The ‘White Villages’ of Adalucia are truly beautiful and worthy of a visit even if only for a short time while passing through. Since leaving Nerja on Saturday we have travelled along the heavily developed Costa Del Sol to Marbella where we headed north into the high Sierra Bermeja to Rhonda, a beautiful white village built on very high cliffs for protection in earlier times. A spectacular arched bridge is constructed across the gorge that runs though the town…if you jumped it might be somewhat fatal. During the 30’s civil war many were tossed to their deaths, so while there are tourists aplenty, it’s a somber place, though spectacularly situated. We climbed down to the foot of the bridge…we hardy Canadians and a few others and then hiked out and up through country roads until we were back into the old Moorish part of town, where we promptly lost ourselves!
From there we cruised north-west to the small village of Zahara de la Sierra, situated just below a high, craggy rock outcrop with a defensive structure on top. After making our arrangements at a local hostela, we decided to take a ‘short’ drive to see the highly rated village of Grazalema. Well…we zigged when we should have zagged and took a very, very narrow nasty road that kept carrying us higher and higher and into a developing storm to the 1400 meter level…the road was amazing and we just couldn’t believe that it just kept going…UP!! Obviously we made it and did find Grazalema where there was a village re-enactment of an 18th century historical event during the weekend…never did figured out the story line?!
Very colorful and we had fun pretending to be locals cheering the winners of various historical categories without a clue about what they were being honored for.
Back to Zahara for the night and what a night it turned out to be! First we braved the elements and went out to the local tavern for dinner…pretty good food too! Afterwards we stood at the window of a small crowded bar to watch Real Madrid defeat a lesser football club 2-0. With each goal the locals celebrated wildly…clearly a Real following in this berg!! Then back to the hostel where we buttoned down the hatches for one of the worst fall storms in recent local memory…made the Spanish news service the next day. Being up high and facing the storm we took the brunt of the winds and torrential rains head on. So hard, that it forced water under the doors and all over the floor during the night. Annemarie was running around in the night with towels, moving our gear while…I slept!
The next morning the storm has pretty much passed and we decide to retrace our steps to Rhonda and follow a different route to the coast through the Serraia de Rhonda mountains via Gaucin and down to Gibralter. An amazing day of touring and I’m writing this that night long after Annemarie has headed off to sleep. A very long day…but a very good day!
Tonight, we arrived late into the Gibraltar area (La Linea) only to discover that the area was pretty industrial and there were few obvious hostels to be seen…none in fact! So after driving around and up the coast until almost dark Annemarie and I decided to head back up into the mountains to find a village where we knew there were accommodations. The navigator got excited at one point and told the driver to turn right on to another motor way a bit too early, but fortuitously we found ourselves in front of a hostel just off the major auto-strata. Too funny! Its a simple truck stop where the drivers eat and sleep. Very cheap and probably our best Spanish experience thus far. Dinner at 10pm as usual (don’t know how we manage this…probably why I’m still awake!). All the tables are set on one side facing the TV and the truckers eat dinner and watch whatever is playing…pretty funny to watch! Each orders a bottle of red wine with their dinner and consumes about half the bottle…cheaper than by the glass. Then its desert and smokes while they digest…pretty much the least health types you could imagine, but they seem happy to have jobs here where unemployment is north of 20% officially.
Must get some sleep. Tomorrow will be spent wandering up and down the rock that is Gibraltar, with all its history. From there up the Atlantic coast for a couple of days and then drop the car at Sevilla where we will shift gears for Morocco, which can be seen in the far distance. Will post when I can.
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