ADANA kennels and Dog Show

In my last Blog I wrote about the serious fire that devastated 600 hectares of land on our mountain. The picture on the left how close a tongue of fire came to the Adana kennels. (The pink building.) Within 30 meters! That was close! I'm happy to say there was no loss of human or animal lives.




By the next weekend the Adana Dog Show was in full swing! The dogs are not judged on pedigree. This isn't Crufts, but a fun family day. The events include the best Junior Handler; the dog with the Waggiest Tail; and the Best Trick. The picture on the left shows a splendid entry for the Dog Most Like its Owner! You will notice they both have a black and white spots, and red collars!

Firefighter planes at Bahia Dorada

Brian took these pictures yesterday and today. The fire fighter planes scooped up sea water and flew on to discharge it on the huge fire on the mountain behind Bahia Dorada. It is an extremely dangerous job to fly low and load the plane, and take it up with the sudden extra weight of water, and then deal with flying conditions on the mountain, with the smoke and fire heated updaughts to contend with. They are brave and skillful pilots!

Rumours cirulate as to how the fire started. One version says it was from a carelessly left weekend barbique fire at Los Pedrogales Park. Another version that the fire was deliberately started.

I don't know if the ADANA kennels was affected. The kennels is on that mountain. It would have been very difficult to evaculate 100 or more dogs. I'll up-date when I know.

Missing Lynx

The Coto Donana, an hour south of Seville, is a conservation area of special importance, particularly as a breeding place for migratory birds. It is also a habitat of the Iberian Lynx; a beautiful species that grows to be about twice the size of a domestic cat. Characteristically they have tufts of hair on their ears and under the chin.

This is the most endangered of the 36 species of cats in the world. Their decline in the last 50 years has been catastrophic. It was estimated there were of 4000 in the wild in 1960. By 2000 the number was down to 400. Now, in 2009, it is believed there are only 200, with a population of about 50 in the Coto Donana region of Southern Spain, and 150 in the Andujar-Cardena area. Such small numbers may have brought this lynx close to extinction. There could be small groups in some other isolated areas. No sightings were reported but droppings have been found, and DNA analysis suggests they come from three or four individual lynx.

The main cause of the decline in lynx populations is because their primary food source, rabbits, have been decimated by myximatosis. An adult male lynx needs one rabbit a day; a female with young up to three a day. The red fox is in competition with the lynx for the scarce remaining rabbits. Saddly, development and construction erodes wild places. More roads and more traffic means the loss of more lynx. 16 were killed in the Coto Donana area between 2000-2003.

Some Iberian lynx are bred in captivity. Is this the best we can do?

Super station food and passing trains

This wonderful cool drink isn't wine, and it isn't a cola! It's grappa (grape juice) with ice and lemon. It was served to us on shiny black glass tables on the platform of the little Station of San Pablo near Jimena de La Frontera.
Occasional trains pass by. They stop by request only. Now you see one - now you don't!



Adventure suggestion. Go to the station and have a nice drink before taking the train to Ronda. The route is through magnificent mountain scenery that you can see no other way. The historic town of Ronda is spectacular. Spend whatever time you can spare to explore it! (More about it later.)

When you return to San Pablo station have dinner at the restaurant on this very platform! The food is of superb quality! Nieves, the chef, serves lunches too. (Closed on Mondays.)

Val's Vanette and Wind Farms

My email name is "valvanette". I chose it as my traveling address, because I drive this Nissan Vanette camper van! It used to have a kitchen with a gas fridge, a gas stove and washing up facilities, but I never cooked in it. Roadside 'ventas' have delicious inexpensive food on the 'menu del dia', so why bother with shopping, cooking and cleaning up? Brian dismantled the kitchen and fitted a three seater backseat that I bought (with seat belts) from a car scrapyard . Its more comfortable now for giving a lift to friends!

The 'wind farm' shown here is on the Gaucin road, 15 minutes or so from where I live. I'm ambivalent about them. They may make sense environmentally - but I'd rather see beautiful mountain scenery without such intrusions. Yes, the design has elegant simplicity - but I enjoy nature more without them. Wind farms are a hazard to bird life, especially on migratory routes; however chemicals in the food chain and pollution cause more bird deaths. The 'solution' to one problem causes another problem!

ADANA - Estepona's Animal Rescue society

ADANA is Estepona's animal rescue society. A great many animals are lost or abandoned every year, and it takes a great deal of money to house, feed and provide veterinary care for them all.


