Life is a Highway(Rascal Flatts)Cordoba to Granada by the Scenic Road and Millions of Olive Trees - 29th April 2016

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For once it has dawned a little overcast which should actually make for pleasant driving conditions as we head for Granada and our accommodation in a bungalow in a camping ground for 3 nights. There hadn’t been much on offer in Granada perhaps because of the holiday weekend that we are entering and so we will experience our first try at ‘slumming it ‘on the BBA V3.

We managed to get the transfer of our ‘stuff ‘from the apartment up in the two lifts to the car at street level in 2 moves which was pretty astounding or was it perhaps because our general food supplies are a bit low at present and there wasn’t quite as much to carry.

The N432 between Cordoba and Granada shows as a scenic road all the day so we are looking forward to some nice scenery.

The cloud cover was still fairly dense as we headed out of Cordoba and it looked like it was trying to rain but nothing came.

Our track on the N432 was essentially the other side of the hills that the other day were on our right as we drove into Cordoba and now they were on our left as we headed back towards the coast although we wouldn’t be making it there by the end of the day, just as far as Granada.

We are not sure if we were expecting to see just as many olive trees as we did when we drove that near 100km from Ronda to Cordoba but the numbers were up there again. Olive trees of all shapes and sizes just everywhere you looked.

This has prompted us to learn that olive production in this part of the world, Andalucía, is the leader in producing olive oil and must be thereabouts for whole olives as well.

What is quite mind boggling is that all the olives are picked by hand. And although they are not picked until the autumn we tried to conjure up in our vision as we drove along, thousands of workers in the fields beavering away at bringing the harvest in.

One thing they haven’t found a use for is the pulpy stuff left after the olives are pressed and you could see in some places where the stuff has been left waiting to be disposed of by spreading it back in the olive orchards and other places.

As we travelled on we passed only a small number of villages but each had the attraction of either a dominant church spire or in some instances an old Moorish fort usually on the highest point of the village. These villages broke into the dominant scene of olive trees which a welcome was considering the number of olive trees in sight.

We took a stop for lunch just short of Castro del Rio and had a boot lunch which also gave us the opportunity to have a look at just what made these olive trees so different to the one we have in our backyard at home which is incapable of producing any olives. It was clear the trees that were near our parking spot were many more years older than our tree at home from its rough bark and trunk formation which came out in three stems because the truck of the tree had had earth heaped up against it making the tree trunk to grown out in that fashion.

We had noticed some selective logging of the olive trees in parts and in Castro del Rio alongside the highway was a huge yard of firewood made up of the trunks and large enough branches. With winter over we guess this was being dried out for sale for next winter’s home fireplaces. At least the old or diseased trees have a use once they can no longer produce.

There was another fine example of a castle on the highest point in town in Alcaudete and it certainly seems like the Moors built themselves a chain of defences after they invaded Spain in 711.

The sight of olive trees continued almost all the way to Granada. Another of the things we find interesting is that there doesn’t appear to be anywhere that one property starts and comes to an end, no fencing, no line of trees, nothing.So who owns what is not clear to the passing uninformed traveller.

Like most large cities Granada has a ring road and Gina guided us along to where we needed to turn off to get to the camping ground where we have a bungalow for 3 nights.

With a little bit of difficulty we found the place after a couple of times around the roundabout as we weren’t sure which of the 6 exits to take (that is what roundabouts are for, right?)

It is a small camp with 6 other bungalows and space for 30 to 40 campervans and motor homes and a few tent spaces although little in the way of grass to pitch your tent into.

We could tell within 2 minutes of arriving that things were going to be tight for us in the bungalow as there was precious little space around the bed or the table and settee in the living room.

However we do have a covered deck from which we can survey our end of the camping ground.

We had planned to sit out and have a drink before thinking about dinner but as we emerged from getting the inside of the place sorted we found the sky had darkened over and although there was no rain it had turned quite cold. So we retreated inside for our drink and then dinner.

Tomorrow with the forecast set to be overcast and the chance of showers we have planned an admin day to catch up on washing etc etc.

A quick trip to the Mercadona supermarket was in order to top up with supplies for the weekend as of course shops are cloed on Sunday and Monday is a public holiday so we guess the shops will be closed then too.

One thing we overlooked was that although there was internet available you had to go to the cafe at the other end of the camping ground to use the free internet, bummer!

PS great video and song for the title of this blog,enjoy from YouTube

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