Repositioning

Very surprisingly, there are no longer any hotels open in the city of Huércal-Overa (pop 20,000). There were four before Covid, but none of them are open now, so if we walked from Cuevas del Almanzora to Huércal-Overa, we would have no place to stay. Instead, we hopped on a bus in Cuevas del Almanzora this morning to reposition ourselves to a spot where we can get to Huércal Overa tomorrow morning. Many thanks to Laurie and Sabine for finding this option for us. It’s especially handy that the hotel had a vacancy during Easter week, and even more that it is the one place around here reachable by bus.

In one of those unexpected coincidences of life, when Ned and the hotel receptionist got talking, it turned out that the receptionist’s family has lived for 40 years in the same city in New Jersey where Ned was born! The grandfather in the family came to the United States as a shepherd in the 1920s, and after five years gained US citizenship. Since then many members of the family have been involved in education in the U.S. His sister-in-law is an award-winning bilingual teacher in New Jersey. You can imagine our big smiles during that conversation!

Ned’s walk today: to an abandoned mine nearby.Read more