11/2003 - Twitching and Killer Katerpillars
11th February 2004 - Costa Blanca, Spain
¡Hola Amigos!
Project Nomad heads South from Benicassim, through the stunning almond blossom and citrus groves. It really is a lovely time of year here. So skirting round Castellon, Sagunto and Valencia (promising ourselves a proper trip into Valencia on another occasion) we continue down into the sea mist. Yes, for a change the sun has deserted us and we watch the hills lurking mysteriously in the mist around us.
Moraira, our destination, sits on a kind of elbowette of land sticking into the sea. [That's a Jeni-esque technical term, I believe. You might be more familiar with the term 'peninsula'! - D.] Coming down the coast to the west there are beautiful terraced hills and vallleys covered in almond trees, a delight of pink and white blossom - a popular area for trips simply to see this gorgeous scenery. We allowed ourselves a bit of a meander around here (nothing whatever to do with dodgy map-reading, honestly!), though some of the twisty-turny-all-abouty roads were getting thrilling in the Lorry, it must be said!
So eventually we came the long way round to Moraira, through Calpe, with its landmark Penon d'Ilfach, a huge shark-like rock, looming up to 330 metres. It had a particularly dramatic quality in the misty conditions, with a crown of cloud at the top. Our locally-obtained guidebook tells us that it is joined to the mainland by a narrow isthmus and is noted for its 'autochthonous rock plant life, some of which is unique to this area'. Was it that we didn't do the right subjects at school or is this translation just slightly off? Botanists and geologists, please enlighten - we genuinely don't know! This peninsula, which higher up the elbow includes Javea, Denia, and between them the impressive 750 metre high Montgo massif, affords some stunning coastal views.
As a result there has been quite a lot of new development on the hillsides overlooking the sea. It's all very sympathetically done, almost exclusively individual villas in their own grounds, mostly well spaced out and built in local styles. We realised when we got to Moraira, though, that it's the kind of territory where everything is in four languages - Spanish, German, Dutch and English, in that order - and the supermarkets cater to a wider, permanent, international ex-pat community. We started to get suspicious when the Lorry's radio automatically re-tuned itself to an English-speaking international station beamed out of nearby Altea. The American-accented chat-show host was conducting an interview about the benefits of yoga with someone who was clearly reading, in an embarrassingly wooden way, from a script, and then - nearly breathless with excitement - the host promised us, later in the show, a recipe for pressure-cooker marmalade. Suffice to say we didn't hang around on that wavelength!
Moraira itself seems to have evolved catering for the international community, and there's at least one estate agent, solicitor and accountant on every other block specialising in the wider European market. The seafront, beach and harbour are lovely and we had a fine wander, but we could tell that we're getting into rich-ville in this sort of area. The town currently has just two high(ish) rise blocks, which are due to be demolished because they are so out of keeping with the rest of the area, and there is now a ban on anything over five floors. A couple of (rather hilly!) golf courses around as well. So any of you who've come into a few bob and fancy a villa in the sun, in an area where you would be safe if you had an unscheduled Branston pickle or knackwurst emergency (though not a Shreddies emergency, Dave noted), you could do worse than this! But not prime Grey Nomad country, other than the beautiful rocky coastal views - we'll stick to the lovely hills and valleys on the other side of the tracks, maybe.
We'd decided to use Moraira as our next stopping point partly to have another meet-up with previously encountered folk. So it was Dave and Pat (of near-Eastbourne fame - remember them from a few Bulletins ago?) who we caught up with this time. They'd pitched up in a little Camping on a hill behind the town.
It was a steeply sloping site, so the pitches were carved out into terraces, and as we'd parked up close to Dave and Pat at the bottom, sunnier, end it was a bit of a climb up to the facilities at the top. The showers and loos were extremely classy, constructed as they were from great slabs of real marble - deep triangular trough-like sinks in the corners. Mmm, moderne! Stylish, but frankly not terribly practical. As a water-conservation measure, all the taps were the push-on types that you often get in swimming pool showers - push on, wave yourself wildly under the flow (or trickle) before it goes off again, you know the sort?! The trouble was, these push-on taps just went off again as soon as you stopped pressing them, with a great graunching sound as the tap-top grated against its cute little marble inset. Challenging, especially on the hair-rinsing stage!
The other quirk of the site was that we were encouraged to keep a careful eye on the trees and bushes around our Camping Car. If we spotted foamy cocoons amongst the foliage we were to immediately alert the site management, who would call in the fire brigade. Apparently, therein would lurk Killer Katerpillars, and they had to be hosed out of the trees before their growth advanced further. These monsters could kill a dog or sheep with their poisonous bite. (Happily, not too many wandering sheep around the site, but we feared for the several hardy campers who were in tents - they might have woken to find themselves sharing a sleeping bag with more just their bedsocks!) If the caterpillar stage is that dangerous, goodness only knows what they hatch into! Despite extensive searches of the bushes, I think we were both a bit disappointed not to spot any of the ravening beasts - Dave was working up to effect a courageous rescue of a trembling, vulnerable poocher!
While we're on the natural history trail, it reminds us to thank Rohan for the bit of info that explained the (fluffy, friendly, harmless) Caterpillar Congo at the Vilanova site. She tells us that caterpillars use this formation to fool birds into thinking they're really a snake, thus reducing the likelihood of Beak Attack. (So all they need to work on now, in their evolution, is lessening their chances of death by Camping Car tyres - warp factor 6 legs perhaps?!)
