atrekinthesun: Escape from the pine forest Nerja, Andalucia

Thought we would escape from the pollen falling from the pine trees that surround our house as it was affecting my breathing. Got up early to finish loading the motorhome, which we did and set off on our way to the coast, just had to top up with petrol. That's when things started to go wrong!!! I drove to the garage ok turned off the engine then it would not start again. Luckily we were taking the motorhome and the car to the coast so I could drive to our mechanics to get him to have a look at it. When I told him what was happening he said straight away that it was the battery so he drove me back in his van and sure enough the battery needed replacing. After jumping it from his battery we drove back to the garage where he replaced it. All sorted NOT while he was fitting the battery we opened one of the doors and it would not close, the door thingy was broken so he took it off and ordered a new one, but we could continue on our holiday without it. We finally got on our way.
Managed to get to the camping almanat without any other traumas, then went for a walk along the beach for a beer. In the evening, we walked into town to our favourite restaurant Las Perlas and had a lovely meal.

Next day we drove to Frigiliana and walked along the Rio Higueron for about 1.5 hours had a bite to eat in the shade and then walked back.

On the return journey Scoobie disappeared in the last kilometre after being really good all day, we met a couple of American girls who asked us if Frigiliana was far and we told them that they had already passed it having walked from Nerja. So they walked with us back to the village. Just before we got to the village Scoobie reappeared.
Next day we decided to do a big walk up Cielo but on our way to the start, we found that there was a chain across the track. We had to park up early adding an hour each way to the top. We decided to give it a go. After walking for about 2 hours the cloud came down and with about another hour to the top we decided to have some lunch and go back down.

We forgot to tell Scoobie so she carried on along the trail. After about an hour she turned up again we had not heard her barking so she must have been admiring the views instead of chasing wild animals. It was still a nice 4-hour walk which was enough anyway. We would have made it to the top had the chain not been there. It will still be there another day.

Had an easy day the next day walking from the campsite into the village of Almayate for a coffee on a circular route returning along the beach. What we thought would be a nice quiet walk turned out to be nothing of the sorts as firstly we were followed a little too closely by a cart being pulled by a couple of bulls,

then were held up trying to cross the road, by loads of cyclists taking part in a triathlon. When we got to the village itself it was the local Feria and we watched 'Carrera de Cintas y Caballo' which involved people on horses riding fast under a rope containing tapes which they had to grab as they went underneath.

Woke up to a cloudy sky so another attempt at Cielo was out of the question. So we decided to do Salazar, which is a hill inland from Rincon de la Victoria. It was an easy walk rising up above Rincon giving us great views of the coast even though we didn't have blue sky. Meandering along tracks we reached the summit of Salazar (500 metres) in about 2 hours without any problems but the descent had 2 tricky bits on which we had to be careful. We managed to get back to the car okay in 2.75 hours for the 8-kilometre route.

Then called in for a nice lunch on the way back to the campsite. Later we went to the beach to see the sunset with Scoobie, we let her off the lead as there was no-one around. She had a good time as she loves the beach but eventually she disappeared. We decided to go back to the motorhome and there she was waiting for us to let her in.