Easter in Roquetas de Mar. What does not come in Guides
was ten in the morning of Palm Sunday when we left Alcaudete direction to Almeria.
A new tunnel on the A-92 and now they ...,) (..., us back the old route of Guadix, from Alcala la Real and Iznalloz. The idea is to stop at the stalls of pottery, which is walking distance from highway and Purullena height.
True
fun stop at these sites, especially when there is a bareto which take a resopón, but in no way going to find these positions some bargain souvenirs and ceramics. The paradox is that we bought a clay pot for use on the hob, a few weeks later, we find, much cheaper, in the Horseshoe Hardware Alcaudete.
Once on the highway that took us to Almeria, we saw the amount of snow that shone on the tops of the mountains, heralding the cold days that remained. For some time we wanted to make this journey, through the capital, in order to eat tapas in one of the many sites in Almeria is, not too complicated to us, we went to the park recently built and has outputs Purchena the door. There is very close to the Plaza de las Flores, copada Torreluz by hotels, and in the tavern of one of them we got scarlet and gold.
return during the week to walk the streets of this beautiful city, we will come to the promenade, that was it, a promenade and now is a great ride that ends in the sea. The institute where I did the bachelor, the Plaza de San Sebastian, Murcia Street and Granada Street, the Street of Shops, which has seen better times, the cathedral, the Alcazaba and the Royal Street that ends at the park and port , not forgetting a visit to the Virgen del Mar and its surrounding streets, with that peculiar architecture that is slowly disappearing to my chagrin.
Our destination was the Hotel Hesperia Sabinal Roquetas, hotel has had better days, but still gives his own, careful cap management to keep it all year, with all that entails, so we will not complain. We plan to visit all the area within seven days we'll be staying at this place and that starts at the very moment of our arrival, so that first evening was devoted to explore the waterfront and the area of \u200b\u200bhousing estates, as they call it.

I have lived in Almería between 1955 and 1965, there did throughout high school, and I never stopped going there because my wife is Almeria, so I know the area. I remember hitchhiking trip I made, with fifteen years, from Granada to Almeria on the coast and I can assure you from Balanegra to Almeria, through the Cañarete, was almost lunar landscape, even better, as in some western movies
, where, in a desert flat with mountains in the background, is circulated through a long, narrow and bumpy road, crossed at times by those big balls of dried weeds and roots that the wind carries. under a sky scorching and where no other living creature that presaged the odd lizard. In the distance a small village where they gathered, a gas station, the small barracks of the Guardia Civil, a rickety roadside hotel and a few Cortijillos. It was not yet time greenhouses and farmers called "the zecanos" to arable land. I'm talking about the Ejido de Dalias in the sixties, nothing to do with the current Ejido, that despite the economic crisis, is an emporium of wealth and where there are more banks and savings banks per square kilometer of Andalusia. I reflect on this fact and ceases to amaze me that fifty years ago was the most poor and depressed area of \u200b\u200bAndalusia and is now the ultimate in greenhouse agriculture and tourist areas, leaving far behind other parts of Andalusia by sixties were considered wealthy, as the province of Jaén without going any further.

El Ejido was that an ejido de Dalias and Dali is now almost the same as it was fifty years ago, so, paradoxes of life, one could say that Dali is a schedule or neighborhood of Ejido.

The Town Hall Square, the Municipal Market, its bustling streets are long and impressive, full of shops and services left up to the idea that fifty years ago was quite a dry and lonely wasteland.

The coast is Ejido Almerimar and I remember that back then there was almost nothing, especially when compared to the magnificent beach resort in which it has become. It has one of the most beautiful marinas I have seen and is a joy to stroll along the docks next the mooring of yachts.

Today it is impossible to drive through that long and lonely road in the sixties, the whole area is a vast city, where no buildings are plastic, ie greenhouses, in which products are grown orchard takes European and English markets. I remember in the carreterilla of those times were, before boarding the Cañarete, a sign indicating that right was to Roquetas de Mar, without seeing or far off the population. Today there is a round plaza surrounded by large buildings, which indicates that it is an impressive avenue towards the center of the city and the coast.
Roquetas

is impressive, from its well-kept avenues to major hotels, shopping centers, the Auditorium, the arena, the congress and its port are worth visiting, and we do several times during the week that we are in the area. In its market find "présules" as they call for peas and freshly caught without shelling. Delicacy to eat raw, garlic, tortilla or in any way. Nothing to do with green pellets
those who sell frozen in supermarkets. Almería
water in the sixties was clean but salty and devilishly bad, so that while we drank, it did not help my mother to make the pulses, and that is why buying water in wooden carts carrying the capital from the villages of Enix, Felix and a spring called "Fuente de los Alamos" located in the municipality of Gador, Araoz water. This memory encouraged me to visit these locations and test your water so a morning stroll through these small towns that still retain the charm of another era.

leave by the end Aguadulce, a secluded harbor and a coastal town with a pleasant promenade from which there is Roquetas de Mar, Aguadulce camp when I was a tender child of eleven years old. Needless to say no There was nothing all there today. Back
Alcaudete market went through the Angels of Almeria and we got a
Ranchillo fresh fish glad our kitchen and our palate the next two days.