Parallells where none exist

Sunday and nothing much to do so we went for a bit of a drive around. We went over Zarza way and into the Sierra de la Pila. Maggie suggested a tapas place in Algorrobo for lunch but as we were on single track mountain roads we could either go back via Zarza or round via Fortuna. It was about quarter past three as we rolled into Fortuna so I suggested eating there. Maggie wasn't keen. Fortuna is not her favourite place. A few minutes later we were out of the danger zone and into Baños. Maggie spotted a sign for La Fuente which is a camp site built around a thermal spring.

Now when I think camp sites I think lugging water in big jerry cans, wellis, shower blocks with concrete floors and water that never boils as the flame under the pan dances in the stiff breeze at the door to your, ever so slightly, cramped tent. It's a long time since I've been camping. I presume the experience is very different nowadays but perception and reality are very separate things.

When I worked in Fortuna, I occasionally mentioned camping and camp sites to my English language students. There is a linguistic misunderstanding about the words camping and camp site for Spanish speakers. The problem with my explanation was that for the youngsters of Fortuna their experience of a camp site is not a muddy field with caravan and tent pitches. It is a place with a restaurant where you go for birthday parties and communion meals and where, with suitable weather, you go to use the swimming pool.

La Fuente is a camping, a camp site, but there were no tents. There were hut sized chalets and places to park caravans and motorhomes. There were a lot of motorhomes and lots and lots of them had Dutch and Belgian plates as they so often do. I think there is a sub class of Netherlanders who spend their time sitting outside their motorhomes in Spain. There was bright paintwork, classical Greek style statues and lots of people in bathrobes.

There was also a 12€ menú. Not bad for a Sunday. The look of the  dining room suggested that we were not in for an epicurean feast but there were scores of noisy, constantly moving people so we reckoned it must be OK. We got a table, the waitress scooped up the remains of the previous diners meal in the paper table cloth, Dick Whittington style, and before long we had our drinks, the salad was on the table and the food ordered. The meal was nothing spectacular but we cleared our plates happily enough.

Just like in the UK going for Sunday lunch is a bit of a Spanish ritual. The roast beef and Yorkshire pudding equivalent around here is usually rice with rabbit and snails but at the cheaper end there are lots of chop and chips or fish and chip type set meals - salad, starter, main, pudding, drink, bread and coffee - for between 12 and 15€. Fixed price, set meals aren't so easy to come by on Sundays as they are the rest of the week and they tend to be three or four euros more at the weekend than they are on work days. If you abandon the fixed menu and go for the rice option, or whatever the regional favourite is, then expect it to work out around 25 to 30€ per head.

I was quite taken with the kitschness of la Fuente but, somehow, the photos didn't capture it.

Driving home

I work in Fortuna. I live in Culebrón - you my have worked that out from the blog title. It's a drive of only 37km and it's not that interesting. But blogs need feeding no matter how mundane the subject matter.

When I leave work, just after eight, it's dark. This will surprise no-one living in the Northern Hemisphere. Fortuna has Christmas lights. Not bad for such a small place on a tight, building bubble hit, budget. The traffic in Fortuna is pretty mad for a village of just under 10,000 population. Cars and vans, or at least their drivers, behave in erratic and unfathomable ways. I'm always relieved when the car and I clear the last set of traffic lights and drive out of the built up area still in one piece.

Sometimes, just by the lights, the Barinas bus, which comes up from Murcia, is pulling out as I get to the stop. We are going to share the route for a few kilometres. Why there is a bus from Murcia to Barinas (population 946) escapes me.

Baños de Fortuna is the first population after Fortuna, it "belongs" to Fortuna. It has a thermal spring, Victorian style hotels and a modern housing estate full of us foreigners. The street lighting peters out just after Baños. The landscape is pretty barren anyway, desert landforms, a bit lunar even. It's a steady climb up to Salado Alto on a road with an 80 kph limit which nobody sticks to. There are a couple of bars and restaurants in Salado. The posher one isn't open in the evening but the bar is. As I pass I often think that the clientele, who stand out in the lit interior Edward Hopper like, look like Brits. Maybe we have a little outpost there.

More of a climb, quite a steep climb, on a road that snakes to just the right degree to be able to enjoy cutting the apexes of the curves. Soon after cresting the top of the climb there is the Repsol garage on the left just by the junction where the bus will turn right to Barinas. The petrol station is pretty brightly lit but the light always seems a bit feeble set amidst the blackness of the Murcian countryside. There's a bar by the side of the petrol station too. They do a set meal at lunchtime for either 6€ or 7€.

Bit of level running, sharp right hander and climbing again up towards Algorrobo which means Carob tree. It's one of those roads with three lanes so that you can overtake the heavy heaving lorries. To be honest with the amount of traffic that there is on the RM 422 road it's hardly ever necessary.

We're on the level for a while now. In fact I think there's even a touch of downhill just before some incredibly bright street lights and a signpost which says that the single row of houses is called Los Fernandos. Still on the level but then a bit of a hill with Cañada de la Leña off to the right (Firewood Drove) and Cañada del Trigo (Wheat Drove) to the left. On the Trigo turn there's a cement works or gravel processing plant that paints the nearby landscape with dust and shines out in the dark.

Over to the right we can make out the huge lighting rigs that illuminate the largest open cast quarry in Europe at Monte Coto. We're still in Murcia but the quarry is in Alicante. Sometimes when the cloud is low it can look quite demonic. The road is flat and level again before one more hill that crests out by the Volver Bodega. We've just crossed into Alicante and the RM 422 has become the CV 836. The letters show they are regional roads - CV for the Valencian Community and RM for the Region of Murcia

The road drops down from the bodega towards Rodriguillo, one of the villages that makes up Pinoso. A quick zigzag to go through a couple of roundabouts and out past the garden centre and up the slope into Pinoso. Pass the cemetery and now we're in Pinoso proper. 50 kph speed restriction with the Co-operative bodega to the left and the marble and wine museum, tourist office and sports centre to the right. Into town with some splendid Christmas decorations twinkling away for now. There's a new bar to the right too - it opened about a week ago. It's owned by a German chap.

Only a right on the Badén and then out on the Monóvar road to get to our house in Culebrón. Fortuna is at 198 metres above sea level and Pinoso is at 474 so we've only climbed 276 metres or 905 feet but it's usually good for knocking off around 3ºC from the temperature. The car is nice and warm but it's not so warm as I step into the fresh air to open the gate. Good to be home though. Time to get the kettle on.