Travels > Spain > Circling Spain

Tue 24.11.2009 by Liz

How many people does it take to free a sand bogged hire car on the coast of Spain? Apparently 11: the two Aussie tourists who bogged it, a Spanish pedestrian couple, a French couple with a caravan, 2 local couples driving by in sports cars and finally a man and his dog in a 4x4. (I think the dog makes 12).

From Barcelona, we headed down the east coast, stopping at various campsites and making wrong turns that actually took us to see cool things. One of those wrong turns took us to a town called Mójacar, a white town (puebla blanca) built into th side of a huge hill. It was full of small windy roads and lanes. Jack and I got some goodies at a local bakery and had a walk around and up through the lanes, meeting some of the local feline residents.

Another hilly white town we walked around had a castle/fort thing and an old decorative church square in the middle. The castle was unfortunately closed for siesta when we were there but the walk around the garden and on the outer wall was great. A group of guys sat in the garden courtyard playing their Spanish guitars while their cute dogs ran around and played.

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And speaking of animals, I have dubbed Jack "Cat man!". At almost every camp site or town, cats appear... everywhere. And they always go to Jack. My theory is that word got around the "cat channels" after Jack fed the cats at our first camp site and now all the cats want bacon!

Music on Top (Ronda)
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We've camped at a few caravan parks, and one night we had to sleep in the car on the road side, but the combination of air mattress on top of laid-back seats made it bearable - a bit like a campervan - but would have been better with the bigger car we originally wanted. We even camped down on a beach that I was a bit scared of. My over-active imagination likened it to a place where one might dump a body in a TV drama.

We've made our way down the east coast, all the way around the south and then went inland a bit to a town called Ronda (sidenote, Ronda = AWESOME) and are now on the west coast near the border of Portugal, near a nice beach. Finally, a nice beach. We've heard a lot about these Spanish beaches being good, but had yet to see one that actually was. Perhaps us Aussies are spoiled for beaches.

So, let me re-cap on Ronda. A town in the middle of the hill and built on the edge of a magnificent gorge. There is a walk you can go down right to the bottom of the gorge, and of course we did. Following an old stone road down, we could better glimpse at the gorge and the size of the cliffs. Wow! The walk back was not easy, but I made without too much fun-poking from Jack.

We arrived back in town after sundown to find a bustling town with shops and restaurants at fully flight. It was cool to see, but after that walk I was thankful to find the car again and let myself sink into it.

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