The present kennels are crowded. A new purpose built facility is needed to house the many dogs brought to Adana. Efforts are made to reunite lost animals with their owners, and to find good homes for abandoned ones.




To raised funds an ambitious sponsored walk, called El Camino, was organised this year from Estepona to Santiago De La Compostela, a distance of 1178 kilometers, (or just under 732 miles) starting on 15th March 2009 and ending on 2nd May. It took a year of planning to organise the whole El Camino Project, to ensure the dogs and the people with them were properly cared for!



When the call went out 45 walkers from all over the world volunteered to take part! Only 15 of them were allowed to participate in any one week as some villages en route were unable to accommodate a larger group. (But many walkers undertook to walk further weeks! Some even completed all seven weeks of the pilgrimage!.) They came with their own dogs or one of the rescue dogs from the Adana kennels. To learn more about ADANA and to see scenes from this extraordinary journey go to the Internet site Ruta de la Plata - the Project Sponsored Walk with its wonderful YouTube video.

ADANA has a programme of fund raising events throughout the year. There is a Coffee Morning in the square outside Longman's Bookshop from 11am-2pm on the last Friday of the month. The next major event will be the Mongrel Dog Show on 13th September. A fun family day!

Chocolate and Churros

This is one of the most delicious treats to have in the morning! Choose one of the chorros shops in Estepona where they squeeze the dough through a huge piping nozzle and fry it in hot oil. When golden brown the whole spiral is lifted out with what looks like a pair of huge chopsticks, and is snipped into long pieces with scissors. (Beware of being served the little hooped ones, as they may well be out of a deep frozen packet and taste anaemic!) You can dip the lovely crisp churros in coffee, but I prefer them coated with hot thick chocolate! They are probably full of calories, but I enjoy this decadent pleasure once in a while! Life is for LIVING!

Cork trees

Photo taken near Grazelema by A.W.G. Reid

Cork Oaks grow in many Mediteranean countries, and live for 150-200 years. They have a thick rugged bark, which acts as a shield against forest fires. The core of the tree is alive even when the outer layer is scorched. To harvest them the lower parts of the trunk are stripped of their cork bark by hand. The men who do the work are specialists and know when the tree is ready to 'give' the cork. It comes away cleanly in large pieces. Then it takes 8-12 years to grow another layer that is thick enough to harvest again. Ecology is undamaged by cork forests, and as none of the trees are felled, and no chemicals, pesticides or herbicides are used, they maintain environmental bio-diversity. And, after use, cork has the marvelous property of being biodegradable.

Cork grows on the mountains, less than half and hour from where I live! When they
have been freshly cut the trunks often look bright red - as if the trees are bleeding. The cork is stacked in huge heaps for drying. Cork has multiple uses. Since ancient times it has been used to make wine bottle stoppers; for roof and floor tiling; for fishing nets floats and for making bee hives. In more recent times for shoe soles, life jacket filling and sports equipment.


One tree can provide cork for 4,000 bottles of wine! But real corks can crumble, causing oxidation and making a percentage of wine undrinkable. So, wine growers are increasingly using plastic bottle stoppers and screw on caps which have zero taint. If this continues, cork forests with their eco-system benefits, will become a thing of the past.

Howling with the wolves!

I love visiting Lobo Park, near Antequera. Four sub-species of wolves live there in huge enclosures; European Wolves, Canadian Timber Wolves, Alaskan Timber Wolves and the native Iberian Wolves. These are another endangered species, so it is good to know that Lobo Park has a successful breeding programme. It is about 2 hours from my place. There are guided tours every day; Adults 8.50 Euros and Children 5.50.

However, I especially love going there on some Friday or Saturday nights for the Wolf Howling! It is essential to book ahead. A barbeque dinner is served at 8pm, before setting off with Daniel Weigand. He is encyclopedic in his knowledge of wolves - and dispells many myths about them! He will give you the chance to watch their feeding behaviour, and their interaction with him. Visits last until nearly midnight! Magical!

Instead of driving all the way home afterwards, I stay at the nearby Torcal campground. On one occasion my cousin and I had breakfast there with a crowd of Harley Davidson bikers!

Film locations; Lawrence of Arabia and all that!

Recently I watched "Lawrence of Arabia" again; one of my favorite films. But this time, when I saw the scene of the entrance of the Officer's Club in 'Cairo', I realised it was in fact the Plaza de Espana in Seville! There are several more recognisable locations in the city! The Plaza des Las Americas provides the setting for the Civic buildings of 'Jeruselem'; El Casino is the 'Council Chamber'; and the courtyard of the Alfonso Xlll Hotel for the 'Officer's Club'.

