After a comfortably warm night's sleep and breakfast, I made the half hour walk down into the centre of town to the church charity shop to celebrate the Eucharist at 9.30am for seven people, both shop workers regulars and visitors - two newcomers - who turned up. It's a well established pastoral point of contact with English speakers who either live locally or take holidays here. We celebrated St Barnabas a day late, and afterwards a few of us drank coffee together at Rosie's bar next door.
I walked home in a more leisurely way than I'd walked down, making several attempts to capture images of the hundreds of swifts and swallows which hunt for food relentlessly in the air day by day. I caught some remarkable images of them in a street two years ago. Here's one of the best.
This is one of this morning's better efforts. Will I improve on it with practice, I wonder?
I'm still getting used to a new camera, which doesn't have a separate viewfinder. Its display screen doesn't perform well in bright light - unless I haven't yet found out how to adjust some hidden setting.
After lunch and a rather wakeful siesta, which ended looking at a local map, I went out to see if I could find the path down to the Chillar river valley floor which is on the far side of urbanizacion Almihara 1, but not signposted. There's actually a proper road leading down to a river ford and to the un-metalled track which runs up the valley. It provides access to the several orchards, market gardens and stabling compounds along the sides of the river. The steep ravine separating urbanizacion I & II contains several caves. One of them, high up has been transformed into a dwelling with a terrace, and there's another one further up river right underneath the autovia del Mediterraneo viaduct where it spans a steep gorge. I can't imagine living with the traffic noise there 24/7.
I followed the river valley inland, and after half an hour's walk came to some neglected and abandoned buildings with a large panel in front of them announcing this to be the Parque natural Sierras de Tejeda, Almijara and Alhama, telling you all the things you were not allowed to do therein, warning of the risk of fire, but giving no other information about the features of interest in this limestone river valley.
From here on it was necessary to walk in the wide river bed, and eventually it was impossible not to get walk in the river shallows and get wet feet.
The water proved pleasantly luke-warm and I pressed on, walking for another half hour until I came to a three metre waterfall, close to which hummed a hydro-electric power generation plant.
At this time I turned for home, having seen dozens of young people walking back down river, it was clear they'd started earlier during siesta and were heading back to spend an evening in town.
When I got back to the entrance area of the Parque natural, a young man, bronzed and long haired, was sitting on the back ledge of a small van with the doors open playing the guitar and singing, with only his German Shepherd dog for an audience. He stopped, smiled and greeted me, and asked first in Spanish with an accent I couldn't penetrate, and then in English, if I was the last walker out, and would I like to buy a drink from his picnic chill box. How enterprising I thought, out here in the back of beyond. I didn't want to stop and chat however, as I'd set my heart on getting back in time to listen to the Archers on digital TV. My little stroll turned into a delightful three hour trek up-river through forest, past bamboo groves, with majestic plane and pine trees. I'm pretty sure I saw a yellow wagtail, and a pair bullfinches, though I must check the colours and markings to be sure.
I walked home in a more leisurely way than I'd walked down, making several attempts to capture images of the hundreds of swifts and swallows which hunt for food relentlessly in the air day by day. I caught some remarkable images of them in a street two years ago. Here's one of the best.
After lunch and a rather wakeful siesta, which ended looking at a local map, I went out to see if I could find the path down to the Chillar river valley floor which is on the far side of urbanizacion Almihara 1, but not signposted. There's actually a proper road leading down to a river ford and to the un-metalled track which runs up the valley. It provides access to the several orchards, market gardens and stabling compounds along the sides of the river. The steep ravine separating urbanizacion I & II contains several caves. One of them, high up has been transformed into a dwelling with a terrace, and there's another one further up river right underneath the autovia del Mediterraneo viaduct where it spans a steep gorge. I can't imagine living with the traffic noise there 24/7.
I followed the river valley inland, and after half an hour's walk came to some neglected and abandoned buildings with a large panel in front of them announcing this to be the Parque natural Sierras de Tejeda, Almijara and Alhama, telling you all the things you were not allowed to do therein, warning of the risk of fire, but giving no other information about the features of interest in this limestone river valley.
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