A Belated New Years Celebration

Since the New Year Eve celebrating in Sevilla was lackluster the champagne remained corked and the two cans of peeled grapes for New Years remained sealed. There is a tradition in Spain to eat one grape for each clang of the bell at midnight on New Years Eve. Of course it would be normal to buy 24 fresh grapes (12 x 2). But instead, to fit in with the locals, we bought a can for each of us at the supermercato (along with everyone else in Sevilla on Dec 31st) with 12 peeled grapes.

On the last day of the countryside tour of Andalucia the plan was to find a 6 km trail (purported to start 1-2 km from the visitor center in Matalascanas) that would traverse through pine forests to the beach. Unfortunately, without a map of the area the task of finding the trail head was a little harder than anticipated. In Denmark most forest areas have maps available, but this was not the case in Andalucia.

After heading in the right initial direction (and climbing over and then BACK over a 2 meter tall chain-link fence near the highway to find a kilometer marker to see how far we had walked) my conclusion was the tourist info website I found with details about the trail was wrong wrong wrong! But THIS would not prevent us getting to the beach! We decided to go off roading (pathing?), blazing our own trail in the direction of the beach (we were pretty sure we knew where it was).

The nature in this area is a combination of low brush and pine trees on sandy soils. This made sense since the beach was said to be bordered by extensive dunes. After traipsing for an hour or so through the forest we ended up at a dirt road. Fortunately (or unfortunately) it was the same road we started off on an hour earlier :-0!! At least we knew which way to go to get to the beach. The sun finally came out in full force and we could hear the ocean. We made it, and it was beautiful, look!











After breaking for lunch it was time to go down to the beach and hopefully walk back to Matalascanas. Easy right? Wrong! We must have tried at least 5-6 times to get down to the beach without success. The problem was that the dunes dropped of dramatically to the beach and the cliffs were not stable. We didn't want to end up like this fence...even though it would have been a faster way down :-)





















I guess the new (identical) fence at the top of the photo is an indicator that people around here are used to steady erosion in this area.

After another hour of wandering around and not finding a way to the beach, finally some stairs were found. They must go to the beach right? They were nice looking and indeed went down to the beach. The only problem? You couldn't get to the top of them due to THIS fence! We decided not to climb THIS one since it was on private property.

















By this point the absurdity of the situation was making us both a bit slap-happy. So, of course then a way down to the beach was finally discovered! So much for not having a map and being a trail blazer - but...all in all it was fun.

The best part of the day was the little, closed, empty, beach cafe/bar we found. The place had a great patio and there were deck chairs and little tables. The beach was more or less empty except for a few fishermen and dog walkers so we got the place to ourselves. The sun was shining, a nice breeze blowing, finally - the perfect place to enjoy a small bottle of new years champagne sipped out of shells collected (and cleaned) on the beach. The drink was well appreciated and well deserved after a morning of adventuring.
















It was the next days that the cans of peeled grapes got opened, after the tent and bags were packed up to go back to Sevilla for the last night. Yum!