Closing his laptop and looking up at me Javier whispered, "Well Luey, let's go to Africa."
We were leaving much later in the day than we had hoped. It was late in the evening, the sun was setting, and we still had to take some things to the car. Our plan was to drive a couple hours south to Las Tablas de Daimiel. We were going to arrive late.
Our start was not smooth. Not even outside the metropolitan area of Madrid, we had to stop. The brakes on the landy were binding, so I had to readjust them. Although I had driven the rig around the city after finishing with the brakes, the issue was not noticable until we reached higher speeds for longer periods of time. This would be only the beginning of the issues we would face with the brakes over the next days. An issue I continue with now.
Our progress was slow, and by the time we neared Daimiel, it was far too late to stay with the couchhosts we had contacted. Since we wouldn't have a bed anyway, we altered our route to go visit the windmills of Campo de Criptana.
We woke up at sunrise and aimed our lances, like Don Quijote and his companion Sancho, straight at the windmills.
It was a short detour, and after our fill of galoping around the giants we made our way back towards Daimiel.
Daimiel is famous for its bird life. There are over 200 species of birds that reside in the park over the course of the year. Because we had taken a detour to the windmills, we were not in the park for sunrise - naturally the best time to see birds - but it was still a fun walk.
The park is an interesting combination of bone dry hill tops (ready to catch fire at any moment) surrounded by marshes thick with reeds and cattails.
The next destination was further south: the Sierra de Cazorla. In 2011 we visited this park and had an awful experience hitchhiking. Trying to reach La Torre de Vinagre, we hitchhiked for four hot unsuccessful hours. Nobody would even think of picking us up. We were desperate and depressed, praying each time a car came by that it would stop. Ultimately we gave up. We wrote a sign and left it by the side of the road expressing our anger with the situation. What was even sadder is that when decided to just hitchhike OUT of the park, we were immediately picked up.
This time there would be no hitchhiking for us. In my mind I told myself we would gladly take any hitchhiker we saw, but there were none to be found.
It took a long time for us to get to the park. We wound our way through non-stop olive groves and villages devoid of people in the afternoon heat. The ting about Jaen is that it is basically endless olive groves. In one sense it is very asthetically pleasing: bright red soils under perfectly aligned olives. It is also a little devastating to see. Bare soil scraped clean of any plants and an endless monoculture for as far as the eye can see.
We arrived near the northern end of the park and began to make our way down the reservoir towards Cazorla. It was clear to us that we would not be making it to our second host's house in Jaen; it was just too far. This would be the case for the rest of our time in Spain. Any hosts that did accept, we would not get to stay with. All our nights were spent in the car (fairly comfortable actually, and we got to try out our solar shower!).
Parking at the Torre de Vinagre, we settled in early. The day was totally exhausting. Our dinner was a can of sardines, some very dry bread, over-ripe bananas, and some carrots. It was actually delicious.
The next morning we hiked along the trailhead to a steep canyon. It was about three kilometers to this area. We would have liked to go further to the waterfall at the end of the trail, but I was not feeling well (too much sun?) and it would take several hours to do so. We thought it was best to take it easy, and get moving out of the park.
We arrived in the evening to Jaen, stopping briefly in the village where Javier's grandfather was born. Our evening in Jaen was composed of sitting at a gas station using free wifi and sleeping in the car in the alley behind. I got a bunch of hell from a couple of guys when I started up my stove to cook us dinner. They were convinced that the fire from my stove would set the gas station ablaze. I really was nowhere near the pumps. Sleeping there really wasn't bad, but it was a bit dissapointing that neither of the hosts we were supposed to stay with the night before could help us. It was what it was.
Our arrival to Jaen began our search for some medications we were unable to get before leaving Madrid. This was rather stressful for us, because those medications were vaccines. (Yes we should have gotten them earlier). Thanks to the help of Javier's mother (La Santa Maria!), we were able to get them the next day in Jaen and Marbella.
Because of the need to get the vaccines, we headed towards the coast through Malaga. Originally, we were planning on going straight to Ronda, and then heading towards Doñana.
We did go to Ronda, but when we arrived we discovered that Doñana was not a possibility. We would have needed to drive back north to Sevilla. This was not a good option, since we needed to keep moving towards Morocco.
Ronda is a beautiful town. The most famous part is its Puente Nuevo. This bridge spans a deep gorge between the newer town and the old citadel.
We walked around the city for a while, and then continued to Grazalema. The road to Grazalema wound through a dense cork oak forest. They had recently harvested cork from many of the trees.
Grazalema is a city nestled on an enormous Medievel wall. It is a simple village. White walls, colorful flowers, and quiet streets in the afternoon heat.
By going to Grazalema (and later through El Bosque) we extended our adventures later in the afternoon than expected. Our plans were to get a ferry to Morocco in the evening, but we knew we would never make it. We decided to just relax, get to the port when we could, and write to our American host in Tanger before going to bed.
There are two ports to Tanger: Algeciras and Tarifa. To us it made more sense to go to Tarifa. The prices were lower, the length of the ride was cut in half, and the destination port was actually in the city of Tanger (compared to 50km outside).
Arriving in Tarifa, we searched for internet in vain. Our host would have to go unnotified (a fact he was very understanding of). We settled in for the night in a quiet corner of town.
The next morning we put a letter in the mail, bought some final medications for Javier, and got on the boat to Morocco.