Spain's varied geography and historic buildings offered the film industry an endless variety of locations! Mountains or plains; rural farmlands or city; seascapes or forests; Spain has them all! Some locations were built to make Westerns, and have remained as tourist attractions. There is one such mini-hollywood 45 minutes from Lubrin in Almeria. The Tabernas Desert Theme Park has all the classic Western attactions; a saloon (with a Can-Can show), boardwalks, hitching rails and horses, an oil rig, a Sherrif and guys in old timer costumes and big hats! Visitors can hire costumes and dress up for pictures of themselves as a gun-slinger or other Western characters! To be relaxed don't try to get there and back from my place in one day. It would be more enjoyable to include it in a tour of eastern Andalucia. Oh yes, and its very hot in that area, so don't go in high summer!

Romeria to El Rocio

During the Moorish occupation of Spain (8th-15th Century) the statues of the Virgin Mary were hidden in attics, cellars and caves. Over the centuries their hiding places were forgotten. But occasionally they were found!

The story goes that during the 15th century in the Coto Donana area of Andalucia a man found an ancient carved wooden Virgin, hidden in a hollow tree. He decided to carry her back to his village, but he got tired. Resting under a shade tree, he fell asleep. When he awoke the Virgin had gone. Returning to where he had found her; there she was - back in the hollow tree. He carried her off again until he was tired, and as before fell asleep, and again she disappeared. When he saw her back in the hollow tree he decided that it was where she wanted to be. Villagers came and made a simple shrine dedicated to her, the Virgin of El Rocio. The shrine became an important place of pilrimage. It was rebuilt and enlarged to be the sparking white church that it is today. (Thanks Brian, for another of your beautiful photos!)

It is traditional that people who come for the El Rocio annual Pentecost pilgrimage do so without motorised vehicles. The roads are full of gaily decked covered carts, and splendid horse riders with the woman wearing brightly coloured gipsy costumes. There are hitching rails for the horses and wide open spaces to turn oxdrawn carts. Celebration continues for the whole El Rocio week! Be prepared to book far ahead and travel far for accomodation! Check internet sites for more history, pictures and information.

Roman ruins; Baleo Caudia

The Roman ruins of Baleo Claudia near Tarifa, are in a stunning position beside a long sandy beach. Before going there check opening times, which vary with the seasons; and use a map and follow signposts carefully. The car park is beside the museum.

The most important industry of Baleo Claudio was garrum; a highly prized fish paste, that was exported all over the Roman Empire! Near the beach there are many large tanks cut into the rock in which the garrum was made. Salt and herbs were pounded together with the fish.

After visiting the ruins, enjoy eating at one of the delightful beachside restaurants nearby; stroll along the sands or have a swim. This place is only about an hour from my place! Or stop over at one of the nearby camp grounds or in a hostal or hotel in Zahara.

There are beaches, and beautiful beaches!

Many Mediteranean beaches have artificially dredged sand. Those without this luxury can have more stones and shingle. The best beaches are on the Atlantic coast about an hour from my place. This rock is at Atlantera, and the long sandy beach stretches to Zahara del Tunes. However, there is more wind on the Atlantic coast! The nearby town of Tarifa capitalises on it boasting that it is the 'windsurfing capital of the world! There are kite surfing schools too!

For those who want to spend more than an afternoon in this area, accomodation of all sorts is available; hotels, hostels and camp grounds with good facilities. However, many places are only open in the 'season', not year round. Other interesting places to visit nearby include wonderful Roman ruins - Baleo Claudia. More about that later!

Bahia Dorada Sunrise

Occasionally I wake up early enough to see the sun rise. I sit out on the terrace and watch the light magically changing. Words from the song 'Summertime' ring in my head;

"One of these mornings, I'm going to rise up singing; spread my wings and take to the sky!"

Jimena de la Frontera - the past

Andalucian towns and villages are often built on solid rocky mountains, on which it would be impossible to dig graves, so the cemetaries consist of white walls with niches, like this one at Jimena de la Frontera. They are beautifully cared for, with bright flowers and perhaps a photo. The effect is dazzling; quite different from the gloomy churchyards often found elsewhere.

The castle seen through the gates and in close up on the right can be freely explored. There are a few notices to indicate its Roman origins and Moorish development. There are wonderful views of the village from above, and over the unspoiled forests. Another good place for bird watchers.

