Week 28: We know the way to San Jose!
- Mar 14, 2022
- 4 min read
A quick stop by a dam and reservoir on the way through the Sierra Nevada mountains
Our stops this week:
1 night at Los Escullos (in Cabo de Gata national park)
1 night at Camping Cabo de Gata (still in Cabo de Gata national park)
2 nights at Camping Alto de Vinuelas (near Granada)
3 nights at Camping Presa La Vinuela (near-ish to Malaga)
We’ve had a fairly action-packed week, so lots to cover in this post...
After taking Bear out for a walk up the hills around Los Escullos, we headed off on the bikes for a hilly ride up the coast to a town called La Negras, on the way we stopped off at the Rodalquilar goldmine, our neighbour at the campsite told us the hill to Rodalquilar is known by local cyclists as “Ruddy-killer”… it certainly was steep but great views from the top and it made me feel better about the massive ice-cream I had at the halfway stop!
Bear enjoying the Cabo de Gata National Park (and Yvette having a sneaky rest).
The next day we moved to a campsite on the opposite side of the Cabo de Gata national park, from here we headed out for another bike ride along the coast to see the salinas (salt-marshes) and the flamingos (which we didn't find). The coast road was nice and flat but this time we had a headwind to contend with… surely an excuse for another ice-cream!
The coast by the salinas.
Another shot of Yvette's backside cycling up a hill!
On Wednesday we went to San Jose, a small town on the coast with sea views from one side of the town and mountain views from the other. We parked up, walked through town and along the coast-path to find an almost deserted beach, where Bear had a dip in the sea to cool off.
I think if we wanted to live anywhere in Spain, it could be San Jose!
Bear having a paddle... I really need to remember to record films in landscape.
On the walk back from the beach we stopped at a café for lunch, where we had our longest and most involved conversation with a Spanish person so far. The highlight of this conversation was Yvette doing impressions of the things that she can’t eat… namely, fish and various animals, I resorted to pointing at the blackboard and nodding and smiling a lot! Yvette thought she ordered a tortilla and I had no idea what I had ordered but the Spanish lady seemed happy… 10 minutes later she came back with a cheese and tomato panini for Yvette and a potato baguette for me! I’ve never had a potato baguette before, but I guess it’s the Spanish equivalent of a chip butty!
From the coast, we drove up into the Sierra Nevada mountains where we arranged to meet my mum and dad again at a campsite near Granada. This was so we could leave Bear with them for the day (and of course to spend some quality time with my parents!!) but mainly so we could catch the bus into Granada, as we wanted to visit the Alhambra.
The Alhambra is vast… parts of it date back to the 12th century but it’s a collection (a citadel??) of palaces, gardens and castles which are famous for their Islamic architecture. We spent the morning walking around, following an audio guide and covering more than 20,000 steps and 40 flights of stairs… that's what my watch said, I didn’t actually count them all!
After a quick Churros pit-stop we spent the afternoon exploring Granada before heading back to the campsite to see what chaos Bear had caused with my parents. We arrived back at the campsite shattered but having had a great day out being tourists... and amazingly Bear had been well behaved!
It was a cloudy day when we went to Alhambra but we appreciated it being a cooler and less busy.
Driving through the Sierra Nevada has been great, with stunning views of snow-capped mountains. I’ve really enjoyed the winding roads and hairpin bends but Yvette hasn’t been so keen, she’s taken to closing her eyes and occasionally resuming the airplane crash position!
On the way up one particularly steep and twisty section of road with sheer drops to the side, we passed a serious looking cyclist, a few miles later on the way down the other side… he overtook us! We were travelling at about 35 mph when he came past, so he must have been pretty brave. What made it worse was when we overtook him again on the next uphill section, only for him to overtake us a second time on the next twisty downhill!
Some pics from the road, when Yvette was brave enough to open her eyes and also the campsite near Granada (Gordon is parked on the left, opposite my parents' van).
Our last stop for the week, was a little further south at a campsite overlooking a lake north of Malaga. We’re in Andalucía at the moment, where they have emergency drought conditions and the water level in the lake is very low, we’ve been out and walked across sections of the dried out lake that should have been underwater, ironically there are flood warnings with lots of rain due over the next few days but it still not expected to be enough to end the drought here.
The dried out lake... Bear's tracker thinks he went for a long swim!
We didn't find any flamingos on the windy bike ride but we did find some on a walk the next day... right next to the campsite!
The salinas... but no flamingos!
Bear trying out a new look!
It's been a good food week... the worlds most filling pizza, followed by taco tapas and someone looking very happy with a plate of churros... not all on the same day!
Wow!!!! OMGosh, this is so amazing! Such beautiful places! Love it!!!!!