Since we last met, we’ve been gallivanting around some of
our favourite parts of Spain.
We met Darren and Clare in Sevilla as planned along with
another Bimobil couple, Ginny and Al. We took our pals on a bar crawl of our
favourite watering holes in Sevilla – an easy and fun task. No shortage of
fabulous bars in Sevilla. We've tried most of them over the years.
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| Best bar in Sevilla |
Next day, we set off for Ronda, parked in a lovely campsite
and lazily spent the afternoon sitting in the sun drinking wine and playing
Scrabble. We then set off for the Sierra Nevada with the others joining us
later.
We led our mates astray again by walking into the local
village and – you guessed it – found a great bar. It was an hilarious afternoon.
Much wine, fabulous free tapas, and a group of Spanish walkers singing
‘Waltzing Matilda’.
Then we got serious, after all we had 3 off-road campers
that needed testing and some filming and publicity shots to take. We took a
brilliant road up to the base of Mulhacen, the highest mountain in Spain
(3,200m). The road was very narrow, steep and bendy. Some of the hairpins took
3 point turns to manoeuvre (Boris having the turning circle of a barge), but
the trickiest part was getting through the village. We caused some heads to
turn. You can imagine the narrow, winding streets of a Spanish hill town.
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| 3 x Bimobil |
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| Hill Town |
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| In the Snow - near Mulhacen |
From the high Sierra we went south to the Alpujarra (low
sierra) and camped near the hippy-ish town of Orgiva. We did another great road
and got loads of good footage and photos.
After saying farewell to Al and Ginny, the 4 of us headed to
the Med for some R&R (you may laugh). Happily we found a beach spot with no
karaoke, no line dancing and no bingo. 3
days of sun, seafood and cheap wine and we felt ready to tackle anything. Clare
and Darren had to return to the UK and we headed back to Sevilla (our all-time
favourite city).
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| Pretty Part of the Med |
The forecast for the weekend was so dire that we decided to
hole-up in a cheapo apartment to weather the storm – a good decision, as storm
it did. In a city that boasts some of the best bars going, we got stuck during
a rainstorm in what is probably the crummiest bar in town – oh well, it was
only for an hour.
We then did an overnighter in our favourite Pueblo Blanco, Grazalema, and did a
brilliant walk in the mountains accompanied some of the way by a herd of Ibex.
This is my favourite region in Spain – beautiful, rugged and untouched. We’ll
get back there next year for a few days walking, having sussed out a great
place to ‘wild camp’ in Boris.
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| Grazalema - OK you've seen photos of this place before - but ain't it lovely? |
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| There's Ibex in them thar Hills |
Next stop Conil, on the Atlantic coast to catch up with
Sophie, the Golden Retriever. Her Mum and Dad (Tony and Kelveen) kindly cooked us
dinner and plied us with wine - thanks!
So now we are back in El Puerto de Santa Maria (not sure why
we had to choose a place with such a long winded name – will be known as El P
from here on in). Weather has been mixed but yesterday was glorious - sunny,
warm, wonderful. Forecast is good and we’ll head to El Rocio for Xmas (the
horsey town). We’ll come back here for hopefully a month. Our mates who live in
Brittany should be here early in the new year, and will be fun catching up.
I’m planning another shopping trip to Jerez with Jan, so
much more fun to do a girls’ day without impatient men standing outside looking
at their watches.
