Saturday 8th March 2008

We really wanted to stay at Camping Orgiva much longer. This is definitely the best campsite that we have stayed on – friendly, lovely views, lots of options for walks from the site, easy access into a town, excellent showers, good bar and restaurant, reasonably priced especially for longer stays. Highly recommended.
However we have an appointment in Rome at Easter and must move on. We will return to the area at some time to see Ronda and Granada and to do more walking in the Alpajuras. We will certainly use Camping Orgiva as a base then and take advantage of the additional 10% discount for returning customers!
The sat nav wanted to take through Granada and to the north of the Alpajuras but we wanted to see more of the mountains. Our destination was another National Park, Sierra Espuna, about 5 hours driving to the north east. We guessed that the road would not be very good but were pleasantly surprised to find that the N348 had been recently improved and was a very good road. It was another glorious day of blue skies and the air was crystal clear. The views were fantastic – looking across the valley, we could see the snow-covered peaks of the Sierra Navada and their were fantastic views down the valley with its white-washed villages clinging to the sides of the mountains. I would have loved to taken some photographs but there were no places to pull in on the road, so you will just have to image the pictures.
They were still making improvements to the road, adding many bridges to cut off narrow bendy sections and this entailed us driving over temporary surfaces and dirt tracks. Later it became obvious that the road improvements were by no means complete and we travelled for miles on dirt tracks alongside sections of partially-built new road. We then travelled on the old road – narrow, undulating and poorly maintained and we realised what an improvement the new road was! We were soon back on another section on the new road and continued on it until we joined major roads near Almeria. Once the whole of the N348 has been upgraded, it will open up the centre of the Alpajuras, which has its benefits and disadvantages for the inhabitants.
The scenery changed considerably as we approached Almeria with hundreds of rounded cone-shaped low hills. On the road towards Murcia there was a wild-west feel to the view with deep ravines in loose sandy rock and vehicles driving on the dirt roads created huge dust clouds – no a place to be on a blazing-hot, windy Summer's day!
Shortly after Lorca, at a town called Alhama, we started the climb up into the Sierra Espuna. The roads became steep, narrow and windy as we approached the village of El Berro where the campsite was located. Conveniently, a large Dutch motorhome was in front of us as we wound our way through the narrow streets, so they cleared the cars out of our path! The campsite is sited on a terraced hill with lovely views over the village and the National Park. As we had hoped, there are walks directly from the site and we were provided with photocopied details of 5 walks drawn up by a previous British visitor. To make us feel really at home, the site has free Wifi Internet access.
Photos: View from the pitch at Sierra Espuna Camping at El Berro.