Travelling back up the coast - Cabo de Gata - Rodalquiler Goldmine and St Isleta



Abandon Goldmine of Rodalquilar



Cabo De Gata again (day 99)

 We liked it so much at Cabo De Gata we decided to go back – well we are meeting our parents in Alicante mid-February, so we have a chance to visit the places we missed on the way down.  First we visited a small Spainsh fishing village; La Isleta a short drive from San José, a beautiful whitewashed town with cleanswept streets and small café bars. Seemingly untouched by tourism, that mightbe because it is winter and also siesta time, we always arrive at siesta time we can’t get used to the meal times, it was very quiet. Jo spotted a wall mounted “Indalo Man”. We walked into village, it was very windy and the temperature was dropping. Back at the van, we had lunch while trying to decide if we could stay for the night (we were parked in a parc natural) we voted to move onto San Jose, just a few kilometres up the road, where we knew we could park for the night and have a few beers & tapas in the local bar, in the main square which seemed to be the best bar in town.



Indalo Man

In the region of Almería around about  60 years ago paintings were discovered in caves of Valez Blanco dating back 4500 years. It is said to be a man holding a rainbow and is said to bring good luck and ward off evil. The town of Mojacar in South West Spain is said to be it’s adopted home.  As a consequence of the discovery of the cave paintings Mojacar’s fortunes changed in the 1950’s from a virtual ghost town to a very prosperous pueblo with new beaches and hotels, which at the time of our visit was having a new underground car park being built in the centre of this historic hillside old town….durrrr??? We did stop at the Fuente (natural spring) to fill up with drinking water which tastes great (we’ve become connoisseurs of water since we started this trip, the water in Spain is good but some places it is a little strong on the chlorine & some is  desalinated).

We woke today with icicles hanging off our nose; it was seriously cold last night (-4ᵒ), we set off for Rodalquiler without ,we just wanted to put the van heater on, about 20km to the gold mine we parked up in the Eco Centre car park and had a breakfast of tortilla & toast with coffee (a typical Spanish breakfast obviously without the wine or the brandy which seems to be the norm). We then wrapped up against the cold, but bright & sunny day and set off for the goldmine, keeping our eyes to the ground just in case they'd missed one.  The abandoned goldmings are a fascinating and extremely atmospheric spot, the mines experienced a minor gold fever in the 1880's. and they reopened for a briefly in 1989, before finally closing a year later.

 

Si's really let himself go!!



A converted windmill on Cabo de Gato