A bit of Southern Spain, a bit of 'A Fistful of Dollars' and a cat!

On top of the Espiritu de Santo, Vera

We moved from Aguilas to Vera, a small town, but interesting enough. Our first afternoon we did the walk up to the statue of Jesus (Cerro de Espiritu de Santo), built on the original site of the town, destroyed by an earthquake in 1518. A good view of the town, and landfill site, and a big snake, of which there are no pictures, Brian didn’t see it at all, while to me it just went on and on, it had to be 1.5m long! Saturday was market day, though there didn’t seem to be a market square, or focus, just stalls up and down random roads. Most odd. Have a look at our short video of the walk, with more photos: click here

View from the top of the Espiritu de Santo (our campsite is centre in the distance)

Inside the Plaza de Toros (bullring)

The highlight though was the bullring, not because either of us have any wish to see a bullfight, but it is all part of the culture, and we’ve never managed to see inside one. This one felt quite small, though our guide said it held 5000 people. Our guide said lots of things, all in Spanish, so some we understood, some we didn’t, and some we got the gist of. Our guide hadn’t been a toreador (or matador, what is the difference?) but he might have operated the gates that funnelled the bulls around. It was a good visit for the donation of €5 for which we could have had a fridge magnet! We declined and just gave him the money. The campsite (location: 37°14'24.9"N 1°51'51.1"W)had a good book exchange, I managed to swap two books, and a DVD. Small world though, on opening the DVD box, the receipt was from a 2nd hand electronics exchange in Northfield, 15 minutes from home!

Our guide showing us how he (they) opened the thick, heavy door from above to let the bull into the ring

The Plaza de Toros de Vera from the outside (a small example of a bullring, but the first one we've been able to get inside!) They still stage bullfights there, twice a year, Spring and in September - we won't be going!

At the highest point on our bike ride to the lighthouse

Sunday we moved to Cabo de Gata, an interesting promontory on the south coast, surrounded by mountains which makes it very dry and fertile, so with lots of plastic greenhouses, which do spoil the view a bit! I’d booked us a table for lunch in the one restaurant in the village (El Barquero), so a good Sunday. The point in coming here though, for Brian, was to go visit the lighthouse, just to make a change. Three options, a bus that went part of the way, he could drive but having looked on Googlemaps there was one bit he didn’t fancy, or the bikes. The bikes won. The first bit, to and along the coast was flat, but then it wasn’t. Steep up, and then down to the lighthouse, which meant , yup, up and then down again! 

There's the lighthouse down there, 79m down (that's 79m back up again then!)

It was a lovely spot at the lighthouse

Uphill is hard work and downhill is scary, but I did it, much to his surprise. My prize was a plate of whitebait and a beer, fuss from a lovely dog, Benito, and an old manky cat who was very pleased to get the tails (Las Orillas Del Mar). Strong Have a look at our short video of our bike ride with lots more photos: click here. wind was forecast all along the coast, funneling through the Straits of Gibraltar, so stay or go? We might have stayed, except that despite being a new campsite, the electricity really wasn’t good, as people went in to cook in the evening it just went off and on, and off and on. Taking out the WiFi each time which never seemed to have quite reset before it went off again. All very irritating (campsite location: 36°47'52.7"N 2°13'57.1"W).

Lunch at the very nice roadside bar, opposite the sea

This  is what my 'Windy' app was showing us - very strong winds blowing along the Mediterranean from East to West, increasing in intensity as it funneled through the Gibraltar gap. Anywhere along the Southern Spain coast was forecast to be very windy right through to Saturday 29th Jan. Just a few miles inland it's really calm, but it's also much higher, Spain being a very mountainous country, so it's not only colder but likely to catch the rain forecast. So, stay on the coast in the warm but in high winds or higher, cooler and wetter inland?

Los Albaricoques won with it's Spaghetti Western history

The port in Almería, which had been our plan didn’t seem very sensible, so I took us backwards on the Cabo de Gata, by 25 minutes to another site in Albaricoques (campsite location: 36°50'54.3"N 2°07'04.4"W). A bit older, but had washing lines, which as it was time to wash was very handy. I was about 4th in-line by the time we got there, but it was so windy, it wasn’t a problem. We popped into the one horse, or one bar town, to find the bar closed. What we did find were various posters with stills from ‘The Good, the Bad, and The Ugly’ ‘For a Few Dollars More’ and ‘A Fistful of Dollars’ parts of which were filmed here. We spent a silly time recreating the stills. It would have been better if I’d brought a hat and poncho, but I didn’t. Brian then spent a couple of hours making his little movie!

Here's the YouTube video, have a look at our creation! Click the arrow in the centre:

Just entering the caldera and the landmark is a crushed car! 

