Day 1 of the 9 day trip by 15 Club members to southern Spain staying fxed centre at LanJaron in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountain range south of Granada.
Phil and Mary organised the trip staying with Mary's sister at a house with a complex of outbuildings turned into Guest cottages.
Cast of characters - Phil, Mary, Alan, Liz, Jim, Eileen, Richard, Elizabeth, Gill, Ernie, Nicola, Avryl, Ann, Mike and yours truly Edwin. Unfortunately Christine had to cancel the day before due to flu.
Most of the group travelled to Gatwick by train. Ernie Nicola and I shared a large taxi which took the 3 of us and 3 bikes.
Checkin and the flight went without a hitch except that as we boarded a forlorn looking bike was propped up in the entrance tunnel with a sign saying ID required. The tag must have come off but it turned out to be Avryls and was duly loaded. Luckily it didn't jet off on its lonesome to Timbuktu.
Normally when flying to Med we leave a dull and dismal England to the sunny south. This time fortunes were reversed with clear blue skies over England and much of Europe and cloud over southern Spain. Luckily for us a reversal back to normal state is forecast for the coming week.
We arrived at the small Granada Airport with an unusual few hundred yards walk to the terminal instead of the usual bus. Everything was organised with a van for the bikes and 2 small minibus taxis for the group to take us the 30 miles to Lanjaron. Towering above the scene were the snow-capped peaks of the high Sierra Nevada floating above a band of low cloud.
Lanjaron is situated on the SW edge of the Sierra Nevada Massive. After valley roads the route took us up hairpin bends to Lanjaron. Phil pointed out the houses of our accommodation about 500ft above the town clinging to a cliff tumbling down from mountains above.
The taxi made its way up a narrow concrete road clinging to the cliff edge and no more than 1 car width. There were 1 or 2 murmuring about the climb at the end of each day.
The upside (unintentional pun) was the great views from our accommodation down to Lanjaron and the valley below. We had a splendid evening meal with our hosts and were entertained by the dogs and cats. The big alsation believed the cats were its puppies and that it had to gently carry them in its mouth by their necks. The cats didn't seem to appreciate the idea.
Edwin
Posted by Edwin
at 6:28 AM EDT