If you want to stay for a while there are hostals and small hotels in the town, and an excellent Camp ground just outside it.

1.450m to the top of the Bermeja!

The summit of the Bermeja mountain behind Estepona is 1.450 meters! Although the road up to it is steep, narrow and twisting, it is possible to drive a car most of the way. On a clear day it seems as though you can 'see forever', and there are views of Morocco and the Sierra Nevada. In my lefthand picture Gibraltar is just visible in the distance. If you are lucky you might see Booted Eagles, Griffon Vultures, Sparrow hawks, and Long Eared Owls, or even an Egyptian Mongoose! You will certainly see a very rare species of pine tree, the Pinsapo, which only grows in Andalucia. It was discovered quite recently, in 1837, by a Swiss botanist Edmund Bosser. It has short blue-green needles, and its branches sweep low to the ground.

There is a Refugio, about a kilometer below the summit, where shelter, food and drink are often available. In winter a blazing wood fire is a welcome warmer! There are tables with long benches indoors, and wooden picnic tables under the trees for fine weather. Young people bring sleeping bags and sleep out on the 'deck', to see the glorious sunrise in the morning.

Big Boys Toys and Glamour for Girls at Banus!

Instead of spending a day in the country, visit a haunt of the seriously wealthy! See their 'playground' at Puerto Banus. Most guys I know love to walk along by the harbour to look at the boats, and decide which one they'd like to own. The cars parked all along the harbour are gorgeous too! Watch out for these low slung snarling beasts!

Most women I know are more interested in window shopping there. All the big fashion names have a shop in Banus! Most of the clothes, shoes and jewelery are very beautiful, with very expensive price tags! But there are some reasonable places!

In between the shops there are restaurants and ice cream places. Relax and enjoy!

Fish on the Menu

If you enjoy eating fish, you have come to the right place! The photo shows the 'menu' of a little restaurant in Estepona. The fish will be freshly cooked for you. Personally I like a selection of mixed fried fish; some of everything they have! This will typically include calamares (squid), boquerones (fresh anchovies), merluza (hake), and perhaps pez espada (sword fish) or small leguada (sole). As this is quite substantial, I recommend a mixed salad as a starter.

Paella is eaten at lunchtime - never for dinner! It is basically saffron coloured rice cooked in fish stock with wine. Various pieces of meat, usually chicken and/or pork will be added, as well as fish chunks and shellfish, plus peas and strips of red pimento adding a splash of colour. It's a decorative dish - served with large lemon wedges. Warning! It is very filling! If there are six people in your party, a paella for four will be enough unless you have a very hearty appetites!

Endangered Species

The Andalucian Donkey is an endangered species; with only about 120 purebred animals in existence. Friends of mine, Stephen and Marlene Bird have a project, http://www.ancraa.org/ where they run a successful breeding programme. These donkeys are known as Giant Donkeys because they are about half as high again as the usual donkey. They were used extensively in agriculture before mechanisation, but farmers have little use for them nowadays. The temperament of these donkeys has earned them the name 'Gentle Giants'. Every Sunday morning Marlene and Stephen welcome visitors to 'Cuddle a Donkey', and to learn about the herd of 20 or so individuals they care for. As with any endangered species it is important to keep the animals in several places to ensure they could not be wiped out by a single epidemic. Donations are welcome to help with their heroic task of saving these animals from extinction.

Everything Changed!

In 1492 Christopher Columbus set off to discover the New World, which led to more profound world changes than the Apollo programme and landing on the moon 500 years later. Columbus believed he could reach India by sailing west. He discussed the possibility with two monks at the La Rabida monastery. One was an astronomer, who thought the idea was feasible. The other monk was the Confessor to Queen Isabella, and able to present her with the idea and enlisted her help. She provided three caravels the Niña, the Pinta and the Santa Maria. Before setting sail, Columbus left his ten year old son under the care of the monks, as it was uncertain whether he would return from his dangerous mission! The rest, as they say, is history.

Visit La Rabida monastery, near Huelva, where the plans were made. Go to the little harbour at La Rabida (near Huelva, close to the Portuguese border) where there is a little harbour with replicas of the caravels. You can explore them. See for yourself how uncomfortable life was on board then! It is extraordinary what risks people are willing to take!

As the journey from my place is about 7 or 8 hours, make a mini-holiday of it, and see other places on the way. It's worth taking several days over the trip. Take time to see magnificent Sevilla and Jerez en route. BUT avoid going in summer when the weather is unbearably hot!