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I don't know where we're going, but when we get there I'll be glad

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  Today went terribly wrong. I sometimes do the googleplonk and plan the next few weeks ahead to get a sense of where I’m going. I think drink had been taken as I appear to be doing an awful lot of kilometres today and it doesn’t all quite match up.  I will need to walk a lot today, ensure I keep the phone with me to add the odd metres when stumbling round the house and bank some in the days ahead. We are walking along the road in either April 2011 or March 2025, basically following the farmers road alongside the motorway.    We won’t be turning off, down to El Contador, which is a shame as they have one of these old, communal washing areas, the Lavadero Publico. It is a true three stars. Good in itself, worth seeing but not worth going to see.  Darwader sums it up ‘ Small covered enclosure with two rows of adjacent pillars. Traditional construction. Currently closed to prevent vandalism.’ Along we go to Las Vertientes. Again, we are approaching peak rural Spain...
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Unexpected news and an old road

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  Spain has so many roads like this. Once the trucks of commerce competed for road space with the considerably fewer cars of casual motoring and petrol stations, wayside inns and convenient petrol stations. No more.  The A-92N came and took away their lifeblood.  Some parts get reinvented, some dwindle.  We are going to pass a few remnants on our way into Chirivel.  The restaurant San Luis is permanently closed.  It has three reviews. Two were from 7 years ago, one from five.  Altogether they gave an average of 3.7 stars and said two words ‘Unknown zone…’ Chirivel lived on the road and now has spread a little either side.  About 1500 live in the wider municipality.   We haven’t done this for a while but demographically it rose from 2350 in 1860, rose gently tp 3650 in 1950 and then went into a slightly sharper decline.  The place has been a PSOE strong-hold, having fallen to the PP only between 1995-1999. The present mayor is Jose Torreg...
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You better watch out

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  It has been a bit of a confusing day.  We are heading along in July 2025, then we are in 2011 - I tried to retrace steps to do a photo to show what 14 years of Andalucian sun does to a road which isn’t high on the list for repairs and maintenance and at that point the world went weird and first we lost 2011 and then 2025.  We will get to a few pictures which show Spring and Summer this year but it all felt spooky and as spooky goes it can be fitted in to these tales of terror - that is, not many.  https://peopleandculture.online/the-dark-secrets-of-andalusia-haunting-myths-and-legends One of the dark and terrible stories does fit into the cut and paste ghost theme.  The legend of La Encantada has been fitted to the Moorish fortress of  Alcazaba,which looms above the city of Almería. During the Castilian invasion, a Moorish princess threw herself from the fortress walls rather than surrender.  Ever since, her ghost appears on moonlit nights - presumab...
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The deep south

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  Today we will follow the road less travelled. It is less travelled as a zippy motorway is its constant companion.  It goes up and down, and round and round a bit before going up and down again.  It has trees and scrub and occasional work men.  It does not leave us much to but think about Andalusia. Spain sort exists, for many Brits, as Andalucía, and then, only the soggy fringe.  It is the second largest community in Spain, after the austere northern-central block of Castile Y Leon, being over 87,000 very squared kilometres, has more people living in it [8.6 million] although, to be fair, that is a product of its seize, and has the third largest GDP.   Andalusia makes up 17.3% of Spain.  It shares, with Catalonia, the joy of bordering two other counties, in this case Gibraltar and Portugal.  While the previously noted Cabo de Gata gets a mere 150mm of rain a yea r, just inland of Cadiz, you get above 2000mm. Andalucía has nine cities above ...
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A true hive of activity and community

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  We have walked thousands of kilometres. We have seen many places - some of them twice when wrong turns have been taken. Few have had such a splendid entrance for such a small settlement.  A cutting, framing the way in with importuned walls.  You get a perky little chapel, all neat and whitewashed.  Then you have a gate, with not one but three entrances - none of which are useful as they are on a roundabout - but all frame a pleasing piece of geography beyond them.  According to Google it is most used from 6pm to 10pm, much more than the morning. It is least used in 3pm.  Brigitte loved it, well, the town, and virtually ascribed the following [in German] on the Puertas de Lorca ‘An astonishing amount of culture in a town of 7000 inhabitants.’   Velez-Rubio has a history, they all do, Iberians, Romans and the like - but wiki seems to skip everything between 30,000BC [arrowheads and axes] and go straight to the fall of the Moorish realms - when the...
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