That day I continued south-west to Cabo de Gata, the town which shares it’s name with the national park which encompasses it. The town was tiny but there was an endless seeming beach where people were lined up as far as the eye could see. Everybody had a good 50m of beach to themselves. I wanted to stop and take a break but the landscape didn’t look at all like I would be able to find a spot to make camp because still there was no vegetation to hide. To make matters worse just when I thought my last hope was a little hill a KM away from me it turned out to be a bird sanctuary complete with an observatory. So I would camp in a national park (that’s a no) and bird sanctuary (a big no) and there would be people scouting my location. A bit inconvenient I thought. So I kept going. Instead of focusing on the front of the hill I now went around it and discovered an amazing road which offered a breathtaking view. It was a bad spot to stop but I had to take some pictures. Unfortunately they don’t do the perspective (the deep drop) justice.

I followed the little serpentine road a few hundred more meters until I noticed a little gravel road towards the mountain.

There was a little bare spot just a hundred meters into the gravel road. It was a bit exposed but I knew I wasn’t going to find a better spot before nightfall. I didn’t set up my tent yet though, instead I went back to the beach to enjoy the sunset there.

After returning to my bike I noticed that there was a nice KTM bike with a German license plate parked next to my bike. It was great to see that I wasn’t the only foreigner traveling by motorcycle after all. I had already covered close to 50% of Spain’s circumference but this was the first foreign license plate I had seen. Coincidentally the owner, Tano just returned to his bike from the beach as well and we exchanged experiences and advice. It was a pleasure to find a like minded spirit in the middle of nowhere. He told me of his adventures in Africa which added fuel to my desire to go there as well.

I had wanted to return to my camp site before the sun had set but we parted ways wishing each other good look well after the sun had set and it had already been pitch dark.

Tano had told me that on his trip he once woke up to a wild dog aggressively circling him in the darkness. He only had his knife as a defense but this reminded me to also keep my knife closer during nights. Until now I had always left it at the bike. But there are lot’s of wild dogs and also cats which seem to have very little in common with the cute pets we love.

I set up the tent in the darkness with my flash light and hoped to fall asleep right after but the heat kept me awake for longer than I had hoped. The rhythmically flashing light beam of the light house close by illuminating the hills was a welcome distraction until I eventually did fall asleep.

The next morning I woke up from the heat once again. I packed my things while a friendly musician was watching my every move.

 

This guy was at least six centimeters big. I’m not really sure though if they are actually the ones making the shrilling sound of the desert.

Just before I got back onto the bike after having had a quick cereal breakfast I decided to finally add a new camera perspective to my GoPro camera recordings by attaching a new mount to my helmet. This would give the viewer a kind of 1st person perspective which should be particularly interesting on video recordings.

It was a nice idea but a bad execution as I later realized that I would not be able to open the visor anymore. OK in winter – NOT OK in the oven that is Spain in summer. So it came off at the next stop.

The next stop was Almeria. The city itself was not hugely interesting except for a Muslim fortress which unfortunately seemed to have no accessible entrance.

What nonetheless made Almeria important to me was the fact that it was the closest city to the three western towns I had added to my route. They were in the middle of the desert. Literally. The Tabernas desert is the only real desert in Europe and it was the shooting location of more than 400 movies. Among them most of the great Spaghetti Western movies. These three towns are kept partially in their original shape for tourists and there is a ticket fee to get in. Since I didn’t want to rush things and I wanted the merciless high noon sun for photos I decided to start my western movie history tour the next day and start looking for a camp site right away because I knew that the terrain around me was going to make this a difficult task.

I had to ride west to the next town to find out that there still wasn’t any hint of cover so I decided to return and go east hoping to find more remote places there. The opposite was the case but behind a busy parking lot of a busy beach I found tall bushes behind which I set up my tent as soon as the the sun had sat. I have camped at more inviting places but this was the best I could find. The photo doesn’t show the many bugs, the strange wires on the floor and the weird smell making me want to spend as little time there as possible.