Jeff: October 2022

Thursday, 27 October 2022

The end of Spain part 1

Seville was here and first thing was first and that was to spend an hour in Movistar sorting out mobile phone issues (sigh). Undeterred we rewarded ourselves to breakfast out (our new favourite hobby) An Acai bowl and a stack of pancakes so large we got looks and comments. Unphased we know how to eat vegan pancakes and we grabbed the bikes to do some exploring. There was this large platform in the centre called the mushrooms due to their fungi like structure. After lapping the whole thing before finding the entrance we were very much dauted by the 15 euro entrance fee to be put on a slightly higher elevation to the one we were on – the mushroom people must have been high when they came up with that pricing scheme. Cathedral was next and yet another entrance fee we shied away from! We did however find a nice little square before the entrance of the Alcazar where we sat an enjoyed an orange. Next we were on the business end of our Seville adventures, a much needed, Monday blues beating spa! The Ancient baths were a mix of different pools from cold (ish) to hot (ish) and everything in-between. There was also a salt bath which revealed any cuts and nicks with searing pain. There was also a steam room so steamy you feared for sitting on Jack Geller’s leg. After what seemed like 5 minutes our 90 minutes was up and we were given cava and chocolates to cushion the blow of our time being up – ironic given the sign at the entrance which read ‘Time does not exist’. We however we not done and when hot endless free showers are on offer (which technically we can have in the van) we take full advantage. This involves a intensive hair conditioning for Cat and a fuzz free face for Rich. Sent back on the streets of Seville in complete Zen we grabbed the bikes and made our way to an ice-cream shop where Vegan Pistachio was promised and well received. Back to the van we went and 10/10 for cycle paths in Seville (Unsurprising given it was the first city in Spain to have a cycle sharing thingy scheme.) After grabbing some food from the supermarket and bike accessories from Decathlon we found a large meadow (ish) area on the outskirts of the city with great views for the night and lots of hilly running in the morning.

After our morning run we had nowt planned and were no rush to be anywhere. We headed to the Donana region which has 2 parks – the national park which is open to the public and the nature park which is strictly for authorised tours only. The nature park has a large array of wildlife (mainly birds) but also lots of Deer, Rabbits, Boar and the ever elusive Lynx! We spent the afternoon walking the national park and saw nothing of interest but a great walk none the less. We decided to find a tour for the next day. We parked up on the nearby beach front along with about 25 other campers – it was a fantastic well known unofficial stop for campers and somewhere you could easily stay for a few days. Lots of paragliders and some nudist (what more do you need). A painful 6.30am alarm woke us as we needed to be in the nearby town for our tour pickup by 8am. We were joined by 2 other brits, a Grandma/Grandson duo called Drouthy and Takisha (His father must have been a fan of the show!) Takisha was about 12 and loved his birds (The flying kind) much to the joy of our guide (Jose) who could spot a Sardinian wobbler a mile away. The tour lasted 5 hours and involved a trip through the woods where we spotted lots of deer. We travelled the Marsh land full of birds from small robins to vultures and eagle owls. We spotted to tiny owls en-route which took some good eye sight to see as they were very well camouflaged. Unfortunately no Lynx this time but they do say its about a 10% chance so the odds were not in our favour. We learnt a lot about the area including that an annual pilgrimage takes place through the park and we also learnt like a lot of Spain they don’t know how to keep a place clean and rubbish free! We spent the afternoon exploring Huelva (Not much to see but an old pier) and not a strawberry in sight despite the area being famous for it strawberry production (as it grows between 90 – 95% of Spain’s strawberries).

We headed on to a town a little closer to Portugal for the night and had a walk around. We found some adorable little cats and kittens, a couple of which were really friendly (however we think from the bites on our legs they had fleas) and stayed to fuss them before finding the towns local Via Verde and supermarket (where we got some vegan magnums as it was hot and humid). Back at the van after dinner the local school band started practice which meant we had an evening of music (and despite it being a little rough to start with it soon got better and was enjoyable to listen to) but we were glad it didn’t go on too late – it was literally 50 yards from the van.

The next morning we did our morning run on the via verde before heading off north into Portugal. The boarder crossing was non-existent but we did at least manage to get a picture of the sign. We carried on north to a town called Tavira which is one of the access points to a great beach. However despite the weather man saying it was going to be bright and sunny all day it isn’t so we have decided to walk around the town, explore the castle, eat vegan Pasteis de nata and do our washing for today and head to the beach tomorrow as again the weather man is saying its going to be sunny!

