To travel is a wonderful way to be alive.
As we set up at each campsite, we always wonder what it will present in the way of electricity supply. In the UK it is consistently 15amps with an earth, but in Europe it has been as low as 4amps. It has been so low that we have needed to turn off the fridge and anything else that’s running, just to boil up the kettle for a cup of tea. Rodney jiggles around with his variety of connectors, adapters and leads and usually comes up with something we’re happy with. We occasionally find that the polarity is reversed, there is often no earth and we’ve had every combination of L-N reversed, L-E reversed, no earth, no neutral and thankfully there are times when our tester says ‘OK’. Scarily, at some campsites in Europe the tester has illuminated when it wasn’t even switched on !! Needless to say, at that one, we kept our usage of electricity very low; the hairdryer stayed in the cupboard and I embraced my frizz….. Meanwhile, Rodney scratches his head and wonders how this still happens in western countries.
The drumming of raindrops on Eileen’s roof woke us both up before dawn. Four minutes later we had the full orchestra banging away above us. Not the best start to a day that turned out to be really good. At 10am on Wednesday morning we headed east, just one junction on the freeway, then nervously turned onto CV476, a small white road on my map. By the time we got to Casas de Pradas, nestled amongst the vineyards, we were playing the game of “Spot The Person’. We weren’t expecting to see anyone, we hadn’t seen anyone all morning, but we did actually spot three people on the street. Even on the scenic N322, a main road, over a distance of 15kms we only spotted three vehicles in the middle of the morning. The roads are not narrow, there are barriers, kerbing, signs and smooth tarmac, even new looking bright white painted lines, but there’s nobody using them. We’ve never even seen anyone building or working on these brilliant roads. So we have a theory. There must have been an awful lot of building going on in recent years and now there is nothing left to do, so everyone stays at home all day and nobody goes out before 5pm leaving the roads empty and the villages silent and closed.
Insects constantly immolated themselves against Eileen’s windscreen, a little disappointing after Rodney had done such a lovely job at cleaning it yesterday. Though it was probably far more ‘disappointing’ to the insects….
Our first view of Alcala del Júcar was a mesmerising vista. A most amazing snake of a road wound its way down to the bottom of the Júcar river valley and to our right, the town seemed to fall down from the plains above like a lava flow. We parked for a while at the bottom and sauntered slowly uphill, but apart from a zig-zagging maze of mostly white buildings, there was nothing more to see. The joy of the place seemed more just the vision from afar.
So after a while, we hopped back into Eileen and drove west up the amazing gorge, the Hoz de Júcar. For miles the white, cream and pink chalk cliffs twist and turn. There are numerous caves, some of which have been turned into houses and others are just storage rooms or left as empty hollows. The road twisted left, then right and sometimes we seemed to turn completely around on ourselves. Near the top we stopped for a picnic amongst the white, yellow, purple and red flowers, close to the village of Jorquera. Apparently for a brief period in the Middle Ages, the village proclaimed itself an independent state, refusing to be ruled by the crown. It’s hard to believe, as it is such a very tiny place.
From Jorquera, the drive back down the valley was just as interesting seeing it from the opposite direction and then at Casas del Cerro we headed east to Jarafuel. The roads here were even quieter, only counting three vehicles in the whole 45kms. Then again, I suppose it was now siesta time….
It took me quite a while to find a lady in an empty café at Camping Las Jaras; the reception looked like it had been locked up for years. She pointed us to a spot next to the entry barrier and charged us €20; at least the showers, at the very opposite end of the campsite, were good. As far as we could see no-one else was staying there; no-one. After a bit of a siesta ourselves, we walked down into the town of Jarafuel and up to the church and castle. Expecting to find some bars with folk having tapas and drinks, we were slightly taken aback to only meet two old ladies chatting on a doorstep, a man on a mobile phone and a few children in a playground. One bar looked like it might be open, but there was no-one in there, so we didn’t bother and ambled back to Eileen for a tasty dinner together. All alone.
