Spain 2017 - Day 26

Friday 27th January

Market day in Turre but first Muffin had to have his exit check at the vets to make sure he is fit to travel and to have a tapeworm tablet.  He was very good and even took the pill without too much trouble.  While we were in there we saw a greyhound bitch with puppies in the nursery.  This is very sad story with a happy ending – read about Vera here.

We then walked through the market to check if my purse had been handed in but of course it hadn’t :-(  I bought a couple of things but no fruit or veg as we are off home on Sunday.  The wind got up and it looked as if some of the stalls might take off!  We met up with gang at the Indian restaurant for tapas before heading back to the apartment via the most amazing shop.  I mentioned once before about the Euro Market however this place is similar but HUGE!  Richard need a new electric razor so I wandered round – I was a little concerned that we might never meet up again!  It’s probably just as well that we found the place just as we are about to leave otherwise I might have spent a fortune in there!

I did some sorting out and packing in the afternoon – it’s more or less just the clothes left to pack now.

In the evening we met the gang, minus Bev who was unwell, at the La Cabaña for our last dinner and then moved on to the Emerald Isle where there was live music.  Ashley and Dainius are great musicians and played our type of music!  It was a lovely evening and we will miss everyone though hopefully we will see them on the cut somewhere this summer.

At the market I found a stall I hadn’t seen before and bought a silver Indalo man pendant.

Over the years, the Indalo has become the best known symbol of Almería. Some see this figure as a man holding a rainbow, but it might also be an archer pointing a bow towards the sky. The Indalo lent its name to the artistic and intellectual movement of the Indalianos led by Jesús de Perceval and Eugenio d'Ors which was a movement of nostalgic attraction by the people of Mojácar. The people of Mojácar painted Indalos with chalk on the walls of their houses to guard against storms and the Evil Eye.

Spain 2017 - Day 25

Thursday 26th January

We have had a couple of busy days so today was a quiet one.  I spent a lot of time researching yesterday’s journey – it was frustrating as I couldn’t seem to find what I was looking for.

After lunch we went to Pirulico Tower.  We parked up and walked the last bit – it was a really lovely walk.

The tower has been recently restored. The steps are steep but well worth it as the view is stunning.  Climb the last iron steps into the tower and then up the stone steps and the view is even better!  The tower is Moorish in origin and it yet another of the forts built for coastal defences. 

The cliffs either side of the path to the tower are interesting.

It was then a quick visit to the supermarket to stock up on our favourite sparkling wine to take home - €1.89 a bottle!

Spain 2017 - Day 24

Wednesday 25th January

Today we headed for the mountains and Sorbas where the gypsum comes from.  The village’s history is old - several prehistoric settlements dating to the Neolithic period have been found. However, those found in the early twentieth century have been dated to the Bronze Age, circa 2000 BC.  The village is also known as Cuenca la Chica and is located over the Río Aguas.  Its houses look as if they are suspended over the ravine. 

From Sorbas we drove up to Uleila del Campo and then took the wiggly road up the mountains of the Sierra de los Filabres – Richard’s choice as he was driving. 

  

This is looking directly down on a small settlement

Up and up until we were in the snow!

  

We came across this building high above us – I would like to say it’s the Ermita Deze la Virgen de la Cabeza but I’m not too sure.  Maybe it is part of it.

We could see the snow topped mountains in the distance.

We then came across this just outside the village of Cobdar.

  

Close up

It is a marble quarry where they produce Amarillo Cobdar marble.  The whole area is famous for its marble and produces over 1.3 million tons.  The marble has been used in the Alhambra in Granada, the Mezquita in Cordobas and the Monastery of Escorial. 

From Cobdar it was on to Los Molinas, Los Dioses, La Rambla Aljibe, El Picoco and Bedar.  The area is covered in, what look like, dead trees and olive trees.  At first, we thought that we had come across deciduous olive trees as, apparently, their leaves can fall off when it is very cold.  However, we stopped and I picked what I thought was a dried up olive only to find it was an almond!  Some of the almond trees are beginning to come into blossom – another few weeks and the area should be a riot of colour.  We will definitely go back at the end of February next year.  Almond processors processed more than 40,000 tonnes of almonds last year, most of which were sold to the confectionery industry and to nougat manufacturers.

