Travels through Southern Spain, Almuñécar to Villablanca

The Roman aqueduct at Almuñécar

We liked Almuñécar, though it hasn’t been on our radar from the motorhome groups, I assume that’s because there isn’t really anywhere to park except for little bits of the market square, when the market isn’t on, so that rules out Thursday night and Saturday night and half of Friday and Sunday.

Anyway we went to the cave of the seven palaces, which isn’t a cave or a palace, but seven arches built into the hillside by the Romans to increase some available space. Interesting to look at along with an amphora dating back to the Phoenicians, which has the oldest bit of lettering found on the Iberian Peninsula. 

Cave of the seven palaces (arches)

The damaged entrance to the castle

The highlight for Brian though was on telling the ticket man that he was a ‘pensionista’ he then had to prove it! He would always rather be challenged than look like a pensioner, but nobody ever does! The ticket was a joint one with the castle which was well worth a visit, initially Roman, modified by the Moors and then the Castillians before being bombed by the British during the war of independence in 19th century. In disrepair it was used as the local cemetery before having the bodies removed and being rebuilt in the 1980’s.

Views from the castle out towards the Rocks of San Cristobal. Stretching out are the remains of the viaduct that used to connect the castle to the rock 

The Phoenician amphora with oldest lettering on Iberian peninsular

Lunch was on the seafront, against our better judgement, it was still windy, but fortunately we managed to find a sheltered spot in a very buzzing restaurant.

We decided to stay for Sunday too as we’d been told there was a big flea market in town. So after walking along the much calmer seafront and up to look at the Roman aqueduct, we went to visit the local carboot sale. We didn’t buy anything, but it was entertaining to walk around.

These are the remains of the Roman fish salting factory at Almuñécar, originally the Roman town of Sexi Firmum Lulium. This was sited outside the town walls because of the odour, but is now in the El Majuelo Botanical Park. Salted fish was in high demand throughout the Roman Empire, as was Garum, a kind of fish sauce and by product, all produced here

The quite pleasant El Hornillo Playa campsite

One last coastal stop on Monday took us to Almayate, just west of Torre Del Mar and Vélez-Málaga. Right on the beach, but really hard to find. Fortunately Search4sites had said not to follow the sat nav or Google as these took you along a very narrow bit of seafront with lots of cars. They have built their own dirt track, but it’s really not very well signed which made for a certain amount of sympathy with all the people who did find their way in the back gate (campsite location: 36°43'28.4"N 4°07'35.0"W Entrance to gravel track to campsite from main road: 36°43'40.1"N 4°07'41.4"W).

Cycling from the campsite at Almayate to Torre del Mar. Have a look at our short video with lots of photos of our cycle ride: click here

Mid-morning refreshments in Torre del Mar

We cycled into Torre Del Mar mostly to find my last plate of chipirones (little fried squid) which proved slightly harder than expected till finally, down at the end of the strip, we found a great place, cheap and cheerful, with locals and expats. Just what we wanted. We did read all about the battle of Vélez-Málaga in 1704 When the British captured Gibraltar as somewhere to restock ships with men, munitions and rations. I didn’t realise we’d had it that long! Read about it here

Torre del Mar is a very pleasant seaside town. Lots of bars, restaurants and shops, quite touristy and, we imagine, very busy in the summer. At this time of year, no problem. There's even a cycle path that we came in on and goes along the seafront past this lighthouse. On that bit of green grass and all around Velez-Malaga and in many places along the coast of Southern Spain are green parrots with very loud squarks, constantly. I believe they are Quaker or Monk Parrots (technically a parakeet)

Here's a few of the. Great looking birds, but really noisy!

