Well that’s another week flown by, I can’t even tell you how quickly the weeks go it must be an age thing hey? Summer seems to have arrived in the Spanish minds, gone are the coats and jumpers they have clung onto since October and out are the shorts and t-shirts, we expats have been in shorts since February, but the Spanish blood obviously takes a little longer to warm up!
Totana has been full of cars with loud speakers plugging the various parties for the European elections and signs adorn the roads wherever you go. Saturday was a day of reflection before the election so some peace (of the election kind) returned yesterday as no electioneering is permitted.
Forthcoming events locally include the San Javier Jazz festival. This is an internationally renowned event which takes place from June 27th until 25th July for more info the web address is www.jazz.sanjavier.es. I see Steve Winwood is on the bill. Ahh that brings back memories, of an American road trip with two friends when I was much younger, every radio station we tuned into in our oldsmobile - there was Steve Winwood, it seemed !
El Bosque to Augilon (the fang like end)
So anyway, what have we been up to this week………….we tried out a new route “La Umbria del Bosque” a circular route of 16.6km with some spectacular rock overhead for much of the route. It all started very pleasantly, after an initial climb through forest the walk was light and airy and meandered through high ground and the plateau between Morron de la Cabra (meaning ? Nose/snout of the Goat?) and the awesome rock walls of Umbria del Bosque. The track we walked was a wide open camino (bizarrely we passed a stretch that had a ‘men at work’ road sign, no evidence of men at work though! Well it was the weekend). Leaving the plateau we made our way back down to the valley to turn back towards the start point. The path then took a distinct turn for the worse. We were entering a riverbed for the final 4km………..not something that would generally concern in Spain in June, but we were warned it could be muddy! Well, it was interesting!!!!!!! Not a path I would advise people to follow, we did have to wade through pools on several occasions and fight with vegetation, including bamboo, several excursions from the riverbed to find an alternate route were abandoned but we made it, some two hours later we emerged from the riverbed and made our way home for much deserved coffee, cake and a relaxing swim in the pool. A route we will be doing again the scenery was both fantastic and impressive, but an alternative path back to the start will be an early amendment to future excursions on this route!!!!!!!!!!!!
