A stormy start in the sandpit...
After getting up at 2:45am and travelling on a bus for 2 hours, waiting in the airport for 2 hours, flying for 2½ hours (yay the joy of travelling..) we were very tired but looking forward to the sun (weather forecast for weeks before was sunny, no wind and 20C). As we stepped out the plane though, mother nature decided to play a bit and it was storming, grey skies, 13C and raining like whipped.... sigh.. that was not quite how I pictured the southern Spain on my first visit.. so after we finally got to the hotel we decided to sleep the day away.
This turned out to be a brilliant idea as next day, even though it was still very windy, the sky was blue and the sun shining. So we went on to see the castle Alcazaba. This was really nice and had a good view over Almeria.
30 mins away from Almeria we drove to Cabo de Gata which is an area of the coast to the East. Going along the water it was so windy that the foam kicked up by the waves slapped on the road and ocean spray on the car. And after going through the sand the rental car looked like it had been through a blizzard... I'm just happy I didn't have to clean it! But Cabo de Gata was pretty cool in the wind. When we got up to the top of the cliffs (after a little scary oneway drive (see the pic)) the cliffs looked great in the waves (at least when ones hair wasn't forcefully slapped into ones face by the wind all the time).
As we were there during Easter there were a lot of religious parades. One evening we went down to see them. It was very different to what I thought. The participants were dressed in special outfits with high hats and there was no sounds except for people praying and shuffling around. It was interesting to see.
One evening we ate at the hotel restaurant and seriously I almost would rather eat dog food than that again. I had a chicken breast which had been deep fried, it was oozing oil and the salad was drowned in bad olive oil and everything had way too much salt (likely to cover that it may be yesterdays leftovers). Horrible and expensive food (compared to the quality), definitely can't recommend it.
