Sunday, April 17, 2011

Perhaps Not One to Try at Home

As we tucked into our lunch, prior to going out exploring, it started to rain - in Spain! It was quite heavy rain so we convinced ourselves it would be a short, sharp shower. And so it was, by the time we were ready to go out, the rain had stopped. Bravo we thought!

Our first foray out into Spain proper, was going to be on foot, and straight out from El Pueblito. One of the nice things about HPB sites is that you can often buy a pack of local walks - for just 1 euro - from reception. We had got our pack on arrival, and decided on number 2, a nearby dinosaur gorge walk, to start. We were attracted by the dinosaur theme and it sounded the most adventurous, which appeals to active and brave bears like us.

It was a simple 15 minute walk to the gorge, then the fun started. Our path was straight up the, now dry, floor of the gorge. There was lots of scrambling over boulders involved and we also had to pick our way through lots of plant growth. And then, it started to rain again. Normally walking up narrow, and steep sided gorges is not a good thing to do in heavy rain, as there can be a danger of flash floods. However, on this occasion, as the river bed was very sandy and long dried up, we felt there was no risk of flooding. The rain didn't last long anyway, it was just another shower.


You'll need to be very sharp eyed to spot us in our first picture. We're sitting on a rock in front of our first dinosaur find. As you can see we'd found a fossilised giant ray. It was simply huge, and we marvelled at how small the modern day rays have become in comparison. If this one hadn't been fossilised we'd have been very scared.


Our next prehistoric rock was of great interest for two reasons: first, it was full of fossils and, second, it made a great climbing wall. As you can hopefully see, despite my camouflage fur, Yorkie and I wasted no time in starting a race to the top. By now we understood exactly why this was called the dinosaur gorge walk; it was because of all the fossils everywhere. 


As we left the gorge, we started to climb and to get some great views of the area where we were staying.  We didn't find any more fossils, but we did get a fine hilltop view of El Pueblito. Home for the week was one of those white boxes! We'd thought we were staying in a nice, quiet, away from it all area when we arrived, and  now we could see why. Apart from a few local farms and dwellings, there was nothing but countryside all around us.

By now we appreciated that we had picked a great place to holiday, and we were really looking forward to the rest of the week.

Lots of love, George, Yorkie, Gio and Pedro xxxx

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