By the time we got to Bedar we had had enough!  I know quite a few ex-pats live there and now I understand why.  It is beautiful!  There are lots of small hills each one with a house on the top with views to die for and the village itself looks lovely.  Stupidly I didn’t take any photos so you will have to wait a year!

We hadn’t had any lunch and ended up stopping at Martin Morales Restaurant & Café where we had a very good menu of the day for €13.95.  Lots of choice for each of the three courses.  The restaurant has only just opened - it is a short walk for our apartment next year :-)

Spain 2017 - Day 23

Tuesday 24th January

Today was all about what we came to Spain for.  Blue sky, sunshine and warmth – how it makes everything so much better. 

We went back to Mojacar Pueblo to see it in the sunshine and I’m so glad we went back as it was really lovely.  We had hoped to get some lunch but could only find one place open with outside space and we didn’t fancy their food.  We walked right round the town – I’ll let the photos tell the story.

  

As we hadn’t had lunch we stopped off at Café Moca for some sustenance.  I had a smoothie and cheesecake and Richard had a beer and chips (man food!)

Back at the apartment I did some research into Mojacar – this is from Wikipedia.

Mojácar has been inhabited by many different groups since antiquity. Populated since the Bronze Age around 2000 BC, traders such as the Phoenicians and Carthaginians arrived to serve the growing communities. Under Greek dominion, the settlement was called Murgis-Akra, whence came the Latinized Moxacar, the Moorish Muxacra and finally the current name of Mojácar. The North African Islamic Moors established themselves in Spain in the early 8th century and the province of Almería came under the authority of the Caliphate of Damascus, and was later ruled by the Umayyads of Córdoba.

Under this second enlightened rule, Mojácar quickly grew in size and importance. With the coronation of Muhammad I of Córdoba in Granada, Mojácar and its lands became incorporated into the Nasrid sultanate, and the town found itself on the frontier with the Christian forces to the east. Watchtowers and fortresses were built, or reinforced, during the 14th century, which nevertheless did little to discourage Christian incursions and fierce battles such as the bloody event of 1435 when much of the population of Mojácar was put to the sword.

On June 10, 1488, the leaders of the region agreed to submit to the Christian forces, although Mojácar's alcaide refused to attend, considering his town to be already Spanish. At that time there was a meeting at Mojácar's Moorish fountain, where a pact of free association between the local Moors, Jews and Christians was agreed. Mojácar, once again, began to expand until the early 18th century, when the census of the time recorded 10,000 people. Around the middle of the 19th century, Mojácar began another period of decline.

Several severe droughts brought about this drop in the town's fortunes, with a consequent emigration to northern Spain, other parts of Europe and to South America. The depopulation of the town was halted in the 1960s when tourism began to reverse the trend.

Spain 2017 - Day 22

Monday 23rd January

We decided to have a quiet day now all our visitors have gone.  The sun shone though it was still chilly.  I caught up with the blog – I am now up to date and also with emails.  We have now planned our journey home and as there were originally two different ones, both with hotels booked, I needed to cancel some of them.

We went to Blue Sea Villas, who this apartment is booked through, and arranged to leave on Sunday instead of Saturday – well we were a day late getting here.  It was then up to Comsum, the supermarket in the Parque Commercial, where they sell a litre of Gordon’s gin for €11 which is about half of the price in England (when it’s not on special offer).  I bought 2 bottles – making 3 in total to go home!  Richard does like his gin!

On our way back to the apartment we went up to La Parata and when I say up I mean up!  The hill up is very steep and I would imagine way beyond the normal person’s capability to walk up!  Back in the early 1980s my mother and step-father, Richard (known as UR to save complications) used to stay in a villa up there.  It belonged to someone that UR worked with.  Back then, Mojacar Playa didn’t really exist – there were just a few hotels and not much else.  La Parata wasn’t very big either but now there are lots of expensive villas up there and we have been told that many of the owners are very wealthy and include a couple of top footballers.  The letting agencies have the odd one or two up there.  UR had given me directions of where Villa Binnie was but I’m not sure that we found it as I couldn’t find a name on the one we thought it was.

Back at the apartment I cooked roast pork and roasted vegetables.  However I forgot that a non-fan oven works differently and we ended up with uncooked pork and burnt vegetables!  The apartment smelt of burnt food all evening!

I thought I would add some statistics about Mojacar – well this is for a normal year!

•                It has more than 3000 hours of sun per year.

