glenatron | Fly away to somewhere new (Reply)

My recent relative quietness online is partly because I was off with

herecirm and her family in Spain. It turns out Spain in January is fairly cool, especially if you're in an apartment usually reserved for summer tourists, but there was plenty to keep us entertained, bright sun, long lie-ins and all kinds of off-season quiet places to visit.

So, that was our holiday. Unless you want to see some kind of illustrated version.

We were staying in Calpe, a town with two beaches, divided by the huge limestone outcrop of Penon de Ifach. Which really sounds like a name that should mean something in Welsh.

Sari climbing up towards the chapel on a hill in the old part of the town.

Some small white flowers. I now notice I apparently focussed on the stem on the right of the picture for this one. Probably some artistic intuition or something.

There is a Roman bath ( or at least a Roman structure full of water, possibly a fish tank of some kind ) on the sea front at one point.

There were elephants as well. These were actually at a zoo called Terra Natura, a little way up the coast near Benidorm.

They also had Dholes. Dholes are awesome. They like running around and yipping and generally being entertaining. Also while Sari was trying to take a picture through the glass window on one side of the enclosure a Dhole jumped up right in front of her and really made her jump.

It turns out that taking pictures with a camera that handles low light well and a full moon is hilarious. I would recommend it to anyone. This is my iconic look.

"Go back to the Shadow! You cannot pass."

Guadaleste, up in the mountains, is a beautiful old village built around fortified crag.

Much of the castle collapsed in an earthquake in the seventeenth century, but parts remain.

Looking north from the top of the castle. These mountains really are beautiful- the limestone eroding into sharp-edged crags.

The next day we climbed to the top of Penon de Ifach. This is the view of the less steep side of the rock.

The path gets a little steep in places. I rather like the Spanish "better drowned than duffers" approach to health and safety. I also like the word "duffer" and would like to see it used more widely. In the background is Jon, Sari's brother.

This was actually on the way down ( if only any of my pictures from the top had been interesting! ) but the picture gives a good idea how steep the path was. If you look back up at the one of the rock, we are at the top of the green bit on the top of the rock, so falling off it would be an entirely bad idea. Various bones along the path suggested that there were regular casualties, although they may largely have been rabbits. Helpful seagulls had distributed guano evenly across any rocks that looked as though they might be essential hand holds for passing humans. This provided both a memorable odour and a sticky texture.

Nearly down to the tunnel leading through the rock face and onto normal pathways, there was a moment of backlit Sari.

Then we went and played on the rocks ( we both love leaping along the boulders at the side of the sea ) and I tried to get pictures of Sari with dramatic waves crashing behind her. The picture where I caught the most epic wave unfortunately just came out as a frame of white spray, but it did soak my trousers so we gave up after that.

Light beyond the tangled trees near the base of the rock.

We visited the waterfalls at Algar ( the river gives it's name to the Algarve ) and I realised I finally have a camera where I can control exposures. Blurry-water photos ahoy!

Sluice gates on one of the weirs.

The artist in my life.

Looking out across the mountains.

In the evening we went for a walk around the salt flats near where we were staying. These are an old salt pan, now home to wild flamingos and herons, incongruous among the apartment blocks. The sun was going down and we were looking for a path to the boardwalks we could see nearby. The Spanish approach to public paths is "let them make their own" so we kept finding false trails that ended at pits, trap doors or snares of various kind. Also the major terrain in this particular nature reserve ( and the other reserve in Calpe, come to think of it ) appeared to be "rubble" - not sure how much of a rare habitat that actually is.