Slow Camper : The Ugly Side of Spain

We loved our few days by the Med and even had a swim in the sea. Anyway we left just before the rain, waving goodbye to our lovely neighbours to head down the Med coast and then inland

Lawrence swims in the Med

Swimming in the Med

We knew by reputation that Benidorm would be nasty, but we really had no idea. It was truly awful and we were happy to just sit on the motorway and sail past into Alicante. We are accustomed to donning our tourist blinkers coming into any large city, it is to be expected as industrial sprawl is a fact of life, HOWEVER, we have never seen anything like this. It was enough to make one weep. Sadly this ugly sprawl has completely engulfed Murcia – the town we were heading for. We kept driving on to Lorca – a hill town. The air pollution was so bad we could hardly see the hill, let alone the town.

We kept driving, so grim.

We finally left the motorway and crossed the border into Andalucia and suddenly we were in beautiful Spain again. Harsh and dry, but beautiful to us.

We found our way into Guadix, a troglodyte town, with intention of staying in a Cave Hotel. There was nowhere for us to camp, so we thought this would be a fun option. EXCEPT, we couldn’t find the damned place. Crawling around narrow, nameless, winding streets past cave houses, in Boris, is no fun so we gave up. We followed signs to another Cave Hotel to find it was closed with no sign of opening until maybe 9pm.

We kept driving.

We ended up so close to Granada that we thought we’d just head up to a fave campsite near Guejar-Sierra. So after 500 kms and a very long day, we camped in the Sierra and had a fine meal at the campsite restaurant.

We spent a lazy day in Granada

We stayed 2 days and enjoyed being in the mountains, with warm weather. (Hi Sharon and Mike – sorry we didn’t get to say goodbye – drop me a line – boris@slowcamper.com)

Next stop Sevilla for a night and then down to El Puerto de Santa Maria – again. This is our favourite winter bolt-hole and we loved getting back there. The receptionist gave me a big hug and we had a good catch up – she is a delight.

Setting up House

First few days were warm and sunny but as I write the rain is bucketing down. We’ve had a massive thunderstorm with squalls all night. This will last 3 days, but it’s raining everywhere so there’s nowhere to go. So we’ve become weather website junkies again and will literally go where the weather dictates. So who knows where we’ll end up??

On Tuesday we were lucky enough to dog-sit a beautiful golden retriever called Sophie. She spent most of the day on cat watch, desperately trying to make friends (?) with the black cat next door.