Safe Return Doubtful

After just 45 minutes driving from Algericas I found a good place to spend the night about 10 kilometres east of Estepona and directly on the beach. There were a couple of vans there, but plenty of room. By chance, it was a walk from the Jaipur Indian Restaurant and in the early evening I walked down the beach for a couple of kilometers to pick up a takeaway. It’s was fine, but as is usually the case in Europe, lacking in spice. 

One reason the coast was not so busy, is that it was in the middle of three storms. Cyclone Harry hit the southern Mediterranean and the Straits of Gibraltar as I was crossing. My ferry was the last of the day to come over, the rest were cancelled. Harry came off the back of Storm Ingrid, named by the Portuguese, the tail of which hot southern Spain, and it had an effect on southern England also. A day later Storm Joseph was to hit southern Spain, named by the Spanish. I caught that the following day, Tuesday and Wednesday. 

On Tuesday morning I drove for three hours or so though deteriorating weather to a section of beach just out of Roquetas del Mar. The rain and wind increased through Tuesday night, and on Wednesday morning it was wild. After sitting out a couple of hours I decided to leave, on the steep rough road up from the beach which was in effect, a river, and got onto the motorway as soon as was possible, many of the smaller roads were impassable with floods. On this occasion, inland had less effect from the storm, so I moved slowly to the town of Mula, just out of Andalucia and into Murcia. 

There is a large aire at Mula, but that was full, the motorhomes and vans had spread into the parking for the sports facilities. The storm eased mid afternoon, though it wouldn’t ease on the coast until much later. Many people had the same idea as me, those on the coast had headed inland, and those higher up into the mountains had headed lower. Mula was a popular place, over 50 vans and motorhomes there already when I arrived.

I found a place by chance, near three other British vans; remarkable, as I have seen so few British vehicles on the road. During the afternoon I got talking to the two single women in two of the vans. They had met up and were travelling together for a few days. As the daylight faded, we walked into town together and found a bar. Christine was 68, a retired mental health nurse from Norwich who spent the three winter months  travelling in the south of Europe. She had only had her van for a couple of years, and was about to leave it at Alicante airport for a couple of weeks and fly to Marrakesh and meet a friend. From Marrakesh they would do day trips around the country, and I gave her some suggestions of places to go. The other lady, Rachel, was fifteen years younger, and on an extended break from work in digital media. I asked her where she was from, and she said the Lake District, but it turned out she actually meant Kirkby Lonsdale. I know people at the school there that she knew also by chance. 

This morning I walked up to the castle that stands over Mula, built in 1520. The view was good, but the castle itself is closed after some brickwork fell from a turret last autumn almost decapitating a Swedish tourist. At the castle, by coincidence, I met the guy in the third British van, Alex, a bit older than me, travelling by himself as his wife had died last year. Though originally from Cornwall, he lived now in the Dordogne. I had hardly met a British person for four months, and now three almost at once. 

Mula was too busy for me though, and with the storms gone, for now at least, I headed on into the mountains just west of Murcia city, and the Monastery of Santa Ana (Santa Ana del Monte). It’s higher up here, about 700 metres above sea level, and has no other visitors other than one Swiss campervan lower down the huge car park; more may arrive later. The temperature is up 12 degrees today, around 22C this afternoon, but still with a strong northwesterly wind, but being higher up, it will drop cooler tonight than back down in Mula.