A walk in the mountains can always bring a lot of positive and good energy, regardless of whether the activity was planned or not. Although the unplanned ones bring a spice of surprise, so I love them even more. Why should we have control over everything, and always stick to just the schedule, right? This walk was not planned, and that is why it brought me so much joy.
The people we spent that day with are also a cause for satisfaction. These are our dear friends, who live in the city of Valencia, however, they were in the countryside for the weekend, at her parents' house, near the village Petrer. I say house, and in fact, it is a semi-cave. Half carved in the mountains and half upgraded with real walls that give it the look of a house, it is surrounded only by nature. It is a real gem on hot summer days, extraordinary. Mountains that look like from another planet, mostly dry vegetation of southeastern Spain. And one small stream. In just a few minutes walk you are in that environment. Quite unplanned, through a phone conversation with that friend of ours on Sunday morning, the idea came up:
Why don't you come here and spend the day with us? It is only an hour's drive away.
We were ready in no time. I didn't want to think and plan much. Light clothing, water, mobile phone, charger and GPS. Some gifts, like home-made fruit brandy and wine, some Greek sweets I had, and our joy and desire to see those friends. Nothing else was needed. Although there was no signal for either the phone or the internet, we found the cave from the first attempt. Ok, we got lost when we headed home in the evening, but never mind, we quickly corrected the mistake and got back on track.
This place is further south than us and not on the coast. As I said, there’s practically nothing around, and if you need a day to unwind your mind and have no contact with the digital world, I highly recommend the place. Only rocks, of strange appearance, dust, and a little bit of more vegetation around that small river. It is funny when in this part of Spain we call something a river. The amount of water in these mountains depends on the quantity of rain. So if it is a dry summer, there is not much water either in the stream.
Although it is all close to their cave-house, our walk lasted about three hours. We had water with us, and we didn’t need anything else. All those greyish rocks and earthy colours look pale because the sun was shining brightly too. But they promised us we would see a different scene as well. Waterfalls. Of course, mini-waterfalls, and really, we came across that little oasis, a pool of river water that fills up from that stream of water. They told us that sometimes it would be much more water and that it would fall all around from that cliff; not only in this small amount as now. But I liked this view.
During the walk, we came across one interesting thing. Someone was playing, and building towers out of stones. How good it is not to lose the inner child in us, to always have that need to play. After all, many things in life are easier if we understand it as a form of play. I managed to photograph the butterfly as well as one nest, which was empty.
We spent the rest of the day in their backyard and house, where we had an excellent paella for lunch. That yard was a rest for the soul: I rested in this hammock, others on the swing. Their cats made excellent company :) The ginger cat is so cute, she followed us and wanted to be petted. The white one is young and a little timid, he was just playing and watching us, although it might take me a day or two to tame him.
What they also have in their backyard are plants, pine trees and fruit trees. Almonds, figs, grapes, which taste great, we enjoyed everything. These succulents are from her mom, and they offered me to bring some cuts if I like to plant something at home. But we forgot to make any cut, I didn't bring anything home. I think that's a good reason to come back on some other occasion if they spend the weekend in the countryside again. Certainly, this was a great day to switch off from everything, should repeat it more times.
Although I still feel the effects of this summer spent with my family and my mom’s kitchen, no, I’m not as thick as I am in this shadow. Although, walks are always welcome, both as a motivation to tweak the line, but also to participate in the #WednesdayWalk initiative, brought by @tattoodjay ! Thanks for reading!