The big but empty campsite at Humilladero

From there we headed inland to cut off that bottom portion of Spain, most of which we looked at last time, to head towards Portugal. We stopped at Humilladero, a very odd town, seems to be all newly built and not very inhabited, but when you can find a small beer and tapa each for the grand total of €3 whose complaining? The campsite was big, and empty, probably what we expected, but the weather was not. Yes, it was cold overnight, but almost too hot on the afternoon we arrived. Chairs and awning out, and biscuits for all the local semi-feral cats. They’ve eaten all our biscuits, so imagine how guilty we felt this morning, when they had the last dregs, only for the bravest, little black one, the only one to have strokes, followed both of us individually to the bathroom, and me to the recycling and back. Cornflakes it is then! They ate them, but did seem a little nonplussed! Campsite location: 37°06'31.4"N 4°41'44.8"W

Fears that the weather inland would be much colder were unfounded. Blue skies and no sea breeze meant hot! Awning and deck chairs out

On our forest and hill walk in Humilladero

We had a nice little walk yesterday before back to soup I made from water I’d boiled some pork ribs in before frying them and giving them a yummy Chinese sticky glaze. As a by product the soup was fab, a few veggies, noodles and spices, wow. Brian then sauntered off, casual as you like, in his dressing gown, for a shower, only to return a few minutes later looking a little sheepish. He’d shut his towel and shampoo in the shower while going to the toilet and the door had locked. Could I climb over the top? The answer, was in a life or death situation, with his help, probably, but I really didn’t fancy the long drop into the cubicle! Fortunately although reception probably wasn’t open, the handy man was just mowing the lawn close by. He said not to worry about it, till we explained that without his towel Brian couldn’t shower, so off he went to get the right tool for the job!

View from the Mirador, not the highest point. Humilladero is off on the left. Have a look at our short video of this walk with lots of photos: click here 

Fields of Iris' flowering on the hills

We would have stayed another night, to cycle to the bird watching lake, but rain was forecast, so we’ve headed west. A long drive for us, 3 1/2 hours, only to find that now, 3 hours in, it’s raining here too! Oh well, tomorrow is another day, and now I’ve written a blog he’ll have to post it, from Nirvana, the campsite we have booked into. New, but still sounding fairly hippy, but we shall see....

Flowering quite early we think (but maybe not in Southern Spain)

So in my usual fashion I told Jackie it would be a good idea to lengthen our walk to take in the highest point (680m) and taking a path up we came upon a new site over the hill. I think possibly Antiquera is down there on the left. Unfortunately the path ended here and I wanted to take in the highest point way off to the left. Nothing for it but to hack through the undergrowth in search of the path we should have taken...

And here we are on what we think is the highest point. No markers to indicate this but they don't do so much of that in Spain, there are too many highest points. Down there on the left is a rocky bit - that was the Mirador we'd previously been on, now obviously not the highest point

And here she is on the highest point. I told her to look happy that I'd dragged her through undergrowth to get here!

Don't know what this is, there were lots on the hillside and I thought it looked a bit unusual

And then back on the campsite there were cats - lots of them. We counted at least 8 that came rushing over for Jackie's cat biscuits everytime they saw her. 

I think they had her wrapped round their little paws. The box was at least three quarters full when we arrived, it was empty when we left. She's now bought a new extra large sack for the next encounter!

Just look at this little cutie. This was the one that followed us around this morning before we left looking for the now finished cat biscuits. I could easily have taken her home!

The UK boasts a lot of white horses carved into the chalk hillsides in Southern England. Europe is not known for them and, we're sure this isn't one, just a quarry, but it looks a bit like one don't you think. We saw it whilst on the motorway going west towards Seville this morning

So this is us on our new campsite tonight. It's called Casa Rural Nirvana, near Villablanca. Here's the location: 37°17'20.2"N 7°19'21.2"W It only opened in October last year so everything is new. They have a bar open all day, serve tapas (tonight we're having paella), it's very rural and the owner describe it as paradise. It does have a feel of that! Think we'll stay three nights before heading into Portugal

This is the bar area and we're having our welcome drinks. It's just a shame it's a bit cloudy and cool today, but tomorrow the forecast is clear blue skies and a lot warmer. This view reminds me a bit of Africa, I want to see warthogs and elephants on that savannah behind!

Just to finish off, this is a sunset picture from a few days back. I can't even remember where it was now, I forgot to download it from my camera. It looks like a setting Mars not the sun. Kind of other-worldly I thought 

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!