Exploring

The sun started to struggle through the clouds today, and according to the Spanish weather service, we're not due any more dust. We were out bright and early to join a guided tour of Roman columbariums (funerary structures for urns containing ashes). The guide was the same one who did the tour of the ::cough:: Roman bridge.

We all got on a bus and drove about 6 km out of Almuñecar. Then the bus turned round and went back again, dropping us about 3 km from where we started.  We were a bit baffled till we figured out it was the first place he could turn round in order to then drop us on the right side of the road.

We certainly wouldn't have found this monument on our own -- we climbed a steep little track up from the layby, and it is on a steep scrub-covered slope behind a house (extra 1). It's a largely intact tower, with niches in the walls (like a dovecote, hence the name). We had to take turns looking inside.

The second extra is the view ... it's a good representation of the landscape around here, with ancient terraces for crops, and massive viaducts carrying the motorway over steep-sided gorges.

Then we drove to the other side of Almuñecar and did another U-turn in order to visit a ruined columbarium in a field behind an industrial estate (blip). No way you would find this on your own either. It has panoramic views of Almuñecar, from the orchards to the sea.

Once Ivan, the guide, gets going he's like a firehose, pouring out a fast-moving torrent of information. Whenever he stopped (not often) one of the regulars in the crowd would ask a question, and off he would go again. I got a bit weary of it in the end -- the tour ended up taking over two and a half hours, most of the time spent standing around in this field. Still, it was a nice day and such a pleasure to actually be out and about.

At home, it was even warm enough (just) to sit on the terrace, and Mystère dozed contentedly on his sun lounger. The birds tweeted, and the squirrels chased each other round the trunk of the pine tree. It felt like spring!

This evening we walked down to Antonia's for a drink. J was going to join us there, but when we were halfway there she Whatsapped to say her Dutch neighbour had had a fall, and because they don't speak Spanish she ended up calling the ambulance and going to Motril with them. Second time we've had to scrap a date -- hopefully we'll catch each other before we leave.