Mushroom of Sevilla

A rare moment with no one posing

Seville Cathedral

Royal Alcázar of Seville

Cathedral

Spa day!

Pistachio Ice-Cream!

Random Food Festival in Huelva

Very large Pier in Huelva

Hello Portugal

Views from Tavira in the Algarve

The best Custard Tart!

Sunday, 23 October 2022

Malaga and onwards

Day 1 in Malaga was mainly taken up by a few chores. Firstly and most importantly was laundry which involved a 10 minute bike ride into the centre loaded up with clothes. We took the time to grab some breakfast (Acai Bowls) which have become our new favourite breakfast option – with a Croissant of course. We also needed to pick up some trainers Rich brought online which were down the road from the laundrette. We realised at this point that with the new shoes and the washing which needed to hang dry we were going to struggle to get everything back so whilst the rest of our clothes were tumble drying we decided to cycle back to the van, drop everything off, cycle back to the laundrette and then back to the van. 45 minutes worth of cycling which could have been avoided if we parked at the laundrette! (We live and learn). Being the hot and humid mess we now were we decided to drive over to the nearest beach to cool down before heading to a camper stop out of town which was a huge parking lot which used to be an old quarry. It seemed a popular little spot and had a nice circular route for us to run around next morning. Our morning run was not lonely, we had constructions workers moving rubble and council workers strimming bushes but they seemed undeterred.

We drove back to Malaga to explore but not before stopping at IKEA! Jeff needed some more accessories and Ikea didn’t disappoint although Rich was not impressed to find a piece missing to the washing up liquid holder which involved him having to maze his way back through the whole store a 2nd time to find a replacement and then try and explain in broken Spanish what the issue was. Mission accomplished we got back to Malaga. After hitting the local market we cycled over to the Soho area where we found an amazing restaurant and proceeded to order 3 courses! We were then tempted by the Picasso museum however after a couple of hours of exploring the town, seeing the roman amphitheatre and Cathedral, we decided after seeing the long queue to enter, we were better of calling it a day. We now have headed to Antequera where we have parked up at a popular camper spot next to a castle. Tomorrow we head to Lobo park to see the wolves!

Mornings have been getting lazier in Spain as the sun sleeps in then so do we. Long gone are the 6am starts so after a lazy morning we finally got moving towards the wolf park. Rich had visited this same park 11 years prior but was keen to go again. The park has various different packs totalling around 30 wolves in total of all different species. Naturally shy, it was explained to us by the guide that the owner of the park socialises with the 1st generation of wolves in any given pack and then the offspring tend to feel at ease around people without any need for direct socialising. The wolves at the park are generally donated by zoo’s all around the world but they do struggle to get young wolves donated which they can breed off. On top of the wolves the park also had some goats, pigs and foxes which were all rescued. It seemed like a good place all in all and a great way to learn about wolf behaviour in a semi natural environment. After the tour we made our way to our next excursion – El Caminio which is going to be a 4 hour hike across rope bridges and cliff edges (Catherines Idea!)

The El Caminio del Ray hike was actually the most dangerous hike in the world a few years ago but has since had £5million spent on it to make it safe. So we actually had to get up early the next morning as in order to do the trek you either need to be organised and book several months in advance (which we are not) or turn up on the day and try and get tickets. There are only around 50 tickets available and I had read that people start queuing from 7.30 so it made sense that we need to be there around that time. We got up at 6 and drove to the park and then got ourselves ready and headed down the 30 minute walk to the starting point. The first part of the walk is through a dark tunnel (using our phone for light) and we walked all the way through it when I remembered I hadn’t bought my purse so we decided to run back and get it (as it was still early enough and we couldn’t see anyone else around) and then again walked through the tunnel but this time they had turned the light on so it was a little less scary. Once through the tunnel we continued on to the gate which was a nice walk but it was still very dark. Once there we got comfortable and waiting for the gate to open. We were the only ones there for about 20 minutes until the next couple came and then there was a slow increase of people until the gates opened at 9. They then split the queue into those organised people and the unorganised people and we reckon there was about 30 people in the no tickets queue behind us. We managed to get straight on the walk as well which was good and so we picked up our helmets and lovely hair nets, listened to the safety briefing and started the walk through the gorge. The walk uses boardwalks which hug the gorge sides at different levels and require you to go up and down stairs and gives great views which include views of the paths used in the old hike and you can see why it was soo dangerous. There was also a section of the walk through the forest where we saw a wild Ibex (like a goat). We completed the walk in about an hour and a half and the we got the shuttle bus back to Jeff and headed off to a new town called Olvera which is a mountain top town with a castle and church at the top and a flow down the hill of white houses, We walked to the top of the hill and explored the square before going into the castle which included some great views, some very scary spiral stairs which were barely big enough for my feet, some old artwork and a coffin to (presumably) show what some of the rooms were for. We will be spending the night in the town before heading out a little to do a long cycle tomorrow, wish me luck!

