La Herradura to Motril to Almeria

What I've said about the picture below actually applies to this one!



If you zoom in a bit on this picture you will see 'just how close we came' to being stuck in snow like everyone back in England. This is the Sierra Nevada (sea on the right) and on the very top of those hills is the real white stuff, plus hairy snowboarders etc.
Whoops - no snow in this one just a nice castle - I'll put the snowy one in next (see above)!!




Ah 'my bike' and our first glimpse of snow (sort of middle left) and the sea flat calm and inviting as usual.







The rain yesterday was torrential and all the dried up river beds suddenly became raging spates washing tons of mud into the sea. In Herradura the brown stain of muddy fresh water could be seen at least 100yds out to sea.




8th to 9th January 2010
La Herradura to Motril to Almeria
The 4* hotel in La Herradura ought to have been everything we could wish for after the punishing ride from Nerja. But one should always be suspicious of extraordinarily cheap deals and the reason for this one was apparent from the moment we arrived. The revolving door had so much water pouring down through it that it had fused, there were buckets and towels all over the marble floor of the foyer, the water pressure had dropped so that only the first floor had any water and as we booked in we were at the back of a long line of guests who were all complaining!!
However we got ourselves into a room on the first floor and were staggered to find it had two single beds both larger than any of the so called double beds we had slept in, in France. Absolute bliss! But not so the dining room which was like a giant Mess, row upon row of Formica topped tables and mass catering on a scale unimaginable even to the army catering corps. We left it until about 9pm to go down for supper only to find that so had all of the other guests which wasn’t so bad in itself except that the Spanish do tend to talk a lot, at the top of their voices and are never separated from their children who they appear to be incapable of hearing and must assume that everyone is as delighted by their crying, fighting, playing football as they are. It was a bit like school dinners and we found ourselves eating terribly fast.
Having planned to stay for one night we awoke to find the rain still sheeting down and the hotel leaking worse than ever. This is obviously the other reason for it being known as the Costa de Tropical (storms). There didn’t seem much point in setting off in that and as the forecast was for the rain to continue all day we booked in for another night. A bus departed hourly from outside the hotel so rather than waste the day we caught it into Almunecar further up the coast, where there are various interesting relics including a memorial to Laurie Lee and a statue in the memory of Abderraman I, who arrived in 755 and marched to Cordoba and claimed it for the Muslims, Bagdhad and Allah. 200 years later Abderraman III made it independent from Bagdad and more recently than that the Christians arrived and converted the mosque into a cathedral – but we covered all that when we were in Cordoba. More terrifying is the local rumour that Bin Laden is threatening to take Granada over again as a first port of call in Europe, as the Muslims ran Spain for so long in the past.
We wandered in to the hotel which deals with the Saga tours and it was full of disappointed folk who had returned early from their day trip to Ronda. The weather was appalling all over Spain and the roads were too dangerous. We have often thought that we are about ready for a Saga holiday, but after an hour watching them all I now think that this was a bit premature. We had an excellent lunch elsewhere of Little fishes, big fishes and some pork and rice - again.
On our second morning we met a couple (even older than us) who every year in Jan, Feb, March spend a month in a hotel and then rent the same house for a further 6 weeks. This year the usual hotel had been fully booked when they tried to get in back in August. Poor things they had been delayed 24 hours at Liverpool airport and had arrived late in the afternoon the day before – if ever a couple looked shell shocked, breakfast was all a bit too much for them and they seemed genuinely disappointed when we told them we’d already stayed an extra night and were off!
We set off in lovely weather and were pretty content as the coast road was interesting if a bit windy and full of hills and gullies. Unfortunately it then turned in to the A7 which is the major coastal route going from North – South and there was no alternative- all roads led on to it. Despite the local drivers being amazingly courteous, it was no fun to have huge lorries thundering past continuously and not how we had envisaged our biking trip. We stopped above a bay where the Med was looking twinkly and turquoise and on the other side the Sierra Nevada were looming covered in snow. The wind was definitely coming from them as it had a real bite to it. We had a warming coffee and decided to called it a day and shot in to Motril, an industrial town with a bus depot. As we appeared a bus for Almeria was filling with people so we charmed the driver and he grudgingly let us pile the bikes in the luggage department underneath. Whilst he came to help me buy our tickets Alec had to actually get in to the luggage dept under the bus to drag them in with our panniers still attached. They were well jammed and after that we then had to hope that no one else getting on would need to get any luggage in or out. Official policy is that they do take bikes on buses but it is up to the drivers and if the bus is busy they won’t do it. Anyway we were lucky and ended up in Almeria 120 kilometers further up the coast.
The coastal route changed from beautiful bays and views, to totally flat arid countryside completely covered with polythene greenhouses. There are literally acres and acres of these as it is the major fruit growing area of tomatoes in Spain. Not attractive but the tomatoes are quite tasty. Alec muttered a lot about their being responsible for the Guernsey tomatoes going out of business. (probably correctly)
Outside there are lots of broad beans and peas flowering and fruiting. The tiny little broad beans are absolutely delicious in tapas mixed with chorizo and olive oil.
It was 7 pm and freezing cold by the time we got to Almeria and Alec was in shorts so was quite blue. We couldn’t find either a map or any helpful person to tell us where any hotels were so went round in rather a lot of circles before finding a little hostel. No sign of any others at all but needless to say the next morning everywhere we looked had an appealing hotel. However ours was fine and very cheap as the workmen were in.