Off to Africa!!
We were leaving much later in the day than we had hoped. It was late in the evening, the sun was setting, and we still had to take some things to the car. Our plan was to drive a couple hours south to Las Tablas de Daimiel. We were going to arrive late.
Our start was not smooth. Not even outside the metropolitan area of Madrid, we had to stop. The brakes on the landy were binding, so I had to readjust them. Although I had driven the rig around the city after finishing with the brakes, the issue was not noticable until we reached higher speeds for longer periods of time. This would be only the beginning of the issues we would face with the brakes over the next days. An issue I continue with now.
Our progress was slow, and by the time we neared Daimiel, it was far too late to stay with the couchhosts we had contacted. Since we wouldn't have a bed anyway, we altered our route to go visit the windmills of Campo de Criptana.
We woke up at sunrise and aimed our lances, like Don Quijote and his companion Sancho, straight at the windmills.
It was a short detour, and after our fill of galoping around the giants we made our way back towards Daimiel.
Daimiel is famous for its bird life. There are over 200 species of birds that reside in the park over the course of the year. Because we had taken a detour to the windmills, we were not in the park for sunrise - naturally the best time to see birds - but it was still a fun walk.
The park is an interesting combination of bone dry hill tops (ready to catch fire at any moment) surrounded by marshes thick with reeds and cattails.
The next destination was further south: the Sierra de Cazorla. In 2011 we visited this park and had an awful experience hitchhiking. Trying to reach La Torre de Vinagre, we hitchhiked for four hot unsuccessful hours. Nobody would even think of picking us up. We were desperate and depressed, praying each time a car came by that it would stop. Ultimately we gave up. We wrote a sign and left it by the side of the road expressing our anger with the situation. What was even sadder is that when decided to just hitchhike OUT of the park, we were immediately picked up.
This time there would be no hitchhiking for us. In my mind I told myself we would gladly take any hitchhiker we saw, but there were none to be found.
It took a long time for us to get to the park. We wound our way through non-stop olive groves and villages devoid of people in the afternoon heat. The ting about Jaen is that it is basically endless olive groves. In one sense it is very asthetically pleasing: bright red soils under perfectly aligned olives. It is also a little devastating to see. Bare soil scraped clean of any plants and an endless monoculture for as far as the eye can see.
We arrived near the northern end of the park and began to make our way down the reservoir towards Cazorla. It was clear to us that we would not be making it to our second host's house in Jaen; it was just too far. This would be the case for the rest of our time in Spain. Any hosts that did accept, we would not get to stay with. All our nights were spent in the car (fairly comfortable actually, and we got to try out our solar shower!).
Parking at the Torre de Vinagre, we settled in early. The day was totally exhausting. Our dinner was a can of sardines, some very dry bread, over-ripe bananas, and some carrots. It was actually delicious.
The next morning we hiked along the trailhead to a steep canyon. It was about three kilometers to this area. We would have liked to go further to the waterfall at the end of the trail, but I was not feeling well (too much sun?) and it would take several hours to do so. We thought it was best to take it easy, and get moving out of the park.
We arrived in the evening to Jaen, stopping briefly in the village where Javier's grandfather was born. Our evening in Jaen was composed of sitting at a gas station using free wifi and sleeping in the car in the alley behind. I got a bunch of hell from a couple of guys when I started up my stove to cook us dinner. They were convinced that the fire from my stove would set the gas station ablaze. I really was nowhere near the pumps. Sleeping there really wasn't bad, but it was a bit dissapointing that neither of the hosts we were supposed to stay with the night before could help us. It was what it was.
Our arrival to Jaen began our search for some medications we were unable to get before leaving Madrid. This was rather stressful for us, because those medications were vaccines. (Yes we should have gotten them earlier). Thanks to the help of Javier's mother (La Santa Maria!), we were able to get them the next day in Jaen and Marbella.
Because of the need to get the vaccines, we headed towards the coast through Malaga. Originally, we were planning on going straight to Ronda, and then heading towards Doñana.
We did go to Ronda, but when we arrived we discovered that Doñana was not a possibility. We would have needed to drive back north to Sevilla. This was not a good option, since we needed to keep moving towards Morocco.
Ronda is a beautiful town. The most famous part is its Puente Nuevo. This bridge spans a deep gorge between the newer town and the old citadel.
We walked around the city for a while, and then continued to Grazalema. The road to Grazalema wound through a dense cork oak forest. They had recently harvested cork from many of the trees.
Grazalema is a city nestled on an enormous Medievel wall. It is a simple village. White walls, colorful flowers, and quiet streets in the afternoon heat.
By going to Grazalema (and later through El Bosque) we extended our adventures later in the afternoon than expected. Our plans were to get a ferry to Morocco in the evening, but we knew we would never make it. We decided to just relax, get to the port when we could, and write to our American host in Tanger before going to bed.
There are two ports to Tanger: Algeciras and Tarifa. To us it made more sense to go to Tarifa. The prices were lower, the length of the ride was cut in half, and the destination port was actually in the city of Tanger (compared to 50km outside).
Arriving in Tarifa, we searched for internet in vain. Our host would have to go unnotified (a fact he was very understanding of). We settled in for the night in a quiet corner of town.
The next morning we put a letter in the mail, bought some final medications for Javier, and got on the boat to Morocco.
Off to Africa!!
