Andalucia trip 10 to 23 December 2019

Andalucia trip 10 to 23 December 2019

10th Dec
Flight took off from Bristol at 13:45 UK time.
My seat was on left of plane so the view out of the window was Eastish . Was mainly cloudy till past Madrid but break in clouds by the north coast and the sea town of Santander. When we got past Madrid I observed interesting mountain formations quite linear and possibly foothills of pyrenese far of but unlikely . Then as I got nearer Andalucia I observed a kind of squiggley reservoir maybe S shaped or serpentine. Then great views of the snow covered Sierra Nevada.
 As we came into land we passed very close to the  Fuente de la Piedra Lagoon ... virtually over the top and i was able to look down and see if i could see any of the large flocks of flamingos . I could not see any , maybe they're elsewhere at this time of year. Then we continued gradually decending  very close to my favourite three reservoirs  and to Mount Huma ... we were on about the same level as The summit and maybe only half a mile or a mile , the summit seemed very close and i could see all the details very clearly. At the same time as going past the summit i could see the village of El Chorro , which i know very well , it was almost directly below us so from this information I should be able to work out how close we were to the summit .

We landed about 5 pm spanish time at Malaga airport . Before leaving customs i got some good photos and video of the baggage handling area on the edge of the airoplane parking bays where the suitcases are unloaded onto the conveyor belt. THe area is below the main airport building but is open on the side with no wall so you can look in . I find it quite interesting getting familiar with both sides of the airport .
Once through customs   I was quite hungry so i walked to the petrol station where i had my usual "Menu" Tuna bocadillo heated up  and coffee for 2 euro15c. The lady in the garage was friendly with me i still don't know her name and wanted to only talk to me in english so she can pratice.

After my food and drink I headed straight to  my camp Rana to see if it had been disturbed since its discovery last month. I cant be 100 percent sure but probably no one had been there as  the fence was closed and my special bamboo cane was unmoved.

I noticed that all my Tomato plants were dead ... not sure why... possibly a very cold spell or possibly they were too waterlogged or too shaded during the lower winter sun  ( they were under a bramble and eucalyptus  overhang  which protected them from the summer sun but maybe at a disadvantage in the winter.)   The Asclepius milkweed plants for monarch butterflies on the other hand were doing fairly well apart from two of the plants had leaves that had been eaten by insects , one plant almost totally defoliated . I looked hopefully to see any sign of Monarch Caterpillars as i had put some eggs on the leaves but there was no sign so i think it was another insect .

 I walked onwards to  IKEa for my free cups of tea and good value Perro Callientes (Hot Dogs) then back on the train for Los Boliches. Here I sat on the beach and strted reading a new novel i found in the airport ... The Hanging Valley by Peter Robinson . This is not the kind of book I would usually read as it is a novel and worse a murder mystery  (set in the Yorkshire Hills) I usually read text books and true life stuff, not novels. However  I recently read the Pathfinder by James Fennimoor Cooper written in the 1800s , which was a pretty good read , so I thought I would give this a go . So far I would say Im quite enjoying the plot but the quality of writing  is nowhere as good as the Pathfinder with silly over the top descrpitions of things that are unnecerssary . The worst example so far is pg 112 when the author describes in great detail for no apparent reason  what the detective is having for breakfast quote .. "The main course consisted of two fried eggs , two thick rashers of Yorkshire  Bacon , Cumberland sausage, grilled mushrooms and tomato with two slices of fried bread to mop it all up . Before that they had drunk grapefruit juice and eaten cereal ... "  I mean after reading Fennimore Coopers poetic descriptions of the Eastern American  Woods and Lakes this was very poor  almost as if it was written for young children to help with their spelling, not adults. Also Coopers dialogues between characters were very funny and tongue in cheek sometimes times, even though written in Old English.

After about two hours lying on the beach in the warm winter sun I headed to the Los Boliches library where I looked at a encyclopedia type book on Catalonia and Aragon . It had good maps. I learnt a new Spanish word "DESAROLLO" means growth eg. economic  growth of a city ( in this case Barcelona)  and also growth of say a child or plant.

I also learnt about three rivers the Rio Segre , Rio Noguera (has whitewater rafting) another i´ll add in later if i remember ( Iv forgotten) .Anyway apparently these are good for fishing too.