Day 34: Motril to Almeria

March 23, 2025

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The Elba Motril Beach Hotel, our stay for last night, came out as having the best breakfast buffet we have found in our travels as yet. They did this with a chef out front that could cook a custom omlette, and with a selection of hot dishes of mainly roasted vegetables, as well as the full selection of eggs, breads, bacon, and many cheeses.

This station was also manned at last night"s buffet, where the chef would fry up your choice of steak, chicken, or fish.

Mushrooms in the foreground, and two types of peppers.

Bleu cheese, and closest to the camera, quince paste (membrillo).

The red strawberries were of very good quality, while the fruit salad had those unique white ones.

A final touch was in the ubiquitous breakfast buffet coffee machine. It was the "chocolate" choice in the second row. Different from "chocolate con leche" on the button below, which was good but normal "hot chocolate", this was thick and sweet liquid chocolate for use with the big tray of churros.

We retrieved the Batmobile from the easy parking behind the hotel. We have since watched a video about this Peugeot 408 model. Apparently the wings at the back roofline, for which I named it the Batmobile, are called the "Cat Ears" by the company. I suggested that we should rename the thing the "Catmobile", but apparently it will remain the Batmobile.

At a stop a little down the road we noticed another proud driver of a hot black car.

This kid has selected a Range Rover - easier to spell than Peugeot!

We continued to learn more about the car's controls, which we found surprisingly limited and clunky for such a modern vehicle. For example, for decades cars have had an "accessories" mode, usually accessed by turning the key one click, before start, and that will allow you to listen to the radio, work the power windows or wipers, without running the engine. Not in this high tech baby!

We were also wondering why in the climate control screen, Darth Vader or maybe a hooded robot seems to be watching our settings, or maybe just sitting in the drivers' seat?

As we set off from Motril we were interested not only in looking at the scenic coastline, but also in judging how it would have been had we been cycling it.

The Motril to Adra stretch does feature some pretty rough headlands, and consequently a fair amount of climbing and descending.

The road looks flat here, but the land is rough.

The shoulder is narrow, but at least there is a guard rail.

This is a nice view looking back down to Calahonda town.

The road skirts this area, so you only really see it from above.

There are other interesting views, from pullouts up on the headlands.

A big feature of this stretch of coast is the prevalence of greenhouses, mostly growing tomatoes. In places they completely cover the landscape, from sea to mountain slopes. When we cycled here we spent hours on small roads through the greenhouses, from which you see nothing but plastic .

These greenhouses are actually not as thick as they do get.

This is a quite solid layer of greenhouse.

And here, solid greenhouse, but not that extensive.

The road is getting ready to climb here.

The road has quite a slope, for a cyclist.

Going up. Photos often do not show slopes, but here the road has a climbing lane.

Tunnels moderate the slopes for cars, but walkers and bikes go on the cliffside.

An Iberian Ibex. We are pleased to have seen this.

Birds are not so plentiful here. This is a dramatic shot of just a Black backed Gull.

In the 16th century, the Christians built watch towers all along this coast, to look out for Berber pirates or any other general Moors. Now they are a famous, iconic feature of the hills overlooking the sea.

Last year we passed this fort and realized that Scott had written about it. We did a little further research on it, putting that in last year's blog. This year, in a car, we just blew by, of course!

Although we had woken up quite late, and dawdled at the terrific buffet, we arrived at our previously booked place in Guainos Bajo, before Adra, very early. So we just carried on, to have a look at Adra itself. Adra has a beach walk (paseo maritimo), where we hoped to see some birds, but no luck.

At Adra, we got rain, and let me tell you, it was a pleasure watching it and knowing we were not out on the bikes.

In due course we turned around and went back to Guainos Bajo, having written the owner of the apartment that we would be a bit early. Communications had been a bit stilted, because he wrote only in Spanish. We would have to meet him at the property at a specific time, for him to hand over the keys. We were still early, but we went to find the place, and would have been happy to then sit and wait in the Batmobile.

Things started to go sour as we found we had to make a very extreme hairpin turn off the highway to access the area where the house was supposed to be. This then put us on a super narrow road under some cliffs, with even narrower road maybe mounting the cliff. The super narrow road passed some houses, where someone had parked their car almost totally blocking the way. We folded our mirrors in and edged by. With the expensive brand new car we sure could not have even a minor scratch. We ended having to edge by this jerk twice more, as the situation evolved.

We next encountered all sorts of little roads, going up, going down, crossing muddy construction, and whatnot, but we did not spot the house. Finally, up a narrow track, there was a house numbered 3, and we were looking for number 1. I looked up the track and really did not want to enter it. But we were out of ideas, so up we went - it seemed like the track would skirt house 3, on the cliff side, and hopefully continue to the holy grail #1. Nope, it dead ended in a goat track. I got out and walked, having to splash through a deep puddle, before realizing that the goat trail only led to some houses maybe suitable for goats.

