Benalmádena is going back home to my teenage summers; beach, sun and chiringuitos (beach restaurant) three months long. This time, however, at the beginning of March it is unusually cold and most chiringuitos are closed. The beach promenade has the melancholic atmosphere of summer holiday places during winter.
The visit of Jos’s family Wim, Nancy and Mike on the day of Andalucía cheers us up and we walk together in Torremolinos in pursuit of an elusive flamenco show which we failed to find.
The harbour of Málaga oddly does not accept boats between 12 and 20 meters of length, so we go there by car. The climb to the Alcazaba and Castillo de Gibralfaro demands quite an effort from our sea legs but it is rewarded with spectacular views. I loved the Alcazaba, a moorish castle which reminded me very much of the Alhambra, in Granada, my birth city…. And so we sailed on into my youth to the coast of Granada.
We had a great sail to Motril. With a windforce 5 to 6 from the back we only rolled out the genoa and sailed for 10 hours comfortably and with good speed.
this happens when you go AGAINST the wind
Motril is the nearest harbour to Granada, my birthplace where I lived until age 12. My family Ignacio, Medi and Carmen were so kind to pick us up in the harbour and show us the beautiful villages in Las Alpujarras.
Motril itself is not spectacular, but the area is known as the Costa Tropical with lots of sun and on the foot of the Sierra Nevada, which provides it with enough water.
In the early days sugarcane was grown and made into rum. Nowadays this has been replaced with mainly avocados and mango’s, but we could still visit “Ron Montero” (unfortunately no family), the locally produced rum made from imported sugercane.
Later we visited a ‘finca’ (farm) and were shown around by the farmer who explained how to grow chirimoya, papaya, all kinds of avocados and, being the only farmer in Europe: coffee! All in very small scale, selling it through his webshop direct to end consumers and restaurants.
In the evening we played cardgames with Sandra and Matthias, a Dutch couple with the age of our oldest daughter and boyfriend who were on their boat Mahalo.
From Motril we have sailed in 24 hours, of which 12 hours great sailing and 12 hours on engine to Cartagena. We will be here some more days, so more in the next blog. But the start (with 22 degrees Celcius) is very positive.