Spain 2023 - Almeria/Cazorla

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.Les mer