So now we had to back down, literally. With most modern low slung cars you can not twist around and back up, based on looking out the windows. You have to use the backup camera. But in long and curvy situations, this is not very efficient. And remember, no scratches. None!

So we put Dodie out in the rain to give directions, and slowly, painfully, withdrew the car. And by the way, in the old days cars had "drip channels" in the roof, and geometry that generally did not have rain falling in when the window was opened. But not on this Peugeot 408. Opening the window to hear Dodie's directions flooded all the electrical doodads in the door with rain water.

We got the car out alive, wrote to the property owner that his place was unfindable, and flounced off to Almeria, 53 km distant. 53 km of course was nothing to us. But had we been on the bikes in these cliffs in the rain looking for some house - trouble. (Now that we temporarily have the car, it's fun to find cases where it is helpful. But stranded in cliffs in the rain remains much more bloggable!)

House 3 in blue. The road to the left of the picture not only had narrowed to unpassable, but no useful houses were beyond. Now how to get out of here?

None of this mess was actually the place, but in fact it was very close to here, maybe near that car we kept edging past.

We passed back through Adra and things were fine, until we encountered the road all ripped up at Balanegra. The detour sent us up a steep hill, to get onto the autovia.

We just followed the detour sign, but on bike if not wanting to do that, there was no way though that we could see.

The detour took us up steeply, to the autovia!

Bikes would have been in a lot of trouble here, because they are not allowed on the autovia. But we just sailed on through, exiting the big road when the time seemed right.

A nice covering of greenhouses to be seen, when we had exited the autovia, at El Ejido.

Scott has written to us, with scary accounts of how fines and jail await on the issue of the drivers' license, should we run into police.

The ride from Adra to Almeria was largely free of winding cliff road, but not totally.

We adored Almeria when we visited by bike, and we had no difficulty reaching our hotel Torreluz. But with the car, we were plunged into very narrow old city streets, all one way. We circled around trying to locate the hotel, not to mention a place to put the car. And now we found that some narrow streets can have cars on them, and others are pedestrian ways, quite possibly blocked somewhere along by restaurant tables. Not that there are any signs to distinguish one from another!

We made our first turn down a pedestrian lane, and got yelled at soon enough to back out without too much trouble. But we turned down another and were quite far before spotting the restaurant tables! Again it was Dodie out of the car and a lot of go left, go right, while trying not to run down in reverse all the pedestrians. I think I do have insurance about scratches, but I bet it does not cover damaged pedestrians!

The road that runs by the Torreluz is exactly one narrow lane wide, but there is a small layby, where the car could rest while Dodie went in to see what to do with it. Eventually we got a map of where to find the hotel parking, with caution that the streets are all one way. If you miss your turn, you are not turning around!

Because we skipped out on Guainos Bajo, we have an extra day, to spend in Almeria. It is a nice place, on foot, and should be a lot of fun tomorrow.

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Tricia GrahamHave just picked up our International Driving Permits so we will now be ready for the calamities that are sure to strike us
Have fun I am confident you will
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1 week ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Tricia GrahamGlad you have them. It is a concern that we do not, but Steve is a good driver, Dodie is a good navigator, and we are trying to be as careful as we can.
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1 week ago

Tricia GrahamTalking to the lady in the licence place she says they are really only a document that translates the conditions of your licence into other languages so people with their licence in English really shouldn’t have any bother
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1 week ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Tricia GrahamA German friend of ours said the same thing, so probably the lady you spoke to is correct. It does give you options, knowing that car rental is a possibility..
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1 week ago

Tricia GrahamAnd it well could be 86 and 88 are certainly pushing it to consider a bike tour
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1 week ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Tricia GrahamIt could well be. We might even be somewhat pushing it at 77, but hey, we can still dream!
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1 week ago

Tricia GrahamWe are just not ready to give up. Ken absolutely fine I am the problem but as long as I don’t have to walk I can do it
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1 week ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Tricia GrahamOr, why not come to visit us. Vancouver Island is beautiful, we have a spare room, and after you get tired of us you could rent a car, with your shiny new International licenses, and go to the Rockies. The drive there is fabulous in itself, and the mountains are spectacular!
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1 week ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Tricia GrahamIf you stick with the many bicycle paths, in the many flatter parts of Europe, there should still be enough choices to continue for several more years, at least.
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1 week ago

Tricia GrahamWould love to do that some time. Have only once visited your lovely country but we have always felt it would be grear to travel from coast to coast by train
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1 week ago

Kelly IniguezTo Tricia GrahamJacinto bought an international license in 2023, because we were sure his sudden knee problems would resolve before our trip. In retrospect, we think he bought a fake license on the internet. When it arrived, it looked very fake, out of cheap paper. Not official looking at all. Our money was long gone. Happily, he used some KT tape, and had a steroid shot, and in the end was able to ride the entire tour. I sure wouldn't have wanted to give that 'license' a try.
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1 week ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Kelly IniguezThe wonderful world of the internet!
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1 week ago