As we didn’t need to start early we had a bit of a lie in then drove to the start of the long cycle down the Via Verde which is a 36km trail from Olvera to Puerto Serrano and is all tracks with no road cycling. Rich loaded up my bike with food, water and a lock and off we set down the route. We quickly (well Rich did) figured out that the route was all down hill but not enough down hill to help that much but you knew would hinder on the way back. The route took us through some farms and valleys with 30 tunnels to go through and 2 viaducts to go over. Once we got to Puerto Serrano we had a bit of a break and some food before the long uphill cycle back. We were a lot slower on the way back and I think the speed at which had attacked the first leg came back to bite him a little. He had been gung-ho on doing 100km cycle but once we got back to the van at 72km we agreed it was enough for both of us and so we had some lunch and tea and decided to drive on west. We had planned to get to an Aire where we could service and drive to another place to sleep but once we got to the Aire in Algodonales we realised it was nice and quiet which is all we wanted. There were about 20 vans here from all over Europe including the UK so it seemed the place to be. We also realised neither of us could be bothered to cook and there were some restaurants in the town so after a nice long shower and rest we headed up to the town and found a tapas place where we had a large dinner of various vegan tapas and a 3 large beers between us which came to less than 30 euros.

Today is Sunday so once we got up this morning we did toy with the idea of going to Seville today and spending some time there tomorrow but we decided that (having learnt our lesson from other places) that most things will be closed so we shall spend the day in this town and catch up on things like the blog (there is free wifi – its not great but it does the job), cleaning and sorting out the van before heading to Seville early tomorrow morning where we have lots planned!

some of the street art in Malaga

more street art

even more

tundra wolf at the wolf park.

The Iberian wolves and they were not stupid, they knew if they played up to the visitors then they might get a treat!

Iberian wolf looking pretty and ready for a treat

El Cominio walk - near the start

I got him to do another selfie

On the other side of the gorge was a railroad which passed through several tunnels and across bridges

Kings bridge at the end of the hike

Here you can see the new path and the old one below, the concrete was falling away on the old path and there were no handrails for most of it

the view from Olvera castle down onto the white town

More views from the castle

The tiny spiral staircase we had to go up and down

Views on our long ride from Olvera

A quick break on the ride to admire the view

One of the many tunnels we went through. Some were lit, others weren't and they ranged from less than 100meters long to almost a km long)

Beers and tapas were needed

Tuesday, 18 October 2022

Waiting in Spain... and the journey onwards

So we managed to have a good look around the Villaricos market the next morning and bought some veggies to keep us going for the next few days. On the way back to the van we ran into someone I used to work with which just makes you remember how small the world is! The weather wasn’t really beach weather so we decided to head out on the bikes for a bit and we rode into a town called Gurrucha for it then to totally pour down with rain so we quickly retreated back to the van, but not before we were soaked. We managed to get out onto the beach for a short time once the rain dried up but all in all it was a quiet day for us.

The next day we had planned to meet Clare, who I worked with for lunch and drinks (well the rain came down again so there wasn’t too much else to do). After far too many gins, a quick swim in the pool and so much needed catching up we retired to bed. We were hoping to pick up the toilet cassette we had order but the tracking had not moved since Friday so we were losing hope and the next morning we decided to go on a short way, into the national park, and come back once it had been delivered. This meant that the next few days were going to be a bit more low key and we wanted to stay about an hour or so away from Vera.

So on the Tuesday we headed out to Parque Natural del Cabo de Gata which is a marine natural park and had great beaches for swimming and snorkelling. We first headed to playa de los Muertos which is dead beach and I don’t think we have ever seen water as clear as this (and this is a theme throughout the natural park). The beach is a short walk from the car park and was lovely and quiet but due to the wind it was a little wavey. We did manage to snorkel a couple of times though and chilled on the beach until it was time to find somewhere to sleep. Now wild camping is not allowed in the natural park at all and you can be fined (depending on how the guards who find you are feeling, some will let you off with a warning, some wont) so we had to be more thoughtful on where we planned to sleep. We did a little bit of searching and found a little place on top of the cliff near the beach and overlooking the next town, Agua Amarga. This was a great place to watch the sun set and relax and another campervan came and parked nearby who were also trying to avoid being caught and we both agreed not to dob the other in if the guards came!

