Grazalema

After more hair raising travel (aka Nancy, Doug thought it was fine and enjoyable but agreed John should not take his F350 and RV along it!) driving along narrow roads with steep drop offs (intermittent concrete block barriers but the occasional chipped or missing which Nancy did not find reassuring) we reached this pleasant town which was quite tourist friendly. Walked around taking in the scenery including some fir trees mixed with palms (Grazalema receives the most annual rainfall of any town in Southern Spain and there was a picture of snow on the trees; there is a national park and hiking in this area) and stopped for our usually late AM coffee hoping to have a bite of lunch but no food served til 1 pm so back on the road. Next town that we passed through was Ubrique "spectacularly situated in front of the crag of the Cruz de Tajo". Unfortunately we did not get a chance to stop for lunch as given that it is on a crag, the roads are narrow and we did not come across any parking stops before we found ourselves headed out of town. This town was renowned for its leather industry supplying the likes of Louis Vuitton and Gucci. One last town: Cortes de la Frontera; in the area of cork harvesting. We saw some of the cork trees sans bark on the lower trunk. It replaces itself every 9 years. No trouble parking in this town - why? : basically all was shuttered for the Sunday. Not a touristic place. We had peanut butter on a cracker and the remains of our water and headed for the Mediterranean, continuing or descent down to sea level. Doug wondered whether there had been a miscalculation as we were still at a fairly high elevation given our 50 minute anticipated drive.Read more