Spain - Day 22

We were flying home today, and given the uncertainty about the lockdown in Spain, we decided to leave very early in case of delays.

Our flight was at 12.15pm and Alicante was just under an hour away, so we left at about 8am. As it turned out the roads were very quiet and we got to the car hire place before 9.

We handed the car back. Scott had tried to polish out the scrape on the wing, and that, along with three weeks of road dirt, was enough as they took it back without a problem. They gave us a lift to the airport in their minibus.

Security at the airport was as busy as ever, after having very little contact with other people for weeks this was the most likely place we'd catch something.

All the food and drink outlets were closed, as were most of the shops. Fortunately we'd anticipated this and had brought our own lunch to have on the plane. We managed to get water from a vending machine.

The flight took off on time, and actually landed a little early at 4.05pm. We caught an airport taxi home.

Spain - Day 21

Listening to the news and searching the Internet in the morning we were unsure if the lockdown was already in place, or if it was due to start on Monday morning. We'd seen both versions of the story.

We decided to go out anyway, reckoning at worst we'd get sent back to the apartment if stopped. We made sure we took our passports with us just in case.

The village was deserted and everything was closed.

We drove to the town of Calpe, and parked at a recreation ground at the base of the Oltà mountain. It was next to a campsite which was closed and taped off.

Oltà is a lump of rock about 500m high right next to the town. The path is a forest track round the base, and a steep rocky path up a gorge which leads to the summit.

Part way round there is a hermitage.

There are views down to the town, the most prominent feature is the Peñon De Ifach, a large rock right at the end of the beach.

On the way to the summit we passed some wild goats.

As we descended we passed through the rest of the goats, they were a bit smelly.

The walk was about 10km.

We drove into Calpe itself, it was eerily deserted. It has an inland salt lake with flamingos.

The Peñon De Ifach was taped off, as was the beach, so we were beginning to be pretty sure the lockdown had already started. However we were passed by police cars who didn't seem too bothered by us being there.

We drove back to the apartment without incident, and had fish and chips for dinner.

Spain - Day 20

Today we walked along the highest ridge in the area, the Aitana Ridge. Our starting point was a car park at Partagas far above the village of Benifato, at a height of about 1000m. There are water springs and a picnic and barbecue area.

We saw more people on this walk than on any other walk for the whole three weeks. We passed a group of British people on a walking holiday.

We reached a set of water troughs.

From there we headed steeply up, having to go through a narrow gap in the rocks known as Fat Man's Agony. We made it though!

From there it was pretty straightforward to get to the summit of Aitana at 1540m.

From there was an undulating 5km walk east along the ridge. Unfortunately it had clouded over a bit so the views weren't quite as good as they could have been.

While walking along the ridge, Scott got a phone call from his brother Les. They'd heard that Jet2 flights from Britain to Spain had turned back in mid-air because of the Coronavirus situation. This obviously caused us some concern as we were now not sure about our flight home in two days time.

We walked down from the ridge back towards the car park, through almond groves, some with loads of daisies growing below them.

The walk was about 14km.

Once back at the apartment we checked the news and it seemed Spain was preparing to go into lockdown. Our minds were put at rest a little when Jet2 texted to assure us our flight home on Monday would be going as scheduled.

We had pizza for dinner.

Spain - Day 19

We drove west to the next valley up from the reservoir, and did a figure of eight walk. At times it was on rocky paths, sometimes forest tracks, and sometimes on the riverbed itself.

In all we did about 12km.

We went back to the apartment for showers then went for a walk round our village to see the attractions. It's a bit of a tourist trap, apparently very busy in summer with day trippers from Benidorm.

There's a tunnel that you have to go through to get to the castle and the old part of the village.

We visited the mansion house with its furnished rooms.

Then we went up to the castle and cemetery at the highest point, with good views.

Our apartment is in the last street at the back.

There's a little village square.

We had drinks at a couple of bars then went home for dinner, beefburgers, potato wedges, fried onions and grilled tomatoes.