España segunda parte

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We are readying to leave our apartment, cleaning, wiping sides and just when we are about to leave and I’m happy with the standard, I notice an actual mountain of sick that the dog has done down the gap beside the sofa! If ever he is sick he always tries to do it out of the way so I was glad I found it as it would have been so very embarrassing!!! Poor fellow. We drive to Lantejuela it’s nearly been a month so I YouTube how to change the car speed to KMPH rather than mph and turns out it’s much easier than dividing by 1.609! Our first stop is a restaurant in Arahal. It has an impressive amount of high ratings, thousands in fact. The joint opens at 1pm and we arrive at 1.15 where every table has already gone and the 2 outside tables have ‘reservado’ placed on them. Stu asks what time they need the outside table and they immediately say ‘you can have, it’s ok’. A Delicious tapas bar with an adorable interior. I try and use the toilet and first I enter the male urinal and some men hollar to let me know it’s further down. I put my hands up and move to the next door and voila, I’m in the kitchen! A waitress moves me on and then I squirrel to the next door, a bit embarrassed and quickly lock the door. Once in I realise the light switch is outside! To save further attention I wee in the dark and be done with it! Ar-rahal is an Arabic term, meaning ‘a place in the path where stopping to rest’ so we feel we have followed instructions! We booked our hotel because of its proximity to ‘Marinaleda’ a communist utopia we are going to check out, but it also turns out our town is near multiple Lagoons. The first is basically shut and we can only get a glimpse through some barbed wire.  A strange group of youths have amassed too, we have binoculars they have air rifles! I mean, whatever you are in to! But the second is wondrous with a flamboyance of flamingos. We meet some Irish twitchers at both lagoons. They inform us about a Common sandpiper that is really near us on the floor, is very rare to see so close as they are pretty much always found wading in water. The huge lake, rows of olive groves and sensational birds is my happy place. I take too many photos and then we move on. Cruising to the utopia and we see a European roller. A royal blue little dinosaur type bird flying doing acrobats in front of the car for a joyous 100m’s!! Google it, it’s worth it!! When we get to Marinaleda we first noticed the street ‘Che Guevara’… when the people took control of the municipality they changed all the street names from right wing soldiers to left wing hero’s and poets. We stop for coffee and a cake in a place that apparently is bustling and busy before work and post work, today is no different. People arrive and more chairs and tables are brought outside. We wander around checking out the street art, parks and gardens. They produce all their own produce and have very high employment rates. We drive back to our hotel and it’s possibly my favourite journey yet. The sun is setting, the landscape is crops, neat olive trees and we see roadrunners, big eared mice, rabbits, birds of prey and not one other car for 95% of the journey. Back home we pop to the cafe adjoined to our hotel for a little bit of tapas. A Gran and Grandson ask to stroke Wilson and give him some treats while he does some tricks. She says ‘I love you’ in a thick Spanish accent over and over and it’s so sweet, though I think little sickly boy just wants to go home to bed without performing his whole repertoire of skills, though a lab through and through, anything for food.

It’s an early start and it’s worth it! We have a couple of patios left on our paid tickets and the morning is a great time to go once more as it’s blissfully quiet. Taking in the vibrant plants with ingenious ideas to display them makes you wanna try and create a crazy courtyard of colours and blooms immediately! We check out of our apartment which really was the location of dreams. Exiting we have to wiggle and wind round the thin inner sections of Córdoba to get out. It’s pretty fun as you wouldn’t be able to drive there if you weren’t staying inside the city walls, authorised cars only, that’s us baby! We then head to the national park of Cazorla. As we arrive It’s visual splendour. Impressive mountains and olives galore. We get an abundance of food to celebrate Stus 40th as we have our second lot of guests to the 2Divs and a dog tour… Stus parents, which is just joyous. Here for the birthday celebrations. They had a nightmarish journey here thanks to Stansted airport, but with a quick re-jig they arrive and the festivities begin. Stu cooks up adapts an old ‘Abuela’ paella recipe with chicken and rabbit. We dine, catch up and quiz! Wilson is so excited to see his family and we all go to bed happy and ready for the big birthday!

We pack up this fantastic apartment and take in the surrounding views one last time. Kiss Stus parents goodbye and drive further north into sierra de Cazorla. A natural park with an abundance of wildlife. Mountains rise around a huge lake from the river Guadalquivir that we have been following since our re-entry to Spain. We stop off at a viewing point for breath taking views and then a forest area for lunch. Queue another tick in the forest book… monkey hanging. 

