We like Spain … longest stay at one place … lovely and lonely places … water and sun … a meeting with a calf … a fish stole our fishing root!
From Chulilla were we had some great climbing and a nice water pool we went to El Saler, a place at the sea side, close to Valencia. There we visited Fabio, a Sicilian friend who settled in this very active and bubbly city. Fabio is a very enthusiastic climber, so we met for a boulder session in the bunker and afterwards he showed us around. We were impressed by the city. We spent time in the Rio Secco; an old dry river bed, done as an immense huge park. It is kilometres long with all kind of activities e.g. skate, mini golf, there is arts and also a bridge were you can boulder…The Spanish people use it also as a big outdoor fitness centre, doing yoga, jogging maybe a bit funny and wired at the same time watching them ;)
We also had a look at the campus of the university there are two nice boulders and a lot of passionate and good climbers, too. The atmosphere was great and we also did some bouldering there.
Davids mum who is a sculptor, made in 1998 a very beautiful stone bank in the Rio Secco! The datum made it not easy to find. The city changed but after a huge search David finally found it and could have a seat at the bank! It felt for him like searching for old family roots; asking everybody if he/ she knew anything and step by step coming closer to it.
In Valencia we were also searching for a good shoe maker for our used climbing shoes. Finally we got an address of a brilliant shoe maker close to Villena and so we decided to go there. It was not so easy to find the little town. We arrived quite late and the next day we called Toni- the shoe maker. Having breakfast his son surprisingly arrived and so we could give him directly our shoes. He was very kind and we also got some tasty honey and own eggs… during these days there was a hot wind coming from Morocco which made the temperature raising and raising. So we were just thinking about how to refresh ourselves- doing sports was unthinkable and staying in the bus unbearable (40 degrees). We got a perfect address of the tourist info and directly went there. Pou Clar a very beautiful place with several rock pools filled with cold mountain water. Just perfect! Jumping in you could hardly breathe, but a great way to cool down. It was so hot that David decided to sleep outside of the bus. Two days later while David was fishing somebody called “David!” and we could not believe our eyes, it was Toni the shoe maker. He searched for two Germans with a red bus and somehow he found us 30 kilometres away. Just incredible. He brought us our shoes which were already done, they looked like new.
We decided to go climbing immediately. But our plans were a bit crossed by not finding the wall. We were walking up and up, not knowing that we already passed by the rock more than 3 kilometres before… but it was not the first time and for sure won’t be the last! Finally we found it, chatted with some nice Spanish guys who also showed us a nice spot for climbing…
In the evening we cycled to Bocairent to Villa Carmen and this was a very unforeseen but great decision which was followed by an amazing time. Rogier a Dutch guy with an old hippie Volvo full with flowers saw our bus with Dutch license number. He pinned a flyer of their beautiful camping on our bus and after a little talk he left. David and me couldn’t forget him and we were wondering if we might work a bit at their place. There we met the whole family Nynke the wife of Rogier and her parents Frances and Harrie. The first impression was great , a little quiet camping in the middle of the nature with an awesome view to Bocairent. They allowed us to stay and so we ended up there for over one month.
In the area are lots of hiking paths and with David and the dogs we went to the Sierra Mariola and another time to Moncabrer. This is the highest point of the region Valencia with a nice view. We slept there totally alone on the top in our tent between lots of savage goats.It was an awesome hike and day. I did not have to prepare anything because it was my pre- birthday present. In David´s HEAVY backbag were lots of nice surprises- a huge Leffe and red wine, Spanish dictionary and overall he build an lightweight oven- similar to Omnia camping oven- were we can make our own bread, quiche, cake etc. For dinner he prepared one of my favourite recipes of my grandmother: Buckwheat with cottage cheese. We also had cake and self-made bread. It was just incredible what David did! Thanks a lot for this unforgettable birthday. In the evening when we came back we also had a very nice dinner with the whole family of Villa Carmen.
During our stay at Villa Carmen also David´s sister, friend and children visited us! We had a great time with them, went climbing, hiking and swimming. Great to see you on our trip!
We want to thank the whole family: Frances and Harry, Nynke and Rogier and the kids for your hospitality, nice evenings, “defileren in het dorp”, and TODO. Our heart is filled with nice feelings and good memories and the bus with lots of tasty things. Thanks and take care!! Also thanks to Miguel, the gardener for the tasty onions and potatoes.
If you are around Valencia/ Alicante searching for an awesome place to stay we can just advice Villa Carmen in Bocairent!!
It was hard to leave but we had the feeling moving on also our bus needed the new periodical car control … therefore we went after an emotional goodbye to Alicante. We were a bit excited, not understanding very well what the people were examining but luckily the bus was ok and we could go on. We stayed at the seaside close to Alicante had a swim in the sea and the next evening we drove to a very beautiful natural park called “Sierra de Segura”.
Actually we go south-west, direction Algarve in south Portugal. We don’t drive strait because Andalusia is too beautiful, there is so much water here, and it’s hot! We are looking for some lakes on the map and then we search for a great spot to stay for some days. Fishing, swimming, cleaning the trash of other people and building stuff with what we find- kork and bamboe are very beautiful... It can happen that we are sitting silently next to each other creating nice thinks…
The trash people leave is of course annoying and disgusting because its ugly and animals eat this shit. There are places where you can fill a whole container in 30 min! Once we met a guy, he observed us how we cleaned a spot in the nature. He explained us his vision, which I don’t forget: when we see a nice place in the forest or at a lake and there is trash the most of the people will think: what a shame. Some of them would clean it up, some of them will ignore it and some of them would add their trash. He was convinced that adding your trash is the solution; we should throw all the plastic everywhere- like making a revolution until the factories are going to stop producing this amount of plastic. If you buy stuff in the supermarket everything is packed in plastic and they ask you if you need another plastic bag. Until now a lot of times there is not enough awareness of the single person nor of the big industries...
The guy was very thankful, that we cleaned the place… but his view is true, when the trash collection strikes we get huge problems; Marseille, Neapel....! Usually you do not see were all the trash will end up but it is not everywhere like this. Trash is transported to Africa or pollutes the ocean etc... So don’t forget, when you clean up a place its fine for the nature and for other visitors but by this way we hide a global problem.
In the end two funny but a also a sad story:
We drove at night to a lake, it was a 30 km off-road dirt track. We passed several of this iron bars on the road, to stop animals (in Dutch: viehrooster). We arrived at another one, but there was a sweet calf lying on it. It looked like lying but actually it was fallen in and his legs where hanging between the bars. Beate just said: David help me we are going to carry out this poor calf, I had the same idea. The moment when we stepped out of the bus the calf got nervous and tried to escape. It looked really bad but after 5 seconds the calf was out and running in my direction, strait where I was standing and we crashed together. My first idea was fuck this is a torero calf. The calf escaped with three legs because the other one was spaghetti, it was late and we couldn’t find the farmer…
The second story happened while fishing. There were nice and big fishes in that lake. We put two fishing rods in the water, I was absent and Beate was talking at the phone, suddenly she shout "shit the rod is gone"?! A fish cought the hook and swam away with our fishing rod. I jumped into the water but I was too late. We had a last eye contact and then the fish swam away.... Sorry fish!
Hasta la proxima