We spent a couple of sociable sessions with Dave and Pat over the two days we were at Kamping Killer Katerpillar, Moraira. They have been 'full-timing' in their motorhome for about as long as we have. Funny, sitting there talking about the new Polegate (near Eastbourne) roundabout (as you do for a couple of nano-seconds before going onto much more interesting topics!) and, not surprisingly, finding out we had friends in common, they had hired vans from Dave's ex-brother-in-law etc. etc. But promise you, most of the conversation was much more riveting, especially travel tales and recommendations. Lucky for them they don't have time constraints and are thinking of heading over to Morocco with some other folk they met recently. See? The world's yer lobster when you do this sort of thing (which is why, when we were putting our pennies by for this adventure, we opened an account called 'Proyecta Langosta' - Project Lobster!). (And if any generous benefactors need the account details for deposits, we'd be happy to oblige - it is in need of a top-up already!!)
So off went Dave and Pat towards Cartagena, and off we went heading for Guardamar del Segura (exactly the same direction, as the smart among you will have realised - just that they were heading further down!).
Coming off the peninsula, the road is very twisty-turny round the rocky coastline, quite dramatic. That brought us round to Altea, which is a really attractive place on a different planet to its near-neighbour, Benidorm. Despite some (perhaps inevitable) gentrification, Altea still has very lovely whitewashed old town and fishing port areas and is pleasant place to visit. We did, however, hit a strange phenomenon going through the town - a bit of a traffic jam. Not many of those since we left Dover last year!
We took the by-pass round Benidorm, tempting as it was to have a look. We're probably being outrageously snobby (yes) as we're told it has a magnificent shoreline and at this time of year it's more Saga-louts than lager-louts marauding along the Passeo Maritimo. From the by-pass it certainly is a mass of high rise blocks, some of which are architecturally very stylish, but lots of which are concrete boxes from that distance. As we did have a date further South and no-where booked to stay, we decided not to do the detour this time! Just a bit further on, the perkily-named Villajoyosa is also worth a mention (and a look) containing as it does a series of brightly coloured, tall houses and some lovely old streets.
South of Alicante and Santa Pola, we travelled through one of the salt flats areas, of which there are a number in this region and all of which are designated nature reserves. They are Twitchers' Heaven - positively bursting with bird life and even in our brief visit we saw magnificent flamingos, cormorants and at least half a dozen other large sea birds we couldn't identify. (Quite a few seagulls too, as you might imagine, and we're sure we saw that bugger from Eastbourne who used to make a mess on the neighbour's car.)
Of great importance to migratory birds, these marshy areas integrate traditional economic activity (salt manufacturing) and the preservation of wetland bird habitat areas. Reading straight from our guidebook (couldn't you tell?!) we see also that 'these lagoons are used as nesting sites and wintering areas for over 100 species of waterbirds'. So it's not just the Saga Louts and Grey Nomads who appreciate the area, eh?!
After a bit of faffing round looking at different sites, we managed to squeeze into the one of only two empty pitches on a large site between Guardamar and La Marina. Knowing that we had friends coming to meet up with us, we wanted to set up somewhere that was easily found. What we perhaps didn't realise at the time was the site's situation on the most magnificent coastline. An excursionary cycle down the narrow road next to the site took us into miles of pine woods, which then gave way to a great wide band of dunes and thus down onto sandy beach as far as the eye could see in both directions. Wow! That's one of the many fantastic things about this country - the sheer variety of nature, of human-kind, of architecture, of culture, of food ... [of Campings?!?]
So we were well pleased with our Camping-find and ready to meet up with Alfredo and Shirley when they came to pick us up the next day. Jeni and Shirley first met in Hove (Actually) some years ago. Shirley was Jeni's district nurse for a while after she was discharged from hospital with some follow-up ministrations needed. Said daily ministrations could generally be pared down to about 10 minutes, and they would then spend the next half hour or more sitting out on the balcony gossiping - Dave thinks mainly about their respective sex lives, but Jeni insists the conversation was more eclectic. Anyroadup, Our Shirl ran off with a Spanish head-waiter who was working in a local restaurant, and a little while later they came back to Spain. (Sorry, it's a bit less piquant really, as both Shirley and Alfredo were free to form a relationship - nothing so saucy as an illicit elopement!). Alfredo is originally from Madrid although they live in Torrevieja now, and it was there they took us to see their house and go out for lunch.
As you might expect of someone who spent his working life around food and restaurants, Alfredo - a lovely, twinkly guy with a mischievous sense of humour - took us to a great eatery down a back-street and we lunched magnificently. All for 8 Euros each - four courses including wine and bread. (That's slightly under £6 for the uninitiated!) Oh very nice! Afterwards, we wandered Torrevieja awhile and they told us how in the seven years they've been here it has expanded exponentially. The seafront has been completely remodelled and is very attractive and strollable, with a long boardwalk on top of a great finger of huge boulders jutting out into the sea.
So a very warm day, both metereologically and personally, and we were really pleased to be able to catch up with them. By the time they dropped us off at 6pm, I think we were all feeling the effects of the warmth, the large lunch, the wine and the lack of siesta. Even Jeni's resolve to have an evening swim came to naught and Dave nodded off twice over the Boggle!
On that sleepy note, we'll love you and leave you for now, and catch up with you again in a few days.
Affectionately,
Dave y Jeni
xx