Day 9: Andalucian hill climb
Soutpiel Safari
John & Jenny
Sun 14 Nov 2010 08:21
|
Day 9: Saturday 13 November 2010. Castellar de la
Frontera. N36 18.943 W005 27.581. Distance driven 242 km.
We drove to La Ronda with it's old city perched on a
mountain top and explored the old town with it's charming alleyways and
decorated entrances. We fell into the tourist trap by selecting a lunch
spot for it's prominent position with terraces in the sun and suffered from
poor service and indifferent food.
Leaving La Ronda we continued along a mountain ridge
road in the direction of Algeciras, a road with almost no traffic, stunning
views and frequent stopping places - miradors - that had been absent on the N
roads so far. Thinking that it would continue to be cold at night, in spite of
the very hot daytime sun, we started looking for a pension or small country
hotel, but with no success. One place in a fabulous position was closed
"for the holidays" and a hostal we looked at was very basic and over-priced. We
then found the Castellar Hotel, a huge new building with an empty car park
except for a lone Ferrari. With a room rate of 167 Euros, no wonder it was
empty; perhaps the Ferrari belonged to the owner.
On leaving new Castellar we saw a sign to the Hotel
Alcazar and started to follow it up a mountain road. I suppose I should
have realised that as all Castles are perched on impossible mountain tops in the
part of the world, the Alcazar would be high up. We soon encountered a
procession of traffic coming down, followed by police cars, police motorcycles
and then, about 50 Rally Cars, all being driven down at high speed against our
over-laden Land Rover struggling up the narrow ascent. It went on and on
and the views in the evening sun became even more spectacular. Right at
the top, overlooking a huge lake 500 m below, was the Alcazar encircled by
massive stone walls and cobbled walkways. Unfortunately, it was full! We
then found that we were in the middle of some Spanish motor rallying or
hill-climb event which was due to continue on Sunday. On the way up we had
noticed a rough grass pull-off where a few tents had been pitched so we went
down to join them and put up our tent just as it became dark. Jenny soon
had a curry cooking and we had dinner in moonlight overlooking the lake. A
group of friendly Spaniards informed us that we were in the middle of a major
event and that the road up would be closed at 0830 - we decided to stay
and enjoy the atmosphere of Spanish petrol heads at play, especially on a day
when Fernando Alonso would be trying to clinch his position for his third World
Championship in Abu Dhabi.
|