The following day was a walk, into the caldera of a long extinct volcano (Majada Redonda). That was the easy part, getting up onto the rim with no track, and back down the other side, was the hard part. He’d had a good chat with the man from the campsite, so off we went. Just as we were getting to the difficult bit, wondering how we were going to get ‘round there’ we watched a big herd of deer, and thought not like that! They were very sure footed, and too quick for Brian and his camera! Fortunately we didn’t have to do that bit. We’d been expecting it to take 5 hours, but with no path to the rim we had no idea whether we were on schedule or not, so at the 4 hour mark, imagine my delight to come upon the bar, and for it to be open (Bar La Parada)! Have a look at our short video of the walk with lots more photos: click here. Or, if you plan on doing this walk, you can access the route and download a tcx file to follow: click here. 

Here's a screenprint of the route on Google Earth

Finding our way through the Majada Redonda caldera

In the crater

The icing on the cake though, better even than a beer, was on coming back to the van after my shower I was approached by the cutest little ginger cat. She was very keen to come in, have some biscuits and some fuss till about 20.00 when she thought it was time to go. I was very happy. Even more so when I opened the door the following morning and in she hopped, spending the whole day with us as we chilled. It was very hard to leave her this morning, when again, she appeared, but I can’t worry about her, she knew how to play the game and wrap people round her little paw.

We’ve moved on by a couple of hours today to Almuñécar. We booked the last space on what was described as a bit of a hippie site (Camping Tropical. Location: 36°44'18.8"N 3°40'40.5"W). We drove past to go into the town to go to Lidl to find the market was on, so parking and shopping were out. We couldn’t turn left into the site so had to go 3.5km to turn round, found our way in to a most peculiar place! We have a good view though, we’ve walked into town to do an essentials shop rather than the big shop we’re planning and we’ve had an hours chat on WhatsApp sorting out a Housesit. So the WiFi must be good. It’s growing on us, but whether we'll use the communal showers or just shower in Ted is still to be decided!

After just over an hour of hacking our way through the virtually trackless terrain of the caldera and up the steep (but easiest flank) of the crater rim we arrived on the top and had our first view out to sea beyond

There was still quite a bit of up and down over rough ground with lots of spiky plants to go to reach the communication ball on the highest point. We knew there was a path off on the opposite side that would allow us to continue our circular walk

On a very windy summit

And there's the view of the caldera we crossed

Heading down from the summit

And then onto the track leading into Barranco de Requena that would take us down off the crater rim

This grouse was hoping we hadn't seen him!

Saw lots of these in and around the barranco. They are wells with a cover over them to stop the heat of the sun from evaporating the water. This area (Cabo de Gata) is the driest area in Europe and is classed as a hot desert climate, getting less than 160mm of rain per year (as it happened it did rain while we were there, but only a tiny amount)

This is a photo of some mountains, but it's also the filming location of the Indiana Jones movie of The Last Crusade. Towards the left, halfway down is the tunnel that was used in the movie (we're going to have to watch it again to see if we can see it!)

Zoomed right in on the camera you can just see it. You can walk there, but it was going to add about 10km to our already long (16km) walk so we thought better of it. If you're interested here's the location of it on Google Maps: click here

So, as Jackie said, we got back to Big Ted and this very cute little pussy cat hopped in

She just wanted to stay cuddled up to Jackie all day!

Isn't she just the cutest? Full of personality and very cute looking

We think she'd decided it was her motorhome!

But we had to leave here and head off to our next destination at Almuñécar. Interesting campsite, but we do have a great view through the windscreen. I don't think we'll shut the blinds tonight! 

Off again round southern Spain

On one of our many walks

We did head off, not very far, to a little site just north of Alicante (campsite location: 38°23'30.8"N 0°24'46.0"W). Very new, very French, very cramped, very very clean and very near to the tram into the city. Brilliant included WiFi, which I would say makes a change, except that we also have very good, included WiFi where we are now. We plumped for 4 nights, just because this was marginally cheaper per night than 3 nights and it was a lovely site. Book exchange, the lot. More than that though, three of the vans had travelling cats. One just opposite us was very entertaining, he pottered about returning to the van at regular intervals. If the door wasn’t open we watched him jump up and hang off the door handle, before letting go and crouching down so the door didn’t take his head off when it opened. Very clever.

Here's the very cleaver cat in mid air having just leapt up to catch the door handle of his owners motorhome

Views of Alicante from the castle

Thursday we went by tram, for the sum of €1.45, into Alicante to tour the castle, the MACA (Museum of modern art) and the old town. We didn’t go to the MARQ despite it being highly recommended as it seemed quite an ancient history museum and we’ve done quite a lot of Romans this summer in St. Albans and Salisbury. We thought we’d have a little tapas for lunch, before returning to Ted for my version, but as ever, a small lunch never seems to happen so no dinner required (walk with more photos: click here).

Walking through the old town with the castle in the background

The rocky headland of Cabo de l'Huerta

Friday we did quite a long walk, down and round the coast, very rocky and scenic before returning on the tram (walk with more photos: click here). Handy this tram. Not quite as handy as it might be though. Although the tram does go all the way to Altea, and beyond, for us to have answered the call from my father to come back to paint the chimney, would have been a right pain, two changes and almost two hours. Particularly as we thought it had been decided that until fires were over for the winter there was no point in painting the chimney!

