So long sunshine, woke to miserable drizzle and cold.
Drove a few km down and found a Restaurant/Cafe called Chimenea based just behind a fuel station, and with our improved Spanish managed to order everyone, sausage and egg on toast, washed down with a hot chocolate - not the healthiest of breakfasts, but needed something substantial to get through the day.
Full tummies and ready to blitz the rest of the journey. Expected arrive around 7-8pm with a stops for lunch, etc. and provisions at Mercadona. My turn to drive and a very pleasant 3 hours, kids happy in the back with the DVD Players - Thanks Grandma! Stopped at fuel station, refueled both family and car, Paul to drive next, which was just the luck for what we were to face later. Dun dun dahhhhhh.
The directions we were given were from Malaga Airport, obviously as not many regular holidayers would drive all the way down, as it would take a large chunk out of their holiday. But as we were coming from the North and had Satnav and maps, thought why bother continuing going South past our destination just to come back up! So we chose what appeared to be a more direct route, and the yellow roads on the Andalucian map, yes were smaller but would still be suitable.
We stopped at Antequera - approximately half way between Cordoba and Malaga - for provisions at Mercadona, before using the A343 to Alora. We estimated should only really take us 1hr or so. Unbeknown to us, the road had suffered severely from the terrential downpours last September, and so there were numerous sections of closed road, and a unmade temporary road to the side - with very loose surface and huge pot holes, but really craters!
Anyway, we kept hearing a squeak coming for the near side rear and Paul joked about Citroens being right old Jam Jar Cars, not built like the good old German Audi's!!
I called June at the holiday let to let her know which way we were coming and our current position, and her tone of voice said it all. Well it was too late to turn back now. So we persisted ahead.
Well squeaking persisted and we stopped, just in time! Paul got out and blurted "OOh my gosh!". Because the car was a jam jar car everytime we went bumping around, albeit very slowly, the chassis twists and turns, which mean't the roof bars came under pressure and had come undone!!!! The roof box basically was just sitting on the roof not attached to anything. A few moments later and we may have been waving Adios to our belongings sliding down the windscreen and sledging down the mountainside infront of us.
But in true Adjayi style dealt with the matter and managed to resecure then drove at a snails pace, me checking every now and then just to make sure the roof box was still there. We can laugh about it now, but boy it was a tense moment. Actually should be laughing - we gotta take the same amount of stuff back up the hill when we leave on 4th April - although we do know the BETTER route now so only 2km of unmade road.
Well time is ticking by and it's now dusk - ooh great - don't really know where we are going and it's dark. Mark - Jane's partner called, as it was some while since we spoke to Jane. He said we had at least another hour! Kids now getting fractious in the back. And hungry. Those two just don't mix with our family. The food shopping was in the front with me so just gave everyone a slice of bread and piece of fruit just to keep them quite for a bit. Mark expressed some concern that we were still far away and accessing Las Nuevas at night wasn't really ideal. He then asked what car we had "Citroen Picasso" we said "O'h really" Mark responded. Oooh uuuh that was the response we were expecting, but kept our composure and got on with it. Well what else could we do?
Finally, found Estacion de Cartama where we had the main directions from, and felt more at ease. However, this almost single track tarmac road was getting higher and higher, with sharp turns, steep gradients, blind crests, no barriers and shear drops in the pitch dark was a white knuckle journey. (It was lucky we had driven some of these types of roads a few years back when visiting Cordoba, otherwise I don't know how we would have handled the situation). This section of the road would continue for 8km, then 2km of same type of road but no tarmac - dirt uneven road!!!
Mark said he's meet us at Ermita de la Cruces the church at the very top of the hill where the tarmac stopped and guide us down. The road now descended, but still winding tight S bends and constantly changing cambers I've ever seen.
Finally 10pm we arrived! In one piece - And with roofbox still attached to the car !
Both driver and passengers were somewhat weary, but relieved. Corrine had been awake for most of the worst part of the journey and was a bit upset and emotional bless her. Ethan was alright and Aston, well snoozing in the back like nothing had happened. The joys of being a babe!!
unloaded some of our things quickly so we could get straight off to bed, a deserved rest was definitely needed.
No comments:
Post a Comment