The following morning we decided to spend the day at Agua Amarga and after going for a morning run then struggling to find some parking for the day we managed to get to the beach for a bit. What we have learnt is we are still not on Spanish time, we get up too early and we are usually on the beach a good couple of hours before the Spanish make it down. After a couple of hours relaxing, swimming and snorkelling we decided to have an ice cream and headed onto the next town Rodaquilar where we planned to spend the night in the hills again. The place we were spending the night was an old gold mine.

The next morning we got up nice and early and continued into the gold mine and explored some of the tunnels which were totally dark and fairly creepy but had some great views over the area. Once back at Jeff we drove down to La Isleta del Moro to again spend the day by the beach and snorkel. This little town is great as there are two beaches on the different sides of the outcrop and if its windy on one side (which is was Thursday) the other side is usually fine. We managed to have a good swim and snokel and watch some divers have what must have been a try dive from the look of their abilities. After a couple of hours we thought we should do the usual boring stuff like some shopping before we run out of food and headed into the middle of nowhere for our stop for the night but we weren’t the only ones there, there was another british van to keep us company.

On Friday we got up and headed back to the beach playa de las selinas where we managed to snorkel again. Over the last few days we have manged to see lots including fish we have never seen before and birds swimming underwater. It has been great and really worth going to the different beaches but there is only so much beach relaxing we can do so you can imagine how pleased we were when we received the email saying the parcel is ready for pick up! We had to go back to the area we stopped at the previous night as Rich had accidently left my flip flops there (they dropped out when he was getting out and he didn’t see them!) and then we headed to pick up the toilet from near Vera and then headed back through the park towards Granada where we planned to spend the next couple of days.

On Saturday we headed towards Granada with a stop in Guadix, where there are thousands of houses build into the terrain, to have a look around and climbed to the top of the hill to have a good look before continuing on to a paid camper stop in Granda where we jumped on the bikes and explored the city. We soon found it was not a city to explore on bikes so we managed to find some parking for them and explored on foot. We explored lots of the city including the high view points which over looked the Alhambra palaces which we had booked for tomorrow, we walked in the park near the Alhambra, found a nice tea shop in the centre, walked through the old town and ended up watching a couple of weddings start at different churches throughout the town. We had dinner at a nice veggie restaurant and as it had been a hot busy day we treated ourselves to a very nice vegan dessert and cocktails before the ride back to the camperstop.

The next morning was a dreaded Sunday again and we did let Spain lull us into a false sense of security. Rich wanted breakfast and so after moving the van closer to the city (and the top of a hill which Granada is full of) we went off in search of something healthy to find everything we wanted closed so after a quick stop in Starbucks we entered the Alhambra and proceeded to spend a lot of time walking around taking photos, getting lost and running into the couple who had spent the night in the camper van next to us last night. We visited several of the palaces and the Generalife which was a set of gardens. It was a beautiful place with calm gardens and stunning Islamic palaces which was first started in the 1200’s. After the walk back up the hill to the van and drove onto Hoya de la Mora which is in the Sierra Nevada national park and is at 2,500 meters. We parked up and had dinner up here and the aim was to get used to the altitude before climbing the mountain tomorrow but oh my god the wind wanted us to know we were high! We did try and get to sleep but after about an hour we knew it would be fruitless so we went down the mountain a little to get some shelter and finally got some sleep but were still rocked by the wind for a lot of the night.

The next morning we got up fairly early and drove back up to Hoya de la Mora and got the bikes out for the ride up Pico de la Veleta which is 3,396 meters high and can be cycled from the car park we were in. The ride is only 12km with a gradient of around 7.5% and while this was going to be challenging enough the winds were still really strong and we often battled with 30-40 km head winds. It was tough going but we did it slow and steady and we made it up in under 2 hours. Once there though it was cold and had a temperature in the single figures and a feels like -2. We had a little food, took some photos and then quickly started the journey back down. While the downward portion was less work the wind still made it difficult and we had to take care as the wind could push you off track (and it was strong enough to slow us down when we were coming into the head wind). It took us less than 40 mins to get back to the van and we quickly made some very hot tea and food to warm us back up. We just aren’t used to cold weather anymore! We didn’t want to stay in the mountains for another night and so headed down and in the direction of Malaga. Back at sea level (or nearer sea level) and the temperature rose to 30 degrees which helped finally warm us up!

Now we are going to spend a couple of days in Malaga and do some exploring nearby.