Route During Week Three

We elect to stay another night in Denia as we want some downtime to loll about and relax - how wrong were we? At about 7 pm we lose all power which for a motorhome means it’s not possible to run any water, flush the loo and the lights and the fridge won’t work!

We (Nick) try to figure out what has happened - blown fuse etc. but to no avail so we just have to go to bed and leave it till morning. We plan to continue on our way and to contact a garage further along the coast but as we were getting ready to go, everything turns back on! Presumably, the bright sunshine has kicked the solar panels into gear which has then put some juice into the batteries.

Mazarron

We are bound for Mazarron and a campsite with electricity to enable us to plug in, fully charge the batteries, draw breath, and decide how best to proceed. The mountains still accompany us but from a distance a lot of the time and when they come close again they’ve changed once more, this time they are barren and shaley. The drive down through the Costa Blanca is the least beautiful we’ve done, much of it is either flat as far as the eye can see, the land given over to intensive polytunnel agriculture or mile after mile of concrete jungle along the coastline.

On arrival, we find ourselves in the land of mainly German, long-term campers in super-luxurious motorhomes, someone even has a Porsche as their tow car! It is a bit of a weird environment and not one we want to linger in but for one night it has all the facilities we need and it is pleasant enough - maybe our lack of enthusiasm is the weird thing as this place gets rave reviews. We don’t suppose our Great Escape logo on the back of Lionel does much to endear us to our German brethren!

We head off from little Germany, bound for Gaudix on the edge of the Sierra Nevada, and what a drive this is! We gradually leave behind the flat and to be honest, boring, countryside around Mazarron, head inland a bit, and begin to climb. This journey takes us from Mercia into Andalusia and the approach to the Sierra Nevada is truly awe-inspiring, the mountain range is massive, and the snow-covered peaks glisten in the sunshine, it is one of the highlights of the trip so far and we shall never forget it.

La Calahorra

As is the way when you get distracted, we go a bit awry on the directions to Gaudix and end up in a place called La Calahorra which lies in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, just inside the National Park, and very glad we are too. We discover, sitting on a hill in splendid isolation Castillo de la Calahorra, one of the only Renaissance castles in Spain and one of the first to have been built outside Italy. Unfortunately, it only opens on Wednesdays (why?) so we can’t see inside but it is a real treat just to walk around the exterior. The architecture is entirely different from anything we have seen so far.

Having very much enjoyed our detour, we head into Gaudix as we want to visit the troglodyte enclave.

Gaudix

We cycle up the hill to where about 3000 people still live in cave houses. The term ‘troglodytes’ conjures images of people living in primitive dwellings but not a bit of it, the houses are hobbit-like but modern and very comfortable; they remain at a constant temperature of 18 - 20 degrees C all year.

We hadn’t anticipated that Gaudix would have so much else to offer or that the troglodyte area would be so fascinating and we wish we’d planned to stay for longer but we are meeting an old friend in Portugal and so we need to keep moving.

Granada

It was an early start today as we have tickets for The Alhambra, the 13C fort and palace established by King Mohammed ibn Yusuf Ben Nasr, better known as Alhamar.

This is something that has been on Janette’s wish list for many years and it does not disappoint.

The Palacios Nazaries is extraordinarily beautiful, exquisite, neither of us has ever seen anything like it. We are transported back to the time of the rule of the Nasrid kings; the austere exterior of the palace giving no hint of the delicacy and beauty within.

The next morning we wake to a gloomy day that develop into an incessant drizzle, the first rain we have seen in our three weeks in Spain. The outline of the Sierra Nevada is blurred today by the cloud which shrouds the peaks and hangs in the valleys. We thank our lucky stars that we visited the Alhambra in bright sunshine yesterday.

Antequera

Today we are bound for Antequera. If we’re honest, we picked this as it suits us as a stopover for our destination tomorrow and when we arrive in the aire which is an area of muddy waste ground, we aren’t inspired to go out. But as the sun sets we see the beauty of the old city and its castle and decide that we must explore before leaving the next day.

We visit the Citadel, and as has been the case so often, we are treated to a real gem. We are pretty well the only visitors and we wander around this ancient place with Roman, Muslim, and Christian heritage. Oddly there are loudspeakers positioned at intervals around the place playing what we think, not being aficionados, is classical Spanish guitar music. We think perhaps if the place were busy and noisy it would be an irritation but in the misty quiet, it is magical.

Once again we are amazed by the history and beauty that is the hallmark of Spain.

Caminito del Rey

We are on a time schedule again today as we’ve booked to walk the infamous Caminito del Rey.

Perhaps foolishly we entrust ourselves to Google Maps, we usually use Garmin which takes account of the size of our vehicle but the link on the Caminito website is for Google so we take a chance. We know the road will be steep and winding but we haven’t anticipated being funneled through a tiny village with narrow streets and flamboyantly parked cars! Nick keeps very cool and gets us through but it is tight.

We notice as we are driving that the soil and rock are of various colors all mixed in, normally you expect to see just one rock type in an area. We discover that this is because the geology here is yellow sandstone, red marble, and grey granite all occurring in close proximity to each other. The sandstone has been eroded into weird and wonderful shapes known as tafoni or Swiss cheese rock.

The Caminito is a walkway built into the Gaitanes gorge at a height of 100m above the river below. It was built between the waterfalls of Gaitanejo and El Chorro to transport materials and workers to the hydroelectric dam. If you want to see how precarious their journey was, check this video out! https://youtu.be/0UTMj-vpnwE?feature=shared

Neither of us has ever experienced anything like this kind of scenery before, the towering walls (700m high) of the gorge are made more spectacular by the rock strata which as a result of tectonic activity have been pushed from horizontal to completely vertical.

The walkway feels very safe although Janette isn’t great with heights. The grand finale is walking over the suspension bridge across the gorge 105m above the river. There is only a metal grid beneath your feet and the bridge sways and bounces about!

It is an incredible experience - and well done to Janette who doesn't enjoy heights!