Happy hippy-ness

Wow! There really is a place like the ones you see on motorhome brochures - park-up spots with nothing in front but sand and an azure blue sea. We found one in the Natural Park of Cabo De Gata. Our new El Berro friend, Lorraine, had suggested that we shouldn’t leave the coast before spending some time at Rodalquilar, so we left the laid back beach front aire at Fabriquilla, and headed off back up the coast of this amazing old volcano park. We were able to park up in the pretty little ex-gold mining town she had told us about. We drank beers in Restaurant Crisol (run by a beardy biker whose photos are all around the bar, and who may be quite famous for all we know), took photos of a resident chameleon and soaked up the laid back arty-but-not-ostentatious ambience of the place. The sun shone very warm and we enjoyed trotting out the well-used phrase that so many motorhomers say on greeting each other “This is the life, eh?”

What a life!

Art displayed on every building

Old mining village, now an artists haven

A couple of days stay allowed for a decent hike into the gold mine hills, a visit to the Geology museum where we learned heaps about how Spain was formed through the millennia, a meal of salad and big juicy prawns in a little restaurant, and a mountain bike expedition for Gareth. Then on Monday we decided to risk losing our parking place (other motorhomes were showing up) and head off to have our breakfast at the beach. It was just the place you see in those MH dream-selling brochures - somewhere to be footloose in the warm sand, sea tickling your toes and a camper van opened up to the view. A small convoy of self-built ‘motor homes’ (i.e. lorries) had beaten us to it but we found a spot where we could sit and gaze while the dogs romped about. Naturists were clearly enjoying the place, too, though not romping fortunately. Since Gareth had opted to rest an aching back I took the opportunity to walk dog-less along the strange, gnarly cliffs. I indulged myself in a long meditative stare into the crystal clear turquoise waters of a deep, fish filled lapping inlet, the sunshine hot on my back and the tumble of flowering plants filling the air with scent and bee hum. Feeling in love with the world, John Denver’s song “You Fill Up My Senses” came to mind. It must have been written in something like the same frame of mind as the one I was in, though if you’ve never heard of or liked that song you probably won’t get my drift.

Such amazing geography

Nudists not visible

Suitably bathed in warm Mediterranean sunshine and joie-de-vivre (me, anyway - Gareth’s back was hurting), we returned to the village and managed to find a space before motorhomes started arriving in their thousands. Ok, not thousands, but enough to make the small gravel car park feel rather crowded. I wondered how the hippy vans still at the beach would get in. The police seemed to be a bit worried about the dreadlocked, dog accompanied inhabitants of such ‘vans’ and were moving them on from the beaches where signs stipulated ‘No motorhomes between sunset and sunrise’ (such a lovely loose Spanish directive). Part of me admired these young drop-outs for whom home was an old adapted horse box, complete with patio doors and a drop down patio, or an old vegetable truck, now with a chimney, wooden front door and double glazed windows.  Did they qualify as ‘motorhomes’? As many variations on that theme as you can imagine are freedom homes these days. There are many vloggers too, extolling the joys of ‘Van Life’ and showing how to do it. It’s rather different from the all-comforts-included, off-the-shelf motorhome living of the (mostly) older generation. Let’s face it, so many of us living under the illusion of ‘freedom’ in our mass-produced travelling houses, once dreamed of living ‘on the beach’ like these scruffy young itinerants. Nevertheless many of us (though not me, he or thee, of course) tut and mutter about the cheek of young people these days, cluttering up the beauty spots that we’d like to clutter up ourselves.

Andalucian blues

A nice pad in town

Talking about hypocrisy, which is what that is, I think, last Friday Brexit finally happened. We sat in the van listening to the BBC and marked the occasion with moments of quiet reflection. Meanwhile, our divided country was simultaneously celebrating and mourning. In Rodalquilar at least, there was neither fuss nor fury. To hear next morning, though, that in some places here in Spain Brits had celebrated the occasion noisily and publicly, I felt angry that fellow country men and women could be so rude. That old imperialist British attitude which rides rough shod over countries that host us is still alive and well it seems. Hypocrisy!

Anyway, the event passed and those of us trying to be considerate guests just got on with being transitionally European, enjoying it while we can. Goodness knows how things will look from now on. 

Tuesday needed to be a shopping and servicing day. We weren’t keen on the increasingly loud camaraderie of life at the car park anyway so off we went, stopping first at the little beach resort of Las Nigras for a drink at a sea-front bar and a photo opportunity to make everyone at home jealous, then went off in search of dog food, gas, food, water and a new destination.

Las Negras

Campohermoso, a commercial town, is a kind of oasis in a vast plain of plastic green-housing. It’s not a pretty place. Sorry, Campohermoso if I’m doing you down, but thanks for Lidl, anyway. Stocked up, we headed off to Roquetas De Mar, though not, as most tourists would expect from the name, to the beach. We were headed to a shop called Tiend Animal, the only shop we’ve found to supply us with Bessie’s fit-deterring dog-food. We weren’t drawn to visit the regional town of Almería - a big unattractive sprawl along the coast before the Cabo De Gata curls off out into the Med. But the highway...! It’s an incredible bit of infrastructure with views of the sea as it cuts impressively through the rocky massifs and sweeps the traffic along high above the city.

Fully provisioned for Hymer plus human and canine occupants, we took the road north towards Grenada with the snow topped Sierra Nevada looming magnificently on our western flank. Known for a scenery that lends itself to Spaghetti Western movie making I continued to be stunned by the drama of Spain’s geography. Being now better educated about its geological history after the information centre in Rodalquilar added even more to my wonderment. We parked up for the night at Abla in a little feral-cat-inhabited aire below the glistening mountains before continuing our journey toward another Natural Park, the Sierra Segura. Apparently it is the second largest in Europe and we might take a few days to travel through it. It’s big and if Gareth decides to head off into it on his mountain bike, I think I’ll put one of those tracker things on him, or I might never see him again.

Parked high up in La Iruela  on our way to
Natural Park Sierra De Segura