The week after Semana Santa has not been an enjoyable one what with going to classes, getting grades back and all the other horrible stuff which comes with being an Erasmus student. Naturally, we decided to book a little trip to cheer ourselves up and celebrate Rosie's birthday.
Cabo de Gata has been on the year abroad bucket list for a while now so we booked a hostel and off we went.
Cabo de Gata is a beautiful national park about 3 hours away from Granada. We got the bus to Almería and then another to Cabo de Gata. Our hostel was in San José which is in Cabo de Gata. I assumed it'd be easy enough to get from one place to another. Wrong.
We arrived in Cabo de Gata, a sleepy town with no one about but a lone man at the bus stop, we asked him how to get to San José and he said we had to get the bus back to Almería and then another bus from there to San José as it turns out they're not the same place. We didn't like his idea so instead we popped into a local bar and asked for a taxi number. The problem is that there were 5 of us and they generally only have 5 seater taxis. Luckily, the taxi driver read our minds and asked ¿sois pequeñas? (Are you small?). Yes, we said, very small. So he came and picked us up, the other 4 illegally squashed in the back and me in the front with my new best pal, Antonio. He even joined in with the selfies. He was a lovely man and told us all about the area on the half hour drive to San José. It was such a funny taxi journey, and it was suddenly so worth getting the wrong bus from Almería. As we first set off he said, 'Si ves a la Guardia Civil, baja la cabeza!' (If you see the Guardia Civil, duck your head!). Of course, along these dusty and deserted roads there did just happen to be a Guardia Civil car on the side of the road. We panicked and they probably saw a lot of heads ducking...maybe we should of done a practice run of who was going to be the head-ducker. Luckily they didn't notice and in no time we were settled in our hostel.
We picked very well, Albergue San José is a lovely hostel at only 12E a night and in a good location you really can't go wrong. It has lovely terraces with beautiful views and there were only a few other people staying there at the same time as us. The only suggestion I have is that they clarify as to what gender the bathrooms are for, turns out I'd been showering in the mens the whole weekend and I found out in an interesting way.
We ate great food, drank great wine and it was the perfect weekend. The landscapes and beaches are incredible and so unspoilt which, for southern Spain, can be quite hard to come by. We swam in the very cold sea and stumbled across one or two very nudist beaches. Cabo de Gata would be great to revisit one day but perhaps with a car. You'd be able to access the more remote beaches that would take quite a while to get to on foot. The one we went to took us about 45 minutes to walk to over the mountains. We spent the afternoon in Almería on Sunday before jumping on the bus back to Granada which was a nice way to end the weekend, though somewhat sweaty when lugging a big rucksack around on your back...
Overall a great but tiring weekend. Luckily, we are in Spain and Thursday and Friday are bank holidays here in Granada. 3 day week and a big fat puente. Saturday is El Día de la Cruz which is set to be an explosion of colourful flowers throughout the city. ¡Viva España!
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| What a legend |
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| San José |
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| pale guiris |
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| nudist beach |
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| making Adele into a beautiful sirena |
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| ¡Viva España! |
