Humilladero

We had identitified a site to stay at which was pretty much on a straight line route from Granada to Seville - an ideal stopping-off point for us to visit Julie's sister in Marbella without having to tow the caravan all the way down to the coast and back.

In the guide book the site sounded ideal - a brand new purpose-built site with excellent facilities.  Well, when it's finished I'm sure it will be lovely but unfortunately in between placing an ad in the 2010 Camping Cheques book (which they probably had to commit to in mid-2009) and the beginning of 2010 all building work came to a standstill.  We're not sure of all the details but the current owners told us that they had taken over the site from the local council and were now doing their best to make it ready.

To be fair, the essential facilities were all in place - a shower/toilet block, fresh water & electric points etc. but the site itself consisted of a series of gravel roadways radiating from a central road.  These roadways were meant to provide access to the pitches but all there was on either side was rather soft red soil. 

We stayed for eight nights and actually quite enjoyed it because for most of the time there were only two or three other caravans/motorhomes on site so we had plenty of peace and quiet.  Except that is for Friday afternoon to Sunday afternoon when the site hosted a Spanish caravan rally and 60 more outfits came on site.  It was quite good in a way to see a bit of life and watch Spanish families enjoying a weekend away similar to ones we have experienced with the Bucks Caravan Club Centre in the UK.  The only downside was that a group of young boys decided that the series of unmade roads made a fantastic off-road cycle track and proceeded to use their wheels to spread large amounts of red soil across all areas of the site, including the toilet blocks!

We witnessed two unusual sporting activities in the town's communal area just outside the site.  The first was a greyhound track - nothing unusual about that - but this was was dead straight which meant that all the dogs had to be walked up to one end of the track with one of the owners carrying the "hare" which was attached to a long cord.  The other end of the cord was attached to a spindle driven by a motor-bike engine - the speed of the hare could be regulated by using the throttle on the bike engine.  Basic - but it worked!

Also in the same area were small concrete towers with pictures of pigeons with coloured wings painted on the sides.  When we first came across the reason for these towers we thought we had discovered a new species of bird but it turns out that pigeon racers in Spain actually paint their birds with their team colours so that they can easily see whose birds are whose.  I'm not sure if it does the birds any harm or not but it certainly makes for an amazing spectacle when you seem them all come racing home.