Friday, 28 March 2025

Up, up and away!



As the weather improves we’ve had the chance to head up into the mountains. Most people who visit Benidorm probably don’t even notice the stunning mountains that surround us, never mind visit them, but we have been very fortunate to do so.


When a message appeared on my phone from Jamie that read ‘we will pick you up at 12.30 and head to the mountain’, I was intrigued.    



Justin and Jamie work most nights until very late so any time we get to spend with them is precious, but this was a really special day. As we headed off the mist was still hanging around so we weren't sure if we would get to see much if anything in the hills.



We wound our way up through villages, along twisting and turning on roads - that we really wouldn’t fancy taking Agy up. Their little car sped up them with no problem at all. Every so often we got a glimpse of what was to come, but most of the time we were just climbing between buildings or netting.



Almost all of the hillsides as we headed uphill were terraced. The netting covered orange trees were thankfully not as ugly as the landscape of vast plastic greenhouses we saw a few years ago further south in Almeria.



Although I have talked about the recent rain here, the reality is Spain has been suffering with severe dry weather and droughts for many years, so most of the hillsides are barren, dusty cream coloured wasteland. Where there are orange or olive groves, they are often terraced and fed by ancient, community-managed irrigation systems called acequias.



These often date back to the 8 - 10 century and are used to manage the water supply fairly across a community's farm land. They are built into the hillside and are a system of narrow channels  that have little gates that can be opened and closed to divert water to different branches. They are usually self managed by the farming community who agree the timings for each gate to be opened and closed and rely on everyone playing their part so the sparse water is fairly distributed and the whole community benefits. Such a simple system that works beautifully. They aren’t always easy to spot as they can be well hidden, but you can see a small part of one here.



After a short drive we popped out of the end of a village called La Nucia and found ourselves looking over the hillside into several hilltop villages. It was stunning! It wasn’t easy to get photos as the mist still hung in the distance, but here is a taste of what we saw.




After a delicious lunch at a local restaurant recommended by Justin and Jamie we headed back downhill, stopping for a drink on the way down and before we knew it, we were  back on a familiar road and our campsite came into view. A perfect day out!









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