Cabo de Palos lighthouse

Saturday was meant to be chilling, but we actually spent all day waiting for a call back from Explore travel, that we are actually still waiting for. It was all very frustrating. We think we are going to avoid some more of the British winter on our return and perhaps combine two of their trips and go to Egypt and Jordan. We first enquired through Trailfinders who seem to have done their level best to confuse the issue. Combine this with Brian’s first enquiry with Explore somehow going to the US, and then the busiest holiday booking weekend ever, and we are still waiting!

Sunset over the Cabo (Cape) 

The continuously interesting  coastline round Cabo de Palos

We moved on on Sunday to Cabo de Palos, on the end of La Manga, the little strip of land that forms the Mar Menor. There is a huge campsite that we didn’t really fancy, but it seemed to be the only pay option , we decided to go with it when on top of €21 there was €1 for an extra person, and then an €11 booking fee! We’ll wild camp by the lighthouse, it sounds lovely (location: click here). It looked lovely too when we arrived at 12.30 to a few other vans, and lots of cars. It’s obviously the place to come on a sunny Sunday. We’ll look at the other spot by the harbour, but expect that to be even busier, and so it was, but only after Doris had taken us on a very odd route.

The beach on La Manga, our lighthouse in the distance

Fortunately Brian’s reversing in tight spaces has gone from strength to strength and we got out alive! We finally found somewhere to abandon Ted, on a roadside by the market, not the most salubrious of spots but it’ll do while we have some lunch and wait for all the day trippers, to trip off home. We hadn’t booked for lunch, so our options were limited, we had to be inside rather than by the harbour (Restaurante La Tana), but the food was fabulous, a parillada, a mixed plate of a sea bass, three red mullet, a swordfish steak, prawns, mussels and squid, after a salad and bread and Ali oli. We were full! We collected Ted and returned to the lighthouse, to happily find space to park up. 

A very filling lunch next to the Mediterranean

Beautiful coastline (walk with more photos: click here), so we looked at the lighthouse and decided to stay two nights (assuming the first night was peaceful) and so a longer walk on Monday (walk with more photos: click here). The night was peaceful, and we felt quite safe. The police drove round a couple of times and seemed quite happy with us all, so that was grand. We did our walk the following day, which conveniently brought us through the harbour about lunchtime. We were pulled into a restaurant we’d approached the previous day, to be turned away as we had no booking. Today they had space and a Menu Del Dia €16 got us a drink, bread and ali oli, a huge salad and an even bigger fritura, a plate of fried whitebait, slightly larger fish, chipirones (my favourite, fried whole baby squid) and calamari (La Taberna del Puerto). Not particularly healthy, but very very good. If only we’d known the size though, we’d have shared, and still been full!

Aguilas port and coastline from the castle

Our campsite in Aguilas from the top of a nearby hill 

We moved on to Aguilas, a slightly strange campsite that is a bit old and tired, and now in the middle of an urbanisation, which has probably grown up around it. It is however cheap, but more comment worthy has really good sized plots (location: click here). It’s lovely not to feel like sardines. Although we Brits are very much in the minority we have at least seen one other van at each of these sites, though I did feel for the couple we met here. She obviously wanted to talk, so the blog I started yesterday is still ongoing. They were late arriving in Spain as it took three months for his new driving licence to come through, so they’d spent ages catching up with their friends, just after Christmas he’d poked himself in the eye on a bush while plugging in the electric. 

Amazing trees in the Spanish Plaza, Aguilas

This has been giving him grief ever since, despite going to the hospital and getting treatment for conjunctivitis, which it wasn’t. So they’d left their friends having finally caught up with them and decided to head home. Their bank had just contacted them to tell them their card had been fraudulently used..... and so it went on! She needed to talk!

We went into the town today, about a 50 minute walk, or a much shorter cycle, except that the last bit back would be all uphill! (walk with more photos: click here)We then have the problem of what to do with the bikes, so walk it was, then up and down to look at viewpoints and the castle, and I can feel my legs. Makes up for all the eating and drinking over Christmas I guess!

One of two working windmills in Aguilas and the nice view from beside it

That interesting building is the Auditorio y Palacio de Congresos. Not sure what happens if the wind really gets up on that concave wall, but I suppose they must have thought of that when it was designed

We did another nice walk this morning after she'd written her blog. Straight from the campsite to a rocky coast and a small beach called Playa Amarillo. You can see it with lots of photos by clicking here 

You could almost paddle out to that little island, or easily swim, but no visitors are allowed to protect it's fragile ecosystem

On Playa Amarillo (Yellow beach) with Aguilas in the distance

Panorama of the little island on the left, Playa Amarillo (centre) and Aguilas on the right

In other news: this is Brian's eldest grandaughter, Abbie at her graduation day at Manchester University, having got a first in her Bachelor of Arts degree in Education Studies. Well done we say - and we managed to watch it in Spain live by joining the university webcast. Can't believe I have a granddaughter of that age, by my daughter, Fiona is probably thinking that she can't possibly have a daughter of that age too!

Here's a video of her collecting it