18th Sept: Happy Birthday Mum!

We set off in search of more pretty beaches and found one at Maro. Unfortunately dogs weren't allowed - again, but we managed to park the van in the shade close by. The waves were still scary, with a really strong undertow. I would have loved to have been confident enough to get through the wave break to swim, but decided that discretion was the better part of valour! Several times I was standing in a foot of water and a wave broke right over my head! And this is the Med! It was probably because the beach was so steeply shelved. The weather remained hot and sultry.

Further along the coast it became very built up. We went to a supermarket and there were more Brits there than Spanish! Welcome to the Costa del Sol! Yuk! No, this definitely was not our scene. We decided against our original plan of following the coast around to Gibraltar, and instead headed inland to El Torcal Park Nature Reserve 30km north of Malaga.

We immdiately started climbing mountains again. We passed the town of Villanueva de Conception and it was very sad to see loads of part built appartment blocks just abandoned. We were not sure if we had found the Nature Reserve, but we parked up at an abandoned picnic spot next to yet another empty house. We were on the top of the mountains with a howling gale buffeting the van, wondering if we would be able to get any sleep!