Wednesday 21st October

Moving on from Palma del Rio we soon left the orange plantations of the low lands and moved up into the Sierra where the main crops are cork which is harvested from the trunks of Holm Oaks and the very special pigs which feed on the acorns from these trees. I imagine that the cork trade must have taken a beating with the introduction of screw tops on wine bottles. However you would be hard pressed to find a wine bottle for sale in France or Spain with a screw top - they all still have corks.

The black footed pigs which feed on the acorns are used to produce the very finest air dried ham which is very pricey indeed but well worth trying. 

 We stopped off along the way north to visit some amazing old quarries where iron was once mined.

The red of the iron ore can be seen all around - occurring below the limestone pinnacles. 

There are some fairly poisonous looking orange lakes at the bottom of the deep holes created by the mining. These workings are about 15 kilometres south of the town of Alanis in north west Andalucia where we are staying tonight.

Alanis seems a very nice little place. We are parked at the Aire which is in the main square of the town. There are two other vans here - a Spanish hippy van (closest) and a French non hippy van which seems to be having some problems with its electrics.

 

The people from the hippy van appear to be purveyors of herb and as such are attracting quite a few customers.

Today we travelled 53 miles ( 85 kilometres).