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thesimoni-blog1 · 2 years

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Blog 7 – Travels in Andalusia Part 2

After leaving the beautiful Cabo de Gata we travelled the short distance to the city of Almeria, where we stayed in a car park overlooking the ferry terminal in the heart of the city. On the afternoon of our arrival, we walked around the centre of the city, which contained an impressive and imposing looking Alcazaba and a beautiful looking seafront. In the evening we strolled over to see the fishermen, who were fishing on the sea walls and were surprised, when we looked down into the sea, to see a huge number of large fish swimming by the sea wall.

We stopped in Almeria for the one night only, getting up early to visit a motorhome repair shop, to have a problem with the garage door addressed. We then decided to move on to stay on an Aire in the marina in Almerimar.

Almeria

We weren’t that impressed with Almerimar a town built around a marina, which was in an area where most of the surrounding countryside, between the mountains and the sea, are covered in canvas (polytunnel agriculture on an industrial scale). Whilst accepting that this is essential for food production and the Spanish economy, the landscape between Motril and Almeria is really ugly as a consequence of this practice. The Aire on the water’s edge was full of very impressive and expensive looking motorhomes and the marina was also pretty full of expensive looking yachts and cruisers. The water in the marina was again teeming with fish. We spent one night on the Aire and moved the following day to wild camp at Guardas Vejas, close to a coastal fort. The beach along the coast between Almerimar and Guardas Vejas wasn’t particularly great, but the area looked as if it were in the process of significant development.

The next morning, we moved on to a highly recommended campsite outside the town of Adra. The site itself was quite nice and seemed to have a number of German and Austrian folk who appeared to live on the site full time. The beach was a short walk from the campsite and I enjoyed a swim in the sea whilst we were there.

Toa, Toa, Toa parked up in the campsite in Adra

The following day we drove onto Almunecar, a traditional Spanish seaside town with a nice seafront and lovely beaches a reasonable walk from the town centre. We spent two nights parked up on the seafront beside the Aqua Park which was closed for the season. The beaches and the seafront were very nice and the town contained an old central core which had been extensively built around from the 1960’s onwards. It was in Almunecar that we started to hear English being spoken on a more frequent basis. On the Saturday we had a pleasant walk around the coast to the beautiful Playa Del Caleton. After the first night we realised that we were being eaten alive by mosquito’s, being parked beside an Aqua Park out of season probably wasn’t the best of ideas, so we invested in local solutions, covering ourselves in Aqua de Colonia and placing lemons stuffed with cloves throughout Toa, Toa, Toa to ward off the little beggars. We enjoyed our two day stay in Almunecar, running, cycling and walking.

Almunecar

After discovering that the local solutions to the problem of mosquito’s probably weren’t as effective as spraying Toa, Toa, Toa with DDT, we moved a few miles to the lovely little town of La Herradura, where we spent three nights on a privately run Aire, a stones-throw away from the seafront. La Herradura is built around a stunning bay and has a beautiful beach. Whilst in La Herradura we ran, swam, walked and relaxed. We followed a trail on Wikiloc which took us up and out of the town into the hills where we had spectacular views of the coast, passing the remains of a Roman bridge and following a very narrow fisherman’s path along clifftops. Jo doesn’t have a head for heights so I was impressed by her willingness to follow the path to the end, despite the significant drop onto the rocks below if you slipped (I think she’d say she didn’t have much choice to follow, as turning around would be equally fraught with danger). The headlands to the east and west of La Herradura contained lots of rather large houses hidden behind high walls – a refuge for the rich and famous and we were told after we’d stayed there that the Beckhams had a property there.

La Herradura and around

From La Herradura we moved onto the town of Nerja, which we visited to meet up with an old friend Sue, who lives close by. Nerja would appear to be fairly motorhome unfriendly, with literally no places where you can wild camp in a 7-metre motorhome, so we spent one night on a lovely campsite just to the west of the town. The next morning, we moved Toa, Toa, Toa less than a mile to a layby beside Playa de Vilches which was protected from the N-340 by a massive rock outcrop. When we were parked up here all you could hear was the waves crashing onto the beautiful beach below us – it was a peaceful spot to spend three days. Whilst stopped at Playa de Vilches, which I would suggest is the nicest beach along that stretch of coastline which had a couple of lovely chiringuito’s, we walked west along the coast to Torrox Costa which we thought was pretty awful.

