Almeria met us with feria! We arrived there on Saturday (27.08), and weekend promised to be full of impressions.

Marina in Almeria

36°49.8475 N, 002°27.8880 W

Almeria is “an edge” of Andalusia, the biggest city on the east of it. Anyway, I had already expected to find flamenco and horses : )

…We were walking along green and wide “paseo, crossing the city. – La Rambla. There, we were told in info center of San Jose, we could find stages, prepared for feria. We passed the pottery market – I love places of this kind so much! Simple and variously colored, statues and pots, clocks and plates – whatever you soul desires you could find here. Freedom of choice, imagination and arts.

We passed tents with games and entertainment for children, admiringly watched go the horse carriage with flamenco singers, passed a club street – nothing spectacular… Finally, we decided to rush to the edge of the city, where on a huge field main feria took place…

…And there the greatest disappointment waited for us. It was just an enormous dimension full of trivial attractions, popular singing, bars and (mostly!) fun places for children. For me, who was dreaming about romantic folk culture of Spain, that was a disaster. Drop the curtain.

The next day we stopped in La Herradura. But before… before I was stunned by nature of Spanish coast.

Costa del Sol, coast of sun, one of the most poetic coasts I’ve ever seen. Huge rocks come out right of seas. Green subtropical plants feel comfortable on inhospitable slops. And so do people! Numerous white houses nest on their top.  Have you heard about “The road of white villages”? It’s to the north. But how many white villages have we seen on the incredible coast of southern Spain!

La Herradura

36°43.7292 N, 003°43.3726 W;

36°44.0099 N, 003°45.6231 W

During the day I made a challenging walk around the outskirts. Sometimes I ask myself – does it really please me to climb wild rocks and slip through subtropical forest full of thornes, or it’s just the way to splash out the energy that doesn’t find a way out in our calm yacht being? I suppose, the truth is somewhere between.

So, despite the availability of “civilized road”, I climbed another wild hill and got the Torre de Cerro Gordo, the tower, preserved from ancient times. There’re many of them, perking on coastal rocks all along the Spanish shore. They were used to defend it from enemies and to send messages from one side of empire to the other.

Romantic and beautiful way of communication! Just imagine, at night, one after another, fires were lit on the top of these stone towers, sending to each other not only light, but a message. In several hours it could reach another end of Europe.

When I reached the top of the hill, I found myself in middle of clouds. They were passing the range, covering everything with thick voile. When the pause in their endless movement appeared, down the hill I saw a huge estate, with gardens and a park. The neighbor hill was also occupied by fashionable houses.

The way home laid back, through the same road that led to Cerro Gordo and that I ignored already twice. “No excuses”, – was my thought and I went down the hill through thick forest.

Every forest is full of life, and that means – of paths. “The problem” is that sometimes these paths belong to very little animals. So, imagining myself someone not bigger than a goat, I explored this mysterious roads of wild nature for almost an hour. When with a hundred of new scratches on arms, I was finally on a human-made road, I was quite happy that my tet-a-tet with nature is over.

Actually, for  the next hour nature and humans together prepared another pleasant surprise for me. Walking down the road, I found a stable. With the horse we shared an apple that I took from “Vagabond”.

So…finally I’ve found horses. But not flamenco! And that means…

…To be continued…