Two kilometres later.

Yesterday we moved from camping El Pino to the free beach parking at Torrox Costa, all of two kilometres. The place was packed, I have just taken a morning stroll down to the beach, I counted 75 motorhomes drawn-up. You can understand why, it is a glorious morning, mild, the sky cloudless, the sea beautiful and best of all, the parking free!

I said in the previous post "If you were seeking somewhere to typify an ugly 1970s 'fun in the sun' development, Torrox Costa would have to be a candidate." After a day's closer scrutiny I would still concur with most of that, apart from the word 'ugly'. Does anywhere or any thing which is fit for purpose deserve to be dismissed as ugly?

I gained an astonishing amount of wholly impractical knowledge when I went back to being a post-graduate in 2013 - most of it related to contemporary critical theory - sadly an imperfect grasp of semiotics cannot really be regarded as a 'life-skill'. It did change the way I think though, fundamentally so far as travel is concerned. First of all, even the most mundane places, tawdry and disregarded are not insignificant; everywhere has a story to tell if you care to look. Also, what we reject, dismiss or ignore can be as significant as what we value; we are defined as much by what we reject as what we embrace. 

For some reason as I wandered around the beach parking this morning counting the mohos (I do wonder sometimes just how far along 'the spectrum' I am), anyway, for the first time in decades I thought about Mr. Fawcett, the curmudgeonly git who taught me A Level Art. He would say in life drawing classes, 'remember, the forms in shadow are as important as those in light'; aged seventeen how could I know how profound a thought that was?

So if even right now we both would prefer to be somewhere else, maybe wandering unfrequented roads in the southern Peloponnese or Sicily, in reality we are here with the hoards on the Costa del Sol. Better to seek out the mildly interesting hereabouts than make ourselves miserable by dreaming about preferred destinations thousands of miles away.

In fact we had an unspectacularly great day yesterday, lots of little surprises and small pleasures. For example, all those concrete apartment blocks I mentioned. Actually, I quite like twentieth century buildings, and the concrete monstrosity that looks like a carbuncle in rain swept Birmingham assumes a certain magnificence in the south's dazzling light under deep blue skies.

Then there is Torrox Costa lighthouse. Gill is a lighthouse aficionado, she declared it splendid, and it is...

Big sky, magnificent mountains, spectacular headlands, 'the beautiful formlessness of the sea' - no matter how many concrete cubes despoil the coastline, we can never outdo nature.

A fabulous sunset too, I am not sure what is the Spanish equivalent to Italy's passiagata, whatever it is the locals were at it.

Super wolf blood moon - quite a rare occurrence. We spied the super wolf but were fast asleep when it went blood red due to an lunar eclipse. That was around 4.30am. We did promise ourselves to make the effort, but failed. The photos of more determined Facebook buddies will have to suffice.

Even if on the face of it Torrox looks somewhat dismal, yesterday was an facinating day - isn't that why we travel; to have prejudices challenged and assumptions overturned and find beauty in the most unexpected places?