A few posts ago I wrote about 'where the south begins, pinpointing Millau as our point of entry. To my list of defining qualities like olive trees, shady squares with shuttered houses, shadow striped straight roads lined with plane trees, our digital thermometer added a final touch to my of inventory of southern clichés by notching up from a hot but manageable 27° to a stifling 36°.
This prompted a heartfelt peaen from the cab concerning the joys of aircon and a lengthy discussion concerning how five of us plus, bikes, frame tent, camping beds, travel cot, two ring stove and sundry clutter managed to travel in a Nissan estate car to 'le Midi' in July and August back in the nineties. I'm certain the first car we owned with aircon was the Ford Galaxy we bought in 1999, recognising that a teenager, a precocious tweeny and a feisty four year old were not going to be able to share the back seat without bloodshed. We needed a third row and a camping trailer. It was a good move. The set-up enabled us to venture further afield, to Corsica, Sardinia and Croatia.
The heat could be challenging, but we seemed to manage. I don't think it was unbearably hot all the time, there were cooler days, and with crystal clear skies the night-time temperature dropped quickly. We don't travel south in midsummer these days, but even in September we have had times when we have sweltered in thirty plus temperatures,. Not everyday though, the weather in Greece and other parts of the Mediterranean has always been mixed in September.
Not so this year. Yesterday was the thirtieth day in a row with daytime temperatures in the mid thirties. What makes things worse is it's very humid and overnight temperatures aren't dipping much below the mid-twenties. At least when you are too cold you can always put an extra layer on both the bed and yourself. The same is not the case when it gets too hot. There comes an absolute point when you simply can't take anything else off or open any more windows. I also wonder if age is a factor. In July after a series of hot days at home when I had been working outside in the garden I developed heat exhaustion. I guess it's inevitable that the seventy plus me is less resilient than I used to be, but I resent the change, ageing offends me, I take it personally.
While we were staying in the Valencia Camper Park the weather forecast changed. No end to the heatwave but thundery downpours were predicted. Scorching temperatures and rain is not something we can cope with as having all the skylights wide-open overnight helps the van cool a little. It looked somewhat dryer further south, so we decided to head towards Mazarron, a resort town just south of Cartegena. The town itself is a little dismal, but the coast to the east oftowards Isla Plana is beautiful, and Camping Las Madrilles is comfortable, if somewhat bungaloid.
Booking-in, however, is not straightforward. The place doesn't take reservations for short stays, expecting you turn up on spec in the morning and take pot luck. Furthermore, the site insists on a three day minimum stay. What we tend to do is park-up the night before at a nearby area autocaravanas so we can maximise our chances in the booking-in lottery by arriving early. Usually we stay at the Puntas de Calnegre, this time we found a place in Mazarron itself. Area El Moreral is closer to Las Madrilles and within sight of the Mercadona carpark on the town's outskirts. We know this supermarket carpark well; it functions for northern European motorhomers as a winter gathering place - like Avebury, Carnac and Stonehenge did for our Neolithic forebears.
In winter I suspect that the Area El Moreral is very busy. Today in late September there were less than a dozen vans in an area that accommodates around forty. A couple of them were 'expedition' style mega trucks - they tend to be German or Swiss owned by Bear Griilis wannabees. Three of the French motorhomes had box trailers in tow, one contained a gleaming Honda Goldwing, the other two housed bulbous quad bikes. It seems for some recently retired northern European males owing a moho is not enough, it has to be accompanied by glitzy boys toys too. Off they all went in a cloud of dust, their 'understanding' other halves riding pillion.
We were sitting under the awning in the shade when unexpectedly a slim, older chap wearing nothing but a pair of skimpy swimming trunks appeared from behind our van. He advised us that he was 'a Brit' and had 'come for a chat'. It was good that he made his intentions clear at the outset, otherwise his startling demeanour may have seemed a tad alarming rather than simply idiosyncratic.
