Ten days having now elapsed since we first tested positive, back in the days of Delta a negative test today would have been sufficient release us back into polite society. So I duly suffered the discomfort and indignity of sticking a super long cotton bud down my throat and up my nose, twiddled it about the correct number of times and waited for the result.
Sadly I tested positive. However, I didn't immediately go into a slump because I have a new cyberpal called Zoe. She knows everything about Covid and advised me that with Omicron around 50% of people still test positive after ten days, even if most of their symptoms have subsided. So you just have to make a call and decide for yourself after a week or so at what point you are no longer a bio-hazard. After ten days we decided this was our moment to rejoin the human race. As far as I can tell from an article I found in El Pais that should be fine so far as Spain's Covid rules are concerned. We will still maintain social distancing, avoid chatting to people and wait another week or so before eating out but begin to use the shower block in campsites rather than the facilities in the van.
Today we headed west from Osana towards Granada, crossing a small patch of Spain's olive prairie before reaching the mountains near Antequera. It was showery, so the scenery was 'atmospheric' rather than magnificent.
Only when we we reached the Sierra Nevada did the cloud ceiling lift enough to reveal their snow covered summits.
We stopped for a late lunch in a parking place by a dam just off the motorway near Guadix. We had made good time, originally we had planned to stop for the night near here, but decided to push on to reach the Cabo de Gata in one go. The route took us through some of Spain's most remarkable geology. The rock formations near Guadix are magnificent, an odd mixture of strata, some volcanic but mixed with deeply creviced boulder clays.
Beyond here the broad valley floor is semi-desert, but not unproductive. Almonds are grown on an industrial scale. These days the endless patchwork of fruit trees is overshadowed by hundreds of wind turbines.
As you reach Almeria province the landscape changes. The empty spaces of the desert of Tabernas have not been exploited to the same extent, they remain a wilderness. The geology changes too, karst limestone pre-dominates, so arid simply looking at the landscape makes you feel thirsty.
We arrived at the beach parking at La Fabriquilla in the late afternoon. The usual mix of gleaming mohos, sporty campers and idiosyncratic self builds were drawn up on the scrap of wasteland across the road from the beach.
We joined them, I felt exhausted but relieved. More so after Gill managed to book us into Los Escullos campsite for a week starting tomorrow. That should give us an opportunity to recuperate and begin to do stuff for fun again.
We woke to clear skies and a dark blue Med. Feeling under no compunction to get up straight away we had a bit of a lie-in then a very relaxed breakfast. While Gill was in the shower I took a stroll up the steep hill behind us that takes you to the Cabo de Gata promontory. After a couple of hundred metres you get a great view south across the bay towards Almeria.
This is one of my favourite places on the planet.
Bare volcanic hills
A sweeping bay with a hinterland of gleaming salt pans
An informal moho beach parking where everyone is welcome, old, young, rich, skint, couples with kids, pooches big and small, a free, refreshingly anarchic space in an ever more regulated world. It won't last.
If you like regulated spaces the then campsite at Los Escullos will suit you fine. Since the last time we were here in 2020 they have installed number plate recognition operated barriers at the entrance flanked by turnstiles for pedestrians.
Inexorably we have watched the place change over the past seven years from campsite to holiday resort, more glamping bungalows, more emphasis on seasonal pitches, more entertainment. Next Thursday is their St. Patrick's day shindig apparently.
What remains unchanged is its magnificent, isolated location, that probably will draw us back here, but the cramped pitches beneath dull green sunshades are not to our liking.
We decided after about twenty minutes that five days rather than a week is probably as much as we can stand. It will give us time to sort laundry and clean the van. How much gadding about we do depends on how we feel, I am still lacking energy and tire easily. The thought of lugging the bikes off the rear carrier and going for a ride feels a step too far at the moment. It's a sorry state of affairs.
The forecast is mixed. Not sitting out weather. Time to better acquaint ourselves with Claudia we decided. Last Christmas I bought Gill Claudia Roden's 'Med, A Cookbook'. Really it should be called 'a cook's book', because it is not simply a collection of recipes, more a sort of culinary testament.
Claudia Roden was born in Cairo in 1936, her parents were Jewish/Syrian merchants, so from the outset her experience of food culture was a rich mixture of Jewish, Arabic and broader eastern Mediterranean influences.
As a young woman she studied in Paris and London and settled in the UK in the 1950s. Her first book 'A Book of Middle Eastern Food' published in 1968 was groundbreaking as it was written from the standpoint of someone who had been raised in the food culture of the Levant and Mediterranean, rather than being a northern European 'convert' like Elizabeth David. She is a great writer as well as a cook, her books as much works of cultural anthropology as gastronomy.
So we had an idea, given we had Mediterranean ingredients to hand, it might be interesting to cook a few of Claudia's dishes as we travelled along. So tonight we will attempt to elevate the boring sausages we bought yesterday in Mercadona with this ...
Before then we decided to celebrate our self declared virus free status by taking a short walk up a rough track by the campsite. In the event it turned out to be a continuation of the past ten days' self isolation. We had the landscape to ourselves, the only other living things we saw were a shepherd with his flock in the distance, a well camouflaged dun coloured bird with spiky top knot and a spritely black beetle that scuttled across the path in front of us.
My lack of energy demanded strolling rather than hiking, but that is a good thing sometimes, simply to have to stop and take notice. A stoney hillside can be very interesting if you happen to be married to a geographer. The rocks lying about were all different colours, reds, slate blues, pale sage green and dusky pink. A mixture because the volcanism hereabouts metamorphised the pre-existing rock strata differently depending on their chemical composition and crystalline structure. What is scattered about the hillside now is the result of the collision of the African and Eurasian plates, an event that occurred between 8 and 17 million years ago.
However, this is not a bare stony desert, the place is full of flowers, asphodels, pimpernels, wild lavender and purple bugloss, herbs too, lots of thyme, and a vaguely aniseed tasting plant that we guessed was related to dill.
In all our wanderings this undeveloped patch of volcanic mountains squeezed between the sea on one side and Almeria province's sprawling plasticulture on the other is one of our favourite places. We need emptiness, if only to remind us that though we depend upon nature it has no need for us.
If we do manage to so overheat the planet that it becomes uninhabitable, what we actually mean is it won't support us. I suspect beetles will still be scurrying among the multi-coloured rocks of the Cabo de Gata long after we have gone.
Back to the van and Claudia. I unpacked the induction hob and Cadac, Gill prepped the veg. Though the recipe for lemony roast potatoes with cherry tomatoes required an oven bake, we hoped slow cooking them in a frying pan on the induction hob using the Cadac lid to assist baking them evenly might do the trick.
We were close I think, even if we had to substitute the dill or coriander that Claudia specified with flat leaf parsley. That was good we agreed.
Tomorrow's forecast is for drizzle, further Claudian experiments are in the offing - goats cheese pasta maybe. Doing stuff does make you feel better, in some respects sorting yourself out mentally is as important part of getting better as any physical improvement. Today's highlights - a black beetle among the volcanic stones, Claudia's lemony potatoes, small delights matter.
No comments:
Post a Comment