This was a bonus as the road we wanted was closed.
The alternative wasn't signposted.
Back through the village and ask a few times.
Quite a difference having a simple "no strings" relaxed conversation with old people after Morocco.
Much more room than we at first thought.
The rain slowed.
The Sierra de Baza.
Looks like this sort of weather will be with us for the next couple of weeks.
But its going to rain again later.
Room with a view!
Which turned the olive leaves over.
Hard to capture the colours.
We think almonds in blossom.
As we drove further we realised the blossom wasn't just white or pink. There was also red, and all shades in between.
Different shapes to the trees.
More than almonds.
Mostly behind us but occasionally from the left side.
Which made passing trucks a potential hazard.
The last couple of days have really been the only times we've driven for longish distances when its dark, rainy, or windy.
A neat and ordered landscape.
Pruned to perfection.
In some areas pruning is still happening.
Some areas are irrigated with lots of plastic pipes.
We passed through Jarafuel.
Its hard to stop in the middle of these villages. They were designed before the era of cars and the need for car parks.
Different to the villages we passed a few months ago in the north west. Though always a prominent church.
No smokestack!
We took a short cut avoiding a loop in the main road.
No campsite but it meant we had to negotiate the town to find the main road again.
We had Igo set to "shortest".
We didn't see many likely camp sites all day. Of course next morning we saw quite a few within the next couple of km.
This was a track off an old section of road.
We told Igo (gps) to show us the shortest route. Cheated a bit and forced it inland through mountains rather than part way along the coast.
Just watching the landscape unfold.
We've been passing through an expanse of sedimentary stuff.
But strangely we haven't passed a bank or a panaderia (bread shop).
Ever changing.
Easy to recognise railway architecture the world over.
The line is disused but we had a chuckle at the "cardboard cutout" train.
Barley and oats.
Very different to the olives, grapes, fruit and nuts further south.
We are above 1000m. Our farmer told us the area was snowed in a few days ago.
He believes the road through Andorra is open.
Still no obvious shops. We are missing something.
In a very short few hundred km we have past through most rock types and a great variety of landscapes.
We seem to like fishing spots.
And stayed the night.
We are within a couple of hundred km of Andorra. We'll plan so we enter early morning and leave before lunch - two border crossings in one day!
We've reverted to early mornings, drive, and find a camp early afternoon.
And then down to it again.
Judging by the arches the bridge was built before there was a lake, or the lake is high.
Some countries are NS and some are EW. Spain seems to be every which way.
Apart from this lake which pushed us east before we could cross it.
But that's in the general north east direction of Andorra anyway.
We hope.
We'd managed to avoid a queue of traffic behind us by keeping to the side giving people as much visibility as we could. Unusual for cars a fair smattering of drivers showed their thanks.
The German truck was not going to let us past so we pulled over to let the queue behind us past.
We were wondering why the car hadn't passed us earlier but guessed he was just having a look.
A nice exhaust sound and a wave (thumbs up) as it passed.
We caught up with the queue a few minutes later. All but the Aston stuck behind the German.
Yup. Its blurred!
A convenient bridge and a fishing spot.
We timed our crossing of the Pyrennees through Andorra to avoid the weekend ski traffic.
With the exception of Alhambra our journey through Spain has really been a "drive by".
We have a sense of skating over the top in most countries. Spain more so.
I guess we have our attention on the coming journey home.
