To Andalucia

Moving south from Merida took us through all sorts of farmland from highly intensive vines to cornfields which are already turning golden.

Further north the villages through which we had passed often looked poor and somewhat dilapidated. This is a little bit unfair as one thing we have noticed is that they don’t try to present the best face to the through traffic. Often the centre is set well away and focusses on a square, as I have previously photographed.

Even so they do look sad with some roofs fallen-in and generally an untidy look. Some of this is due to the amount of old and not so old agricultural equipment left outside, which at least gives some interest!

The vineyards further south are laid over flat fields which are as big as cornfields. I assume this is very intensive farming as they still need to be sprayed. A tractor on a cornfield can hang sprayer arms across a wide area but I’m not sure about vines as they tend to be taller and the tractors themselves are taller and narrower.

It’s early season though and not much is happening.

We stopped for a coffee on the way into a town and I realised were we next to an unmanned public weighbridge. With us parked on it the machine came to life and tempted me with a €1 fee which I duly paid to discover our ‘all in weight’ of 2,560Kg.

Later we walked around another small town where the entrances have lovely doors and vestibules.

Also there’s an increasing number of orange trees around but no one seems to pick the fruit. Perhaps the fruit isn’t as tasty as it appears to be.

The deteriorating weather produced more and more cloud and inevitably thunderstorms started to roll around. We missed an intense one, just seeing the aftermath which was a lot of hail on the ground. It’s odd seeing white on the ground in May.

 As evening approached we started to look ahead for a place to stop and as we did another storm enveloped us. The ‘app’ suggested a picnic ground in a riverside setting not far from a town and so we thankfully arrived there as the rain stopped and there was only one other little motorhome there, a Spanish one.

We set up, had a meal and I even managed a shave. As it turned into dusk I noticed an official car with blue lights at the other campers. A few minutes later he came to visit us. In well practised easy Spanish with actions, blue light man asked us to leave. He explained that ‘mañana’ we could come back but not to sleep here ‘este noche’.

Where to go? He said ‘city’ and so we drove into the village but knew that the campervan parking there was not liked in the reviews. A horrible roadside place / kids try to rob you etc.  We drove there, took one look and turned around and headed for another ‘app’ suggested overnight spot. Trouble is it’s dark now and the place is a few kms away in the countryside.

We drove out of town and into the dark. At each roadside space we stopped to check it out with a torch from the window of the Landy. There was nothing until we came to a fork where a gravel road disappeared up a valley. We decided that it must be quiet up there and drove a couple of miles until quite luckily, there was a triangle of land where we managed to get level. We pushed up the roof and made a coffee.

It was totally silent except for the croaking of frogs in the stream. Nothing came past all night. Just before 8 (which feels like 5 as it’s only getting light) two vehicles came down the hill and one more a little later.

What a find in the dark!

So things were good and we had breakfast, then a wild camp wash-up of ourselves and the dishes. People continue to tell us that they do this sort of travelling yet don’t have a toilet. We are sometimes almost teased because we have one yet ‘everyone else’ digs holes. 

All I can say is that we have dug holes but you simply don’t do that here. Everywhere is someone’s land and it doesn’t seem right and proper! Into the toilet it goes and if the toilet gets full then it is decanted into the rooftop container to be emptied properly later.

The track went sort of in the right direction, so we drove it as far as the tarmac and then for about 25 miles of twists and turns and steep hills we saw about three vehicles. We were high in the hills. This is pig and cattle country with homesteads dotted around, standing out in their total whiteness.

Later we saw a goatherd and dog with this huge flock, walking it along the side of a busy road. Obviously the goats prefer to eat trees and grass rather than tarmac, so they kept out of harms way but it did provide an interesting watch.

This is an interesting sign, given the current debate in the UK around cars v cyclists. It seems that drivers have to obey certain codes on Holidays between 9am and 2pm but outside those times who knows what happens 🤷🏻‍♂️

Then an amazing sight came into view. At first we ignored it thinking it was a trick of light. Then we started to wonder and eventually succumbed to Google.

This is a solar generator near Seville. It’s a tower on which are placed two huge solar receivers and somewhere on the ground are two complex arrays of mirrors (heliostats). These maintain the correct position so that they can track the sun and direct beams of light up to the tower receptors.

According to the internet there are two systems here, the second a later development of the first.

Together they heat water to produce steam. This is used to run turbines which then generate about 75GWh of electricity per year. It isn’t particularly new technology according to what I have read but for sheer surprise and awe the tower takes some beating. It is so science-fiction it’s almost scary!