Antequera, Espanha

Hola

On our way to Antequera today. We stop off at a Shopping Centre to try to find the weekend edition of Financial Times (and it's Monday today). Well, we walked around and around for ages, end up going into an Eroski (similar to a supermarket type Aldi). Bob finally spots something that looks from the FT under a locked glass cabinet. We eventually get an assistant who can understand us and she unlocks it and buried under the other newspapers is the Financial Times!! Yoohoo - we pay the exorbitant price of €6 - and then realise it's a week old!! Oh well, at least we have something to read and Bob has a cryptic crossword. So then we drive onto Antequera and set up at the campsite for the night. We have very late morning tea and then lunch, so no appetite for dinner - we have a cooked chook so we just chew a leg or two.

Next morning, and set off for El Torcal, famous for its rock formations. It’s only 15km out of town but as we drive we realise it’s way up in the mountains, and that mountain ahead of us is pretty sheer! We wind our way slowly up, and the cloud starts to close in. When we get to the turnoff there is a ranger in his car and we ask if it's okay to take a motorhome up - yes it’s fine, about 2km from here- so up we go. But alas the road is skinnier, the cloud and mist is lower and denser, cars are coming down and the visibility is not great (and the navigator is having kittens). About halfway we find a spot to turn around and bail out. As we execute our u-turn a bus comes down from the mountain and has to wait while we get further off the road, which requires the car in front of us who is just sitting there to move further forward as well. The bus driver impatiently waves ‘move further off the road I can’t get through’ (and we're on the cliff edge - yeek!). Anyhow we successfully negotiate that and head back down the mountain, passing the ranger who is heading up, we assume to check conditions and possibly close the road! The navigator is breathing more comfortably now as well. We return to a parking spot we saw on the way up where there are other motorhomes parked.

View of mountain we were driving up - with mist covering top:

One of the rock formations we were going to look at - at top of mountain:

After fortifications (coffee, Coke and bikkies) designed to calm the nerves and also tide us over to lunch, we have a short relatively flat but downhill walk to the Alcazaba (fortress/castle on a hill top).
In and around Alcazaba:

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Ancient ruins around Alcazaba:

This was again a really interesting couple of hours, wandering around the grounds of the old Alcazaba and talking lots of photos from the towers of the town and surrounding area , (including La Pena the single sheer mountain in some of the photos we will talk about later) and also visited the Colegiate (old church) at the base of the outside wall of the Alcazaba, and then retraced our steps back through a lovely street of the village (albeit a bit harder up hill) for lunch in the van at 3.00pm.

View of sheer mountain in distance:

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Church in Alcazaba grounds:

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Next stop - the Dolmens - ancient burial chambers from the Neolithic and Bronze Ages. The site comprises three megalithic monuments: the Menga and Viera dolmens and the Tholos of El Romeral, and two natural monuments: La Peña de los Enamorados (the big sheer mountain standing alone on the plain - echoes of Gibraltar) and El Torcal mountain formations (which we didn’t quite get to see earlier).
Menga is oriented straight towards La Pena (a natural formation), ditto Tholos (towards El Torcal) which is unique as usually Dolmens are oriented towards the equinox ( as Viera is).

You have to get a ticket from the museum first (free but i assume a way to measure patronage patterns, and where you come from), wander the museum (yeah we know you just want to look at the Dolmens, but first we are going to educate you about them). Then you wander a circuitous path around the mounds that the Dolmens are hidden in (the Dolmens and mounds are UNESCO protected), and when you get there - they are fairly unremarkable to look at! But it’s the historical and anthropological value that’s important , and realising way way back BC humans understood sun and moon and phases through the year, and could align a burial chamber directly with the equinox of the sun - impressive!!
We quickly drove 3km down the road to Tholos which was a bit more impressive with it 2 chambers and UNESCO had allowed the installation of a mirror inside the smaller funerary chamber so you could get a sense of the inside.

In and around Dolmens (ancient burial chambers - built underground):

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We head back to the campsite and try to go to the local supermarket nearby - but of course, its closed for siesta and will re-open at 5.30pm. We wait for it to open and gather a few supplies - then back to the campsite for the rest of our chook and veggies for dinner. Then we plan our next location - Osuna.

Over and out for now.