Almeria and Cabo de Gato: April 26-27

Angie and I were curious about Almeria , which is a little over an hour to the east of us, and the beautiful Cabo de Gato National Park, which is another 20 minutes east of Almeria. So, having the luxury of Sofia to watch the kids, we took off for an overnight adventure. We arrived at our hotel, which was nothing special but did have an excellent location, and took off to see the Alcazaba, which next to the Alhambra, is the most majestic of the remaining Muslim fortresses (although the fortress in Malaga is also worth a visit). Like all of the fortresses, the Alcazaba sits on top of a hill that looks out over the city and on good days, out to the Rif Mountains of Africa.

After descending down from the Alcazaba, we took a random path that took us through the old town (more narrow winding streets with little shops and bars – they simple do not get old!) and ended up at a cool part of the city where the old town converges with the new town, the perfect spot to have two high octane coffees and people watch! We then strolled through the city some more and stopped for drinks at a small tapas bar at the base of an ugly apartment tower. The free tapas ware excellent! We meandered back to the hotel and returned emails and then headed out again.

We stopped first at the hotel bar where they were having complimentary Champagne (the Spanish counterpart is called cava). We then headed back into the old town for more tapas and found Tuesday night to be pretty quiet but we happened upon a nice place with two Cuban bartenders, Adonis and Enrique, with whom we chatted for the rest of the night. One spoke English pretty well and so we bounced back and forth between his decent English and our broken Spanish. With patience, one can still cover a great variety of subjects such as Cuban US relations, the Cuban influx in Almeria, their desire (and inability) to visit friends and family in the states, the cost of living in Almeria, how the Spanish unemployment rate is wreaking havoc for foreigners working on employment contracts in Spain (the contracts are not being renewed)….. We were able to choose our tapas and decided to spend the evening here rather than float between other places.

We awoke the following morning to the sun rising over the port of Almeria and we headed out of town to the east for Cabo de Gato National Park. This is an incredible peninsula with a coast that rivals that of Central California (but without the surf). It is popular for walking (hiking) trips and kayaking trips and I hope someday to traverse this beautiful area both ways. Angie and I took an hour hike into the park and then I climbed down to spectacular beach where my lack of a bathing suit did not seem to be an issue until some happy kayakers happened upon the same spot. The water was pretty cold, so I am pretty sure that I will not end up on the internet.

We got back in the car and drove around the area that is inaccessible to cars to the isolated beach town of San Jose where we had lunch and then crepes. San Jose had a very Bohemian scene that blended somewhat awkwardly with the rampant condo development that had occurred over the last 20 years. We drove home and then headed out for Real Madrid versus Barcelona (see previous post).