Over the next twenty minutes we learned where he was from (Devon), the names and occupations of his two sons, the fact that one of his grandchildren was at university and the other had just opened a beauty salon and was doing well, then got a comprehensive update his various health conditions and were given the opportunity to concur with his view that Brittany Ferries' website and automated customer service chat bot was a waste of space. Eventually his wife turned-up, she was more fully clad. Oddly he then announced, "Well I'll be off then", and disappeared. She stayed to chat for a few more minutes to ensure we were fully informed about both their health conditions.
It got me thinking about the random conversations we've had over the years with other motorhomers. What struck me is they were not random, there is an element of social stratification about the exchanges. There are some absolute boundaries, in twelve years of long term travel we've never had a friendly chat with a caravanner. The two tribes live side by side barely tolerating one another, like City and United fans in Manchester. Millennial and GenZ van-lifers tend to socialise together, in parallel but rarely interacting with adjacent grey haired motorhomers. There are other odd patterns of socialability. Venerable drivers of C-class vans often wave to each other as they pass, but not people in A-Class or panel vans, nor drivers aged under forty. Humans are deeply tribal beings.
When Gill was training to be primary teacher in the mid- seventies students on teaching practice were encouraged to produce sociograms. This involved asking all the members of a class to write down the names of who they regarded as their friends. Analysis of this revealed patterns of social groupings and hierarchies. As I hinted at earlier, unspoken affiliations exist within the moho community too. When we began our extended travels in 2014 if we did fall into a conversation it tended to be fellow early retirees.
Once the inevitable opening exchange of 'where are you from' had been settled, more often than not the conversation would turn to 'what did you do'. We soon learned that in our case a straightforward answer had a chilling effect on nascent moments of sociability. So when at the outset we gave the straightforward answer 'we both were teachers' people tended to make excuses and beat a hasty retreat. Sadly teachers are usually placed in the same category as other authority figures such as the police or tax inspectors, socially necessary but not particularly people you want to befriend. Indeed, whereas as it is the case that only a minority of people have been collared by the 'rozzers' or run foul of the inland revenue most of us can recount a less than positive run-in with a teacher, and for those of us now aged over sixty the consequences were occasionally painful. So without ever having talked about it we both adjusted our answer to the 'what did you do' question - Gill went for 'manager of an Adult Education centre' and I was even more evasive explaining that my last job was as a 'manager at a local college'. This did the trick, our answers were avoided the T word and were vague enough not to alarm fellow travellers wishing to engage in a friendly chat.
In fact these days it's quite rare for people to pause for a chat. At some point as you head inexorably towards septgenarian status mysteriously you disappear. Enveloped by something akin to a Romulan cloaking device, you become unseen, apart from on public transport in Italy and Spain where kindly GenZs now offer up their seats as a matter of course.
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However since I turned seventy there is a group of people who've become much more interested in me - the medical profession. Suddenly I am eligible for a whole range of extra jabs. For the past decade I was supposed to have annual an review of the meds I'm on for hypertension. Years went by without it ever happening. Now it does.. A few months ago I found myself being interrogated by the practice nurse. I noted some additional questions - could I walk a mile, what was today's date? In other words - how's your mobility and do you suffer memory loss? Well intentioned I know, but I felt affronted.
I guess if everyone our age is being collectively medicalised then it should not be surprising that when we fall into casual conversation health conditions are the one of the few things we have in common but I'm having none of it, I won't play along. I guess I have a stereotypical introverted personality. Given the choice of passing the time of day with a friendly stranger or sitting in a shady spot with a book, the latter is always going to win out. Which is a good thing right now, as seeking out a shady spot is the best option when daytime temperatures hit the mid thirties by mid morning.
Next morning we double-checked the weather forecasts before setting off for Camping Madrilles. They had changed from yesterday, now it seems the stormy weather in Valencia is predicted to head here, and thundery downpours are expected to arrive by mid-afternoon. Almeria province to the south of us looked calmer, so we changed tack and set off towards the Cabo de Gata national park, 150kms south of us.
