Ubeda to Córdoba

Our 2.5 hour bus ride from Úbeda to Córdoba gave us plenty of time to reflect on what has and has not worked for us on this trip. A quick summary:

Worked well:
- The Tenacious Tape I brought in our mending kit. It repaired the rip I put in the knee of my only pair of trousers when I fell on the second day of walking, and it is still in perfect shape.
- hand sanitizer for getting pine pitch out of trousers and off of pack surface.
- Enlightened Equipment sleeping quilts with half-inch baffles - no cold spots
- bike sun sleeves for me
- Pacas socks made from alpaca wool - so soft they make walking a joy! Thanks, Diane!
- Patagonia lightweight fleece pullovers
- Ibex lightweight wool shirts
- low-cut Lone Peak trail shoes for Ned
- low-cut Brooks Divide trail shoes with lace keepers for me
- the Decathlon poles we bought to replace our Black Diamond poles that BA didn’t deliver
- super-lightweight EVA sandals (6 oz, $10 from Amazon)
- Sunday Afternoon sun hat with neck cape
- Apple Air Tags in luggage and valuables pouches

Would have been nice to have:
-fingerless bike gloves for me to protract the palms of my hands when I fell
- stick sunscreen (it was in the mailing tube that British Airlines never delivered)
- an ultralight 4 oz daypack for grocery shopping and walks around town. Could double as a stuff sack for the quilts.

What didn’t work;
- Tube sunscreen - always messy
- our Lone Peak 6 mid-height trail boots gave both of us severe ankle problems, although we have loved the earlier versions of this hiking boot and have worn them on many previous trips
- multi-focal prescription glasses; worked for me before cataract surgery, but contributed to my falls on this trip
- long shoe laces without lace keepers; also contributed to falls
- packing our poles in a mailing tube. Standard luggage would have been easier for the airline to deal with, and maybe they would have arrived at the same time we did.Read more