Puerto de Mazarron

May 27, 2024

We set our sights on Port de Mazarron today, just a little way east of Aguilas on the coast, after bidding farewell to the quirky desk guy in Aguilas. We stocked up on food for the road at the nearby Mercadona, then headed east along the coast.

There were many housing complexes and urbanizations along the way and once again, we saw very little activity at these places. It does make your mind swirl to see the excesses here. Homes with nobody living in them, while so many, at the same time, are homeless. It’s a snapshot of the wacky world we live in.

As we left Aguilas, we enjoyed a nice bike path next to the highway. There really wasn’t much traffic so didn’t make much of a difference for us, but we did see several residents out riding their bikes on the bike path. So, it serves them well as a place to recreate. The bonus for us was coming upon a Decathlon store that happened to be open. David has run out of chain lube so it was a perfect opportunity to pick up a new bottle of lube.

Soon after that, we entered a flat coastal plain where there were huge fields of melons and zucchini’s growing, all at the picking stage. Most but not all of these were growing out in the fields, uncovered. The picking crews were harvesting melons, slinging them into buckets over their shoulders and then emptying them into large bins. It looked like very hard work. Enormous trucks were being loaded with bins of melons and hauling them away, most likely to a distribution centre.

Notice the black plastic at the edge of the field. Much more of it to come.

We started seeing plastic waste, in the form of sheet plastic and piping of various diameters. I can’t say what stage the sheet plastic was used, but we have seen it laying right on the soil with the plants poking through a hole in the plastic, so my guess is it helps to get the plants established. There doesn’t seem to be the motivation to manage the plastic. We started seeing more and more of it, in barren un-planted fields, in among the growing plants and strewn throughout the nearby desert. It was sad to see all the shredded plastic bits in the landscape and re-enforced the need to to support local farmers and buy produce in-season as much as possible. Our efforts to reduce and re-use are all fine and good, but sheesh, the scale of the problem is enormous.

Dry but fertile soil, ready for planting the next crop.

The zucchinis were grown under cover here.

Soon, we left the coast and were nearing the big climb of the day. Traffic was light as we had chosen a minor road to punch throught the coastal mountains. It was steep and long, but we both managed it just fine.

We are grateful for the small climbing gears.

View down to the coast from midway in the climb.

View from the Mirador, looking back on the fields of cukes and melons.

Those are the fields we rode through. Garrucha is further west, beyond the mountain (Cabo Cope).

View to the east, overlooking so many greenhouses.

This part of Spain is barren, but ideal for agriculture.

I am calling these covered crop structures greenhouses, but I am not sure of the proper terminology. The covers look like a cloth of some sort and their purpose is to prevent moisture loss. I was surprised how many did not have any crops planted in them. If you check out google maps in satellite view, you can see these structures dotting the landscape here. And, in some cases, it’s actually more like blotting the landscape, not dotting.

This one had no crops in it, but on and on they went.

We had our ears and eyes open a place to stop for lunch, but the best we could come up with was a Repsol gas station. It truly was a barren, sort of depressing place to cycle through. Any tiny communities we rode through were a gathering of ramshackle places, many destroyed or vacant. So, we were rather pleased with the Repsol station! They are clean, have a small store and sometimes even a cafe/bar. We bought some drinks from the store and enjoyed our lunch in the parking lot.

Here is today’s video of riding through a barren land.

Eventually, our road turned toward the coast and we had a pleasant downhill ride to Port de Mazarron, a coastal resort town. We had booked a very nice suite on the hill near the harbor.

Port de Mazarron harbour was loaded with boats.

Our hostal was quite new and had a third floor lounge/bar/breakfast room and a rooftop lounge. I headed straight to the rooftop to enjoy the views over the beaches in both directions and the nice breeze.

Later, we headed to the harbour for dinner. Restaurant after restaurant was deserted and then we found Ziggo’s. It was hopping with British families and looked like the most lively place around, so we were seated and enjoyed a nice meal of salad and seafood with some wine from Jumilla (my new favorite, from the Monastrel grape).

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Today's ride: 49 km (30 miles)
Total: 737 km (458 miles)

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Patty BarronHow very odd, that an area that is so covered in agricultural greenhouses that stretch for kilometres, & support the growing fields of the melons & zucchini’s, should be in an area that seems so arid, barren & devoid of much growing potential!
The desert area you crossed seemed to be less hostile!?
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3 months ago

Rachael AndersonWhat a great video for capturing such a great descent! It brings back memories of how great the area is.
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3 months ago