Spain #3 - San Javier
Go ahead and check out the pics taken, here.
Fun fact. We didn’t plan on San Javier (not that we had planned on the other places at home or even a month before, but even less so with San Javier). I thought that we’d have less time left until Saskia’s swimming camp, but then it turned out that we have 12 more days, instead of just 5 and only 6 hours drive to get to Saskia’s swimming camp, so we needed just one stay in between.
The girls wanted to get back to the beach (or rather didn’t want to spend 12 days in the mountains) and I wanted to see the mountains again, before we leave Europe and who knows what comes then, am I right?! So, as a compromise, Reet found two places for us. Monachil and an area near Murcia which, on paper, looked pretty great.
Let’s start with San Javier, Spain (don’t confuse it with San Javier that’s in some other country and is an actual city or something)
As this was the girls’ choice (not a mountain), this place got 7 nights. Now, why did it look great on paper? Well, there was this long strip of land, which had buildings on it and on both sides of the strip there was water (just check google maps already). We were not rich enough to go and live on the strip (and the drive there would have been an hour longer as well and who’d want that). So we went ahead and stayed on the mainland thinking: we can always drive to the strip if we wanted to.
At first we thought that the city was built just for tourists because the streets were empty where we lived and well, not too many people at the beach and the beach area. And that might be true. I know that 15 minutes away from us, there was life (no nightlife, but life… cars at the streets etc) and 30 minutes from us at the centre there were people as well, but not at the beach. I think that, yeah… there would be more tourists during the high season, but also locals, it’s just that… it was awfully cold already, only 23 degrees during the daytime and that, turns out, even for us Estonians, is too cold to go to a beach, so for the locals the weather must have felt freezing, thus… no people running around all naked and stuff.
This theory was confirmed by an event on a random day. In the morning, looking out of our penthouse balcony, I saw a few old people with bags on the street. And later, when taking my lunch walk with Emmi (while others were shopping), I understood where they went. There was a market happening that day. The market itself was boring, but on a long strip and full of people. So… There were people there, just, not running around naked on the beach like crazy people.
So, we have established that the place was for locals. And… we know locals… They go to work, they come home, spend time with the family, they don’t want tourists and young people screaming on the streets and the areas like these, they are large. We were in one of those areas. Meaning: nothing close by.
So what did we do? Almost nothing.
There was a shopping day at the mall that’s 30 minutes away.
There was a walk to the neighbouring town’s beach (again about 30 minutes away). That had some life, but not too much.
There was a walk to our town’s centre, which was again of course about 30 minutes away.
And then I had a hike alone
And then we had a hike with the family.
So, feels like a lot, but basically it was just a lot of walking in a warm weather (but not warm enough to spend a day at the beach). Also, the beach next to our home (only 5 minutes away) was… kind of… not inviting. The sand was kind of muddy and there was alga that started when I was only balls deep in the water already. Also, did I mention that it was only 23 degrees most days. That was felt as hell as well after Valencia’s 27 degrees.
But what are the highlights already?
But there were 3 highlights from that location. And I think the 3 highlights are enough for one week. At one point I need to get it through my thick head that we’re living away from home not vacationing. Meaning, sometimes, we need to take it easy and just not do something interesting.
Anyway, the 3 highlights.
The family hiking day.
The walk to the nearby city’s beach
The apartment and the communication with the landlord.
Batería de Cenizas
I searched long and hard for the perfect hike for our family and I found it - Batería de Cenizas. It wasn’t easy and it wasn’t difficult. There were several options to get to that peak and I was even able to persuade the girls to take the longer path and it was only 30 minutes away by car.
So we went there, took the hard part first (meaning greater ascent, thus easier, but longer descent). Constant ascent for 45 minutes. Fun even, had to get our hands dirty in several places. Ascended to something that had several cannons on top of it and some radar system. But how? Well, the descent was on a paved car road (that was closed to public because of lack of parking places on the top or something?). The views were still great, kind of reminded us the good old Amalfi coast views – a rocky coast.
So the next 1,5 hours + we took the most boring hike back to where we parked the car. But that’s not even what was the highlight I wanted to talk about.
