{"id":3501,"date":"2015-04-23T09:38:08","date_gmt":"2015-04-23T08:38:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/?p=3501"},"modified":"2026-05-22T09:51:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T08:51:07","slug":"is-there-anybody-out-there","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/2015\/04\/23\/is-there-anybody-out-there\/","title":{"rendered":"Is There Anybody Out There?"},"content":{"rendered":"

To travel is a wonderful way to be alive.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Camping Kikopark Rural Villargordo del Cabriel<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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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\u2019s 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\u2019re happy with. We occasionally find that the polarity is reversed, there is often no earth and we\u2019ve had every combination of L-N reversed, L-E reversed, no earth, no neutral and thankfully there are times when our tester says \u2018OK\u2019. Scarily, at some campsites in Europe the tester has illuminated when it wasn\u2019t 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\u2026.. Meanwhile, Rodney scratches his head and wonders how this still happens in western countries.<\/p>\n

\"Electrics
Electrics tester – no earth!!!!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"and
and we plug into here…..<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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\"The
The fabulous reception and cafe at Camping Kikopark Rural<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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\"The
The Embalse de Contreras next to the campsite<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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The drumming of raindrops on Eileen\u2019s 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 \u201cSpot The Person\u2019. We weren\u2019t expecting to see anyone, we hadn\u2019t 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\u2019s nobody\u00a0using them. We\u2019ve never even seen anyone building or working on these brilliant roads.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

\"The
The road down into the J\u00facar river valley<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Insects constantly immolated themselves against Eileen\u2019s windscreen, a little disappointing after Rodney had done such a lovely job at cleaning it yesterday.\u00a0 Though it was probably far more \u2018disappointing\u2019 to the insects\u2026.<\/p>\n

Our first view of Alcala del J\u00facar was a mesmerising vista. A most amazing snake of a road wound its way down to the bottom of the J\u00facar 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.<\/p>\n

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Alcala del J\u00facar<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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\"The
The castle and some cave houses in Alcala del J\u00facar<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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So after a while, we hopped back into Eileen and drove west up the amazing gorge, the Hoz de J\u00facar. 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\u2019s hard to believe, as it is such a very tiny place.<\/p>\n

\"Picnic
Picnic time<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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The J\u00facar valley near Jorquera<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Jorquera<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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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\u2026.<\/p>\n

It took me quite a while to find a lady in an empty caf\u00e9 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 \u20ac20; 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\u2019t bother and ambled back to Eileen for a tasty dinner together. All alone.<\/p>\n

\"Rooftops
Rooftops of Jarafuel<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3510,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3501"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3501\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8304,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3501\/revisions\/8304"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}