It's a couple of hours down the AP7 to the Capa de Gata. The landscape becomes increasingly arid and tortured as you reach the Almeria border. The Tabanas desert to the north is the only place in Europe that qualifies as a true desert.
The area between there and the coast looks like one even if it doesn't quite hit the all the criteria. Much of the landscape is shrink wrapped - plasticulture supplying the rest of Europe with fruit and veg. The exception is Cabo de Gata national park. Its stark volcanic peaks is the biggest area of protected landscape on Spain's densely developed Mediterranean coast. The Donana, at the opposite end of Andalusia is larger, but lies beyond the Straights of Gibraltar so abutts the Atlantic.
We first came here twenty years ago before we retired. I think we'd rented a villa in Mojacar and took a day trip out to the Cabo de Gata lighthouse because our AA guidebook to Spain mentioned the nearby lagoons were home to a large flock of flamingos. Back then village of La Fabriquila was abandoned, the salt works disused, the workers single storey cottages boarded up and the striking silhouette of the Iglesia de Las Salinas turned out to be a ruin when you got up close.
I remember being shocked by the shanty towns nearby that surrounding the big plastic greenhouses. The African migrant workers were living in ramshackle, insanitary conditions. Since then things have improved remarkably, the salt workers cottages have been repaired and used as holiday accommodation, the church is restored and the intensive agriculture seems to be better managed. The migrant workforce seems better housed in the nearby town of Campohermoso. However the improvement has been accompanied by expansion - over the years the sea of plasticulture has spread inexorably towards the edge of the national park.
The contrast between the quasi-industrial sprawl of the plasticulture and the 'preserved' volcanic hills of the national park is unsettling - it's an unnaturally natural landscape. Is this what the future will look like? Most of the earth entirely humanised, the only wild places left preserved as museums.
We headed for Los Escullos campsite. The section of the national park from there northwards towards Las Negras is furthest from the plasticulture creep. It retains its wildness, we love it. I searched our blog posts that contained 'Los Escullos' - apparently this is the eleventh time we've been here. It has to count as our favourite place I guess.
What's great about the area is it's easy to get out and about. Local beaches with astonishing wind sculpted fossilised dunes are an easy bike ride away. Stony tracks lead off onto the garrigue and if you are feeling adventurous there's a longer walk up to a hidden old caldera that has a unique micro-climate which sustains sub-tropical flora and rare butterflies.
However, in a heatwave all of this is challenging. In the four days we were there we did manage to get out a few times....
a short walk up the track at the back of the campsite
...a pedal down to the nearby beach with strange rock formations
... then on next day a trip to the next cove along. You get a great view of the ancient calderas.
I wondered when the area was last active. Seven million years ago Chatgpt advised me - interesting about the submarine nature of the eruptions...
In somewhere like San José or Los Escullos, you're looking at the eroded remains of a volcanic landscape that existed millions of years before humans appeared in Europe. Some of the rocks beneath your feet were originally produced by eruptions beneath the sea, and the present coastline is the product of millions of years of subsequent uplift and erosion.
That's why Cabo de Gata looks so different from much of the surrounding Almería countryside: the mountains are essentially the eroded skeleton of an ancient volcanic province.
So we made a few short trips out - it's actually more comfortable in a heatwave riding an ebike rather than sitting still - you get a cooling breeze as you pedal along.
Mostly though, we hunkered down under the shade of the awning. When we booked-in the receptionist warned us that there was a poolside jazz festival happening over the weekend. We could hear it clearly but it was not intrusive - a mixed bag of performers ranging from a funk style gospel group, a bebop inspired quintet and finally, a bigger ensemble that channelled the big band style of Duke Ellington and Count Basie.
Finally the weather inland looks somewhat more expensive, sunny but 10° cooler than on the coast. We found a campsite by an embalse near Baza that's in a nice spot and has paddleboarding possibilities. Let's go there we decided. After thirty days of thirty plus you'd think I would have finished the Margerat Atwood I'm reading given all the sitting still in a shady spot we've been doing. No, what I have done is excelled myself in writing the most rambling blog post ever, like a shaggy dog story gone feral.