Had we not taken the longer route, we wouldn’t have found a SMALL brown? sand beach, Playa del Lastre, that was close to the start of the hiking trail. By far the prettiest beach we have been to during our ~2 months in Europe (wasn’t hard to beat, we have never been fans of just long stretches of sand and until that day, we had only seen those kinds of beaches… yuck).
We drank coke that was bought from the beach bar that was for some reason open (why… it was too cold for people, wasn’t it? If not, why are the long beaches and their restaurants “closed”?), we made sand castles, and we swam and laughed and laughed and swam. The perfect day. I’d go back to that beach again when someone would drive me there for free.
The walk to the beach that wasn’t ours.
What was even more fun, but without Saskia, unfortunately, was the walk to the beach that wasn’t ours. The walk to that beach wasn’t impressive. Rather boring even. The beach itself was even less interesting. But next to that beach, a hiking trail started. The hiking trail would contain the following activities:
Walk on a very long strip of “promenade?”
Walk on a very long strip of natural “beach”
See a few flamingos that seemed to be free
See a few white windmills
Walk by the salt mining facility
Take a mud bath (at “Baños de lodo”)
Now, seeing the ugly birds roaming free was fun, but a mud bath, for free, that was totally unexpected and one of the finest things we have done during our time in Europe. You could just choose a random bridge, get out of your clothes, walk in and put mud all over you like a crazy person. Then go out, take pics and make funny poses like everyone else was doing and then just wash it off on the other side of the “promenade” you’d be walking on when on the hike. Very fun. Very very fun. The smell stayed with me for days, though.
The hike (“Paraje de las Salinas”) itself I did alone a day later. Took out my camera about 3 times during the hike (~4 hours long) and 2 of them was probably because I thought “maybe… after I edit it, it’d look cool?” and one time, because… Well… Flamingos. I’m not saying that you should skip the hike. No, had I not taken the hike I don’t think I could have said later that I had really been to that area. Didn’t take a swim, which was sad, but didn’t dare leave my expensive camera on the beach without supervision.
But would I want to go back to that area? Why… why would I? Maybe to the strip then? Oh hell no, that’s probably even more touristy.
The accommodation
But the biggest highlight of the trip was the accommodation. The worst possible experience with AirBnB I have ever had.
Well, when you name your apartment “penthouse” on a two story high building, you should know that something’s off.
First of all. The owner doesn’t let the actual person managing the apartment have access to Airbnb. But why do you think that?
Well, when we were asked when we’d arrive, I said that we are driving there, but he didn’t bring the key to the garage and said that he could bring it tomorrow if we wanted to (we were okay parking on the street so never asked for it, but still.. it’s the principle of it, if you promote having a garage, why not allow me to park in the garage from the first night on).
Either he didn’t know anything about our baby or he just didn’t care. There was a baby high chair listed under amenities. And when I asked about it on the night of the arrival, they said that they indeed have it (in the garage), but we got it 3 days later, because well, that day was convenient for the landlord who didn’t want to bring it to us earlier.
Okay, this is something they couldn’t probably do anything about, but apologize and keep me updated, but when we arrived they said that the dishwasher was broken and they didn’t know when the repairman would come. I asked about it on Tuesday, no-one replied and the repairman never came during the week.
And then on the second evening, having prepared the meat for the grill, I starter up the grill. Okay, I tried to start up the grill, but it was out of gas. Asked about it. 2 days later the landlord came and confirmed that indeed the grill was out of gas and 2 days later, we got the grill working (so we had 2 more nights left to actually use the grill).
And no-one gave us instruction about where to leave the keys when we leave.
Now, I understand that if you don’t have a car, don’t have a baby, the dishwasher wasn’t broken and you weren’t the one on who’s time the gas balloon had gone empty, then it would have been a perfect place for You. It had every possible thing you’d ever want there. More towels than you’d ever need, more kitchenware than you’d know what to do with, a large terrace on the roof, a silent air conditioning. But if you actually want/need something from them and are not from the country where people just call all the time and push others to do something, then you’re probably going to have a bad experience there.
In summary?
I was happy that we were able to leave this place after 7 days. Of course part of that happiness came from the fact that we were going to Sierra Nevada national park, and that’s more my cup of tea. There, I wouldn’t care about the grill or the washing machine or the baby high chair or the parking, because mountains.
