Thursday 8th April to Friday 9th April

Thursday 8th April

With the skiing now done we left the ski resort and headed towards the village of Orgiva, in search of hippies. We had heard, that near the village there was a big hippy commune in the hills. I wanted to check this out, as apparently people were living in tepee’s, vans and make shift homes. As soon as we arrived in the town there was an abundance of hippies, so we knew we were in the right place. Before going we needed some basic supplies, but arrived in the village in time to wait three hours for the shops to open! After the wait about and a chat to find out how to get to the camp in the hills, we decided to find our own place to park for tonight. So headed off, on the way though we spotted a smaller commune in a valley down by a river. So instead we turned around to venture back and try and find it. We headed down a track we thought would take us there, but after the track we were on split for the second time, we decided to give up. Instead we went back to where a couple of vans were parked up in the town. There we met a German couple in a small bus they had converted.

Friday 9th April

Got up and decided to head into the hills to find the hippy commune of Benifecia. It wasn’t far out of the town, as there were some vans parked up around a small track and further up the hill you could make out the tepees amongst the trees. Lorna wasn’t in a hippy mood, so I took a stroll down the track to go and have a look around. There were various live-in vans parked down the track. A few vans down and I got chatting to some Dutch guys who had been there a few months. I then carried on down coming to a small clearing, where there were more vans and old motorhomes parked up. These were vehicles that looked like they no longer actually drove anywhere, they were just lived in. I then got chatting to a guy who lived further in, who was making the round selling some homemade bread. He explained that the further up you went it became more of a commune, with the people living at the top being the raw food group. The setting in the valley was beautiful and the vibe was very friendly. Although I would of liked to see more, I decided at that moment I would rather head off into the hills with Hymer and find a location of our own. So off I walked back to the motorhome.

We headed off up the mountain roads and realised the extent of the bad weather they had, when we were sunning it up in Morocco. The roads were badly damaged from landslides, in most places only part of the road was actually available to drive on. Still we continued forward for an hour. We then arrived at a part that was still being cleared and was blocked off. We were told if we wanted to continue we would have to take a small track off up the hill, for 7km before we could then rejoin the road later. After watching a few cars head up the steep dirt track, we decided against it and turned back around. There was no other way to go, so we had to drive an hour back and then head down to take the coastal road instead.

The coastal road was just mile after mile of industrial poly tunnels, in every direction away from the sea. It was a rather depressing sight after the lovely mountain region. Today we would not be finding any pretty little mountain spot for us to stay at. After a long drive we arrived in the town of Calahonda and found a spot on the beach with a couple of other motorhomes. The beachfront was lovely, apart from the very strong winds and the slightly violent looking sea. It looked more like we were on the Atlantic coast rather than the med.