•                Rainfall is seldom and weak, with an average rainfall of 200mm per year.

•                The average yearly temperature is around 20 °C. Winter is normally mild. Mojácar is classified as being in the 11 climate zone (the highest climate zone) that means the temperature in Mojácar is never lower than 4 °C.

•                The average temperature in winter varies between 10 °C and 18 °C.

•                The average temperature in summer varies between 26 °C and 32 °C.

Poor Mojacar had real serious rain in September, November and December.  I took this article from the Euro News

In the aftermath of the torrential rainstorm that battered Mojacar, a massive effort has been made to reinstate some semblance of normality to the promenade of Mojacar Playa.  Thursday’s storms caused flooding and electricity in the area was severely affected with Mojacar Pueblo and The Parque Comercial intermittently cutting out until 9am. The destruction of general water pipes on Mojacar Playa and surrounding areas left a large number of residents without mains water for almost two days.  Many houses suffered considerable damage with outside walls collapsing and serious flooding. Residents had to resort to using water from private swimming pools in order to be able to start the clear-up.

I also found this on The Watchers

Although initially it appeared there were no fatalities in the province, the body of a 65-year-old man from Bédar was found on Tuesday, after he went missing after leaving a bar in the town in heavy rains on Saturday.

Thank goodness we didn’t arrive until January!

Spain 2017 - Days 20 & 21

Saturday 21st January

Victoria’s last day and another grey day though the sun did pop out for a while.  I feel so bad that her week’s holiday has been marred by some of the worst weather that Mojacar has had in January for many, many years.  There was even snow just a short way inland – crazy!  However, she did manage to swim in the sea and didn’t find it too cold!

We went down to the Parque Commercial to get a couple of last minute presents and to have a coffee - this was when the sun came out :-)  Back to the apartment to finish packing and then to the Lemon Lounge for tapas – inside of course!

The journey down to Almeria was uneventful and we, including Muffin, went into the terminal to see Victoria off.  I cried most of the way back to Mojacar.  I’m not sure if it was because my little girl had gone, she had had rotten weather or if it was indeed the rotten weather that was making me down.  I guess it was a combination of all three.

We called in for a cuppa with Ingrid and Bob so I could have a hug from Ingrid – I really needed one. 

Ingrid had organised a proper Spanish meal at a proper Spanish restaurant but I really didn’t want to go but was persuaded to.  We went to Restaurante la Capilla about a 20 minute drive at a place called Las Alparatas.  It isn’t the easiest of places to find in the dark as there is only a sign on the top of the building which isn’t obvious.  The restaurant is very nice indeed and the two waiters lovely and attentive but the food wasn’t up to much and was expensive.  I can’t say that we would recommend it.

Sunday 22nd January

A much better day today which didn’t help me really as I feel even more sorry for Victoria.

We met Bob and Ingrid and went up to Villaricos to the market.  The boys did a quick sweep of the market whilst Ingrid and I perused it more fully!  I replaced my lost purse with a similar one but in blue as I reckoned the pink was unlucky!  Ingrid bought a blouse and a gilet for Bob.

Now that’s what I call a cabbage!

The black beach of Villaricos

We joined the boys for a coffee and a light lunch – the café didn’t seem to do tapas.

From Villaricos we went north up the coast – new territory for us.  The coast road is lovely as it wends its way through the rocky terrain.

We could see that some of the rocks had a sheen to them and apparently The Sierra Almagrera mountains, which stretch for about 10km, used to have dozens of mines, going back to prehistoric times. Silver, tin, sulphur, lead and Iron were all mined here.  Mining ceased in the early 1960s.

We headed up to San Juan de los Terreros and stopped just before at Playa los Nardos where a whole new town is in the process of being developed.  I think it’s mainly a tourist destination but there seemed to be a few long term residents. 

Bob stopped to try out the exercise area!

Looking towards San Juan de los Terreros

Nice beachside cafe

It was then up to San Juan de los Terreros which seems to be an old town but is being expanded on a very large scale.  It was getting late so we didn’t really see much but will go back again one day.  We said goodbye to Ingrid and Bob – we will see them back on Hayling Island.  Richard and I got rather lost going out of the town – there are a lot of new roads and Google maps seemed to struggle a bit.  Still we drove home the longer, but quicker, way home.

We were pretty shattered and had a very quiet evening and as we had had lunch I didn’t need to cook :-)