Sierra Nevada transit

You don’t build a wall like this. I don’t care how much easier it might be, you don’t do it. In Spain though this seems to be the usual approach. You see walls like this everywhere but gravity takes over so quickly.

The wall in the first photo is being built now. The second one is an older wall and is what will happen to the first, quite quickly.

I had wanted to photograph some ‘bricklayers’ building a wall in a town a few days ago but the Head of Public Relations said I’d better not. A course of bricks was being laid using a line but the line wasn’t in the right place, or was it the bricks? 🤷🏻‍♂️

 

We spent a few hours at the coast, which in the early season is very quiet. This is La Herradura, a place where we once spent a nice family week at a villa. The sea was warm so a swim was easy, as was the parking. Everyone is gearing up for the holiday season which clearly hasn’t yet started.

As the temperature continues to rise we drove east towards the Sierra Nevada and to Orgiva. The only reason was to buy Higos Secos from the Alpujarras valley. We have been here twice before, staying once with Ashley at his hillside ‘farm’. This time he gave no indication of wanting visitors, in spite of happily chatting on WhatsApp over the years since we last came.

So we went to Orgiva but arrived during the afternoon temperature of what’s becoming a heatwave and it looked particularly run-down. Always known for its ‘relaxed’ lifestyle amongst the Northern European incomers, the few bedraggled people we saw just made it look worse. What’s more there were no dried figs!

On we drove, along the southern side of the Alpujarras valley which looked dry and bleak in a desert sort of way. There was some water in a stream and we happily drove down and paddled for a while, before moving on to Laroles and Camping Alpujarras.

Tino (or is it Timo) was very welcoming and gave me a tour of his all- year campsite. He’s been here for seven years, moving from Madrid but in my honest opinion it was probably at its peak condition when he arrived. The place is tired and untidy in a not-very-well-cared-for way.

He has a lot to do to get ready for Summer. As at all campsites we have visited, the pool is still empty in late May and it will be some time before it’s in use. 

Laroles at 1,000m and is within striking distance of the winter ski area at the top of the pass to the north (2,000m) but even here it is stiflingly hot in this late Spring heatwave.

We walked down into the sleepy village where the only action was outside one bar and also a particularly vicious Jack Russell who nearly got kicked over a wall as it wouldn’t stop running around our ankles.

In the morning we followed Timo’s suggestion and turned off the tarmac on the way up to the top (between km16 & 17) and drove a gravel track for miles around the mountain at around 1,700m. The views opened up somewhat but the heat haze was limiting. The gravel turned to sand and powder and for the first time we experienced a full-on dust cloud behind us.

I spotted a timber truck across a valley, realising he was heading for us and we luckily met him at a spot where I could pull over. It was just as well as he didn’t stop at all. It was like being in a sandstorm and we were enveloped in gravel dust.

After some time was found a view of the snow but it’s still 1,500m above us and we decided to head to tarmac.

Later that day we got a shock when the back door was opened. Most of the road had found its way in between door and seal and so everything was coated in grey dust. Everything ☹️

We drove up and over and then down the otherside. There are snow gates and snow marker poles at the road edge. Clearly they have plenty of snow. The road was narrow and not at all busy but the most surprising aspect was the drop-off on this northern side.

Later we had a prowl at a scrapyard cum seized vehicle compound. I saw one Defender from the road and then found three more, including a British registered ex-military 90 on SORN.

It is so easy to simply drive past this sort of sight and think nothing of it.

We are now moving into the most spectacular landscape, which we remember from the trip four years ago. It is the most ridiculous badlands you have ever seen  and we headed for a well publicised swimming spot on a huge reservoir.

It’s a little sad because at the car park and concrete slipway is a restaurant which is closed, a campsite which is closed and a load of notices saying please use the rubbish bins, which are all full and overflowing.

The swim was great, in warm-ish water with 38 degree air above it! We watched two proper swimmers in wetsuits and swimming caps, towing their orange markers (flotation aid?) and wondered what it would be like to ‘have a go’ properly.

Then we went in search of a wild camp. An English guy thought he was in disguise driving an old Spanish plate Mitsubishi, as he tipped something into a rubbish bin on an gravel track. He must have forgotten that he put-on a Union Jack T-shirt that morning. We soon got him talking about Meanwood and the Carr Manors in Leeds!

He suggested another track, ‘just keep driving to the end’ but after a mile or so we stopped and looked down a very steep, deeply rutted soft surface slope.

In true overlander style I walked a few hundred metres and decided that I didn’t want any dramas so we reversed to a suitable spot and turned around.

At the end of the original track we camped at the best place ever.