 85
ending to a simply fabulous trip. We
all agreed Brian had led a herd of
cats over and around many obstacles
thrown in his way, never allowing
them to interfere with one of the best
rides we had ever had.
Where next? RL
Rick lives in America’s Great Fly Over
Zone between New York and Los Angeles,
on a small hobby farm about 2 hours from
Chicago.
Semi-retired from business and a re-
covering lawyer, Rick teaches business and
economics in the USA and Europe when not
converting vans and writing.
In between, he rides his horse and mo-
torcycles at every opportunity, occasionally
blogging about it.
Australia is on the list for a return visit.