It’s quiet which is good as it takes me a few goes to hang on tight and get my legs up round the branch, but in flowing shorts which exposes areas that don’t have cream on! Back on the road we see little black/reddish squirrels with pointy ears. The vista is incredible. Every bend provides a new angle of this mammouth lake. We turn one corner and a huge waterfall is crashing in the distance. We pull over and follow a path trying to get to the water seeing deer as we go. When it runs out we go off piste through clusters of thin trees and climb over a streams to make it to the waters edge. Fortune favours the brave, and the divs! Wilson loses his mind and jumps in out of ecstasy. Stu ventures in and in the distance I can see a family of wild boar scurrying into the brush! We about turn and the heart accelerates slightly when we can’t quite find the path back, but then it becomes clear and phew, a cracking hike. We press on to our apartment. At one point we have to cross a huge damn via a one way stone bridge… as we enter it Stu suddenly jumps and says ‘I think that was a red light!’ Quick reverse to see it was indeed a red but disaster averted and breathe! We pause slightly to check the map when we are taken on to a single, dirt track dotted with cracks and potholes for 12 minutes, but yep that’s where we live! It’s REMOTE! So glad we have left over food so we cook up a storm and prepare our own little table for 2 in the wild flower out back. A 360 degree view of miles of greenery, mountains and blue sky with not a house in sight. It’s sensationally quiet with the prominent sound being figs occasionally dropping from the trees! We decide to see if we can venture to the lake from here but there seems to be a dog checkpoint. 2 dogs snarl and growl in the road at us and we decide we don’t fancy a dog fight tonight! So we venture into a mix of cultivated olive trees and wild land until we are beaten by the edge of a ravine and fading light. We head back and watch the stars as there is zero light pollution and it’s magical. 

Bed.

First thing we head to the supermarket for breakfast and milk. It’s like a factory outlet meets cosco slash lidl! You can get a wild collection of items but not necessarily any bread! Stu has the idea to go to Alcalá del Júcar. It’s a triumph and a top recommendation. An adorbale town with buildings on each others shoulders all the way up the cliff side with a castle at the top. First we work out the Parking. It takes about 3 different groups scratching their heads and I stand back admiring the pay machine as it is solar powered and I thought how often that would not work in England! You wouldn’t have to pay from September to April!

We walk the town which also has a tiny beach where we view huge paddle boards with big groups of 10 all balanced aboard, that’s a bold team building exercise! We follow a path that has a river one side and presumably the old moat the other side. We head into the higgledy piggledy streets going up up up. It’s siesta time so it’s lovely and quiet with only the chimes of the out of tune bells with their occasional jaunty tolling. It’s steep and so quaint and the view of the town below when we reach the castle is just perfect. We Wiggle back down and notice how everyone has quad bikes or mopeds parked outside their houses. I get it, you definitely wouldn’t wanna walk that too many times in a day! We head back down and picnic by the car! Then on to Valencia. We decide to get petrol first and in Spain they fill up at the pumps for you and the guy went to put in diesel until stu shouted NO! Close call. We arrive and our apartment is fantastic. It’s in a reasonably dirty section that’s quite smelly but the apartment is great! It’s like an old lock up that’s been converted with big high ceilings and classy interior. It’s a 5 minute walk to the tram link to the city centre and we spend about 30 minutes trying to work out how to get a ticket!! Then a lovely couple who speak English come and assist us. So then we go to get on and the guard says ‘no dogs’! We ask if we can get a refund of the 10 euros we just spent and he says we can but at the main office. We ask where that is, and he says in the city centre! We point at the dog and say but we can’t get to the city centre and he shrugs and says ‘yes’. It’s a real catch 22 moment! I find The people who had helped us and give them the tickets! We change tactic and head to the port and the beach for dinner, but the place we googled is no dogs allowed! It’s not going well for Wilson here! But then we find a treat of a place and have great traditional paella Valenciana. Huge dish for the 2 of us but we smash it and walk home with belly’s stretched to capacity! 

This trip feels like  a multitude of experiences. Sometimes it feels like pure unadulterated holiday. Other times, like we are contestants on race across the world! And some points full blown challenge Annika! Today… is a Holiday Day! It’s an early, calm start to the day. Im intrigued to see the different set ups around the camp site. People have brought giant satellite dishes with them and with a naughty peer through one window, I see 2 mature folks, each on separate giant computers, with a colossal wide screen TV in the background! People love their gadgets. It’s surprisingly quiet. I guess it’s not school holidays so the clientele is on the older side so more Sun seeking, chair sitting and afternoon drinking people. I like their style! Me and Wilson do some yoga whilst Stu goes in the sea. Upon his return he says ‘you simply must go, immediately’ so I take the instruction, immediately!! He’s right, it’s just beautiful and anyone who’s injured or has aches and pains will understand that pure joy of cold, supportive water making you feel fit as a fiddle. We cook some camp scran and then let Wilson have his turn in the sea. He hasn’t chased a ball for a month and so we release one into the sea and he joyfully collects. He would be happy to repeat this action, I believe, until he collapsed and died! So after 10 to 15 throws We hide the ball so he won’t swim himself into an early grave. We walk through the big 2 day boules event thats happening! It’s Heaving. The focus is palpable and the adjudicating vague! I really want to know what the winning team gets but a stomach growl gets my attention and we pop to a beach Restaurant. Some French people arrive and asks the Spanish waiter if he speaks French… he replies ‘a little, I can say Bonjour and oo la la!’ We all laugh! After a mountain of patatas bravas we head to the sea and it’s swimming for all three. We are dining at ‘chez tent’ tonight so go to get provisions. I think I’ve seen the biggest dog known to man. It was in fact a wild boar from the mountains, come to eat all the baguettes left on the floor near a bin. We cook and eat just as it’s turning dark and use our torches to read our books, a perfect Holiday day!