Well it has been a quiet week for us, just enjoying the Spanish sun, taking a few forays into the countryside.
One night we walked down to the beach and had supper at one of the many nearby Chiringuitos (beach lounge) that dot the coast
 |
| The view, calm sea just feet away, fishermen in boats nearby |
 |
| Torta de Camaron (shrimp fritter) |
 |
| Pimientos de Padron (deep fried blistered Padron peppers) |
 |
| Lamb chops |
 |
| Fresh Tuna steak |
 |
| Sunset view
A common scene in our drives, communities cascading down the hillsides - mainly high density, few unattached single family homes, most buildings 2 to 3 stories high, often with shops along the street level with living spaces above, narrow streets, lots of life taking place at street level. Housing/buildings are predominantly painted white to reflect the heat in summer.
 
Caves in the center of this town
   
Unusual looking evergreen with long thin leaves
 
two different vines growing along the roadside with distinctively different seed pods
  ready to burst into blossom  a similar (same plant) blossom head spent  the plants they appear on, one almost spent the other just starting to open up  this community, Ojen, has a rich mining history - iron, talc, mica, nickel, graphite, lead and peridotite (a dense igneous rock from which magnesium, lead and mica are extracted)   
Then we took the road, really less traveled - the back road home. Started out nice, normal non-marked road, narrow, cemented surface, no ditches, few sign posts, minimal turn around points, but gradually deteriorated into a very rocky, deep rutted trail, that was reminiscent of a decommissioned logging road. But we persevered, after talking to a lady we happened to along the way that said it was 6 of one or half a dozen of the other, which way we went - we were half way to where we were headed.
 Another unusually tree with these rather large pods hanging from them - look kind of like pea pods   the winding road we were following     Mediterranean off in the distance, at least we are travelling in the right direction!  Many of the hillsides we past were terraced like this, no orchards on them - we were wondering if they were forests that were cut and replanted, as there were few large trees around, or it may have been to control erosin in the rainy times, or, if they had been tailings from mining, but there seemed to have been too many of them.  some paving coming up  interesting rock cut along the road side - this stone was very crumbly, you could pull pieces out by hand  Finca Agricola or farm estates down in the valley, it was so quiet and peaceful hear, you could clearly hear the chickens clucking away in the yard, even though we were over 1/2 mile away. Oddly though, we never saw any animals like sheep, goats, cattle or horses on any of these properties.     finally back into some forest, this one is a cork oak forest - the trees get very old, taking about 25 years to reach a stage where the bark can be harvested,, and then it is only harvested about every 7 to 10 years. The trees themselves can live for an average of 200 years. Because the bark is so thick, cork oaks can withstand forest fires and quickly reestablish a canopy after a fire. The charcoal grey looking area on the tree is where the bark has been striped.  the soil here was very red, probably because of the iron present     close up of a knot where a branch has broken off, you can see the thickness of the cork bark layer - it gets very thick much like the bark on Douglas firs.    We found a chunk of the cut cork 
Then we came upon a trip of goats, of the domesticated variety
      We noticed several goats on the wrong side of the fence, they ambled over to munch on some vegetation then put themselves back inside the fence again   
Getting closer to civilization
 more roads to travel, but we will save them for another time  walled farm  Marbella to the right  our destination straight ahead - we are staying very near to the two towers slightly to the left of center   Back to the urbanization, this one is high on the hills above where we are staying - the view across to the Med is 180 degrees, but you are far removed from all the amenities  |
No comments:
Post a Comment