Nerja is a town of 21,000 souls but we didn’t like it that much – we found it to be quite Anglicised and predominantly modern, despite it having a long and rich history. Whilst Nerja’s been settled since pre-historic times, as evidenced by the cave paintings in the Caves of Nerja, it doesn’t have a distinctive old town like many of the places we’d visited, this is partially explained by the Lisbon Earthquake of 1755 which destroyed much of the old town and is estimated to have caused the loss of life of between 40 to 50,000 people across Portugal, Spain and Morocco. However, Nerja does have one feature well worth visiting, the Balcon de Europa which is a viewpoint across the sea which on a beautiful day is a sight to behold.

The view from the Balcon de Europa and sunset at Playa de Vilches

From Nerja, following Sue’s advice we stopped for one night in Torre del Mar, which is another Spanish seaside town, which would appear to be booming and growing with significant development at the western end of the town. For those of you wondering about where we fill up with water and get rid of waste water and the contents of our toilet cassettes whilst wild camping, in Spain a small proportion of petrol stations have motorhome service areas where you can do the business. One of the best we’ve experienced to date was the Lisboa Petrol Station in Torre del Mar which cost only 1 Euro to use their services. After doing the business we parked up at the western edge of the town, had a pleasant walk along the seafront and a lovely lunch in a recommended tapas bar – the food really was outstanding. The next morning, we drove onto the town of La Cala de Moral, just to the east of Malaga, where we spent 1 night on a privately run Aire. On arrival it was overcast so we walked for a few miles along the seafront towards Rincon de la Vitoria, a route we followed the next day when we ran, following the route of an old railway line. La Cala de Moral is very modern and would appear to be a suburb of Malaga with little character but a nice beachfront. It was while we were parked up on the Aire in La Cala de Moral that Wales played their first match in the World Cup, against the USA. Needless to say, halfway during the match we exceeded our data allowance and we lost WI-FI and therefore coverage of the game.

From La Cala de Moral we moved 40 odd kilometres south to La Cala de Mijas to meet with our dear friend TC and daughter Ede, who were visiting TC’s in-laws, Les and Norma, who live in La Cala de Mijas. We stopped in La Cala de Mijas on a free Aire, which was on a very large car park which also doubled as the market place two days a week. The Aire had very basic services, but was the busiest we’d stayed on, somewhere in the region of 100 vehicles of all shapes, sizes and nationalities. La Cala de Mijas was the most Anglicised place we’d stayed in during our time in Spain, with English being spoken as much as Spanish, plenty of English pubs etc and it didn’t have much of an old town and old buildings of any form, with the exception of the Torreon beside the beach. It had changed considerably since we’d last visited about 26 years previously (that’s code for been developed massively), when we’d stayed in the flat with TC and Daryl and the kids. Whilst in La Cala de Mijas Jo and I ran and walked a little, spent a considerable amount of time with TC and Ede (eating, drinking and laughing) which was lovely, swam in the sea, met up with Norma and Les and visited them in their home. It was lovely to see some familiar faces close up – rather than on an electronic device. Whilst in La Cala de Mijas we watched Wales woeful defeat to Iran in the World Cup in Les and Norma’s flat and enjoyed our first Paella of the trip, which was lovely. In total we stayed for 6 days in La Cala, before we moved onto Tarifa and the start of the Costa de Luz. We particularly enjoyed the drive to Tarifa, the rugged coastal scenery, the views over to Gibraltar and to Morocco.

La Cala de Mijas with TC, Ede, Les and Norma

We arrived in Tarifa on a Monday afternoon and decided that we’d stay on the council run Aire for the first night, which cost 8 Euros. The next day we moved onto a car park at the western edge of town, beside the football stadium overlooking the beach, where we stayed for the next four nights. Tarifa, which whilst being the most southerly town in mainland Europe and the place where the Mediterranean meets the Atlantic Ocean is not the largest place and our initial walk to find our bearings revealed a lovely old town, something that our most recent stops hadn’t contained. On that day looking along the Atlantic shoreline there were somewhere in the region of 200 kite surfers playing in the waves, quite a sight. Additionally, Tarifa is so close to Morocco that you can see buildings on the other side of the Strait of Gibraltar and watch the procession of oil tankers and vast (and very ugly) container ships take their goods to northern Europe and presumably to the north-east coast of the USA.

We loved Tarifa, it had a very laid-back feel about it, evidenced by the huge number of kite surfing shops, kite surfing schools, the vast number of people living in vans parked at every conceivable location and some lovely chiringuito’s. Whilst there we walked a lot, did some running, lazed on the beach and relaxed. We did try to eat out at a restaurant recommended by a friend (thanks Paul) but despite the website suggesting the restaurant was open, we found it closed on arrival, meaning we ate out that night in a beach side chiringuito.

The lovely Tarifa

On the Saturday morning, we left Tarifa behind to travel to Jerez de la Frontera.

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