About Turn to Badajoz… When Plans Change.
Zagan the motorhome is breathing a sigh of relief. After a three hour drive, he arrived to find one solitary space left on the free aire in Badajoz (N38.88462 W6.97796), Spain. He’s squeezed himself in between a mix of nationalities, and is settled for the weekend.
The eagle-eyed among you will realised that this is the opposite direction to where we were going as of yesterday. Our plans to head north to Madrid for a few days seeing the city have been put on hold. After realising how much a couple of hours walking (hobbling really) around the Mezquita in Cordoba took out of me, it was time to reassess our plans. Realistically a big city like Madrid probably wouldn’t be a great place for us right now. When we visited Paris in our motorhome last year, we were walking around 10 miles each day, my still bruised and bandaged knee just isn’t up to that. So, it was time to get the map out and fire up our Park4Night app.
Despite the wind and driving rain in Montoro, Jay managed a 21 mile run in the hills, while I shuffled to the pharmacy twice for dressings (didn’t get the right stuff first time – doh!). I have to confess that I am finding it a bit hard to cope with not being able to get out and run. Don’t get me wrong, I never really like the idea of going for a run, but I always feel great afterwards. Having that taken away, if only for a few weeks, is hard.
After quite a lot of head scratching, we crafted a new plan – that’s the beauty of motorhoming, you can go where you want. The border between Spain and Portugal has many interesting cities and, as they aren’t big cities, some have aires close to the centre, which makes for easy exploring. So, it was about turn and set off back along the motorway in the opposite direction to the way we had driven just a couple of days earlier. After two hours a tower came into view on the horizon, not a medieval castle tower, but more like a factory chimney. The strange thing was we could see lights pointing up in the sky next to the tower. At this point Jay got a little bit excited, he’d read about what we were seeing the other day. We were driving past the Gemasolar – a new kind of solar power plant.
Fancying a closer look, we came off the motorway and followed the road as close to the base of the tower as we could get. You see the tower is surrounded by over two and a half thousand mirrors, or heliostats if you want the technical term. The mirrors move around to reflect and focus the sunlight onto the top of tower. Molten salt is pumped up to the top of the tower and the sunlight heats it up. The hot salt is then used to generate steam, which drives a turbine to produce energy. It puts Zagan’s solar panel to shame as it can generate 17 Megawatts of energy, enough to power 25,000 homes (or the same as around 170,000 of our solar panels!).
We think the tower may have been offline when we were there as the sunlight wasn’t hitting the top of it, we’ve seen photos of when it does and it really glows. If you want to know more about it as I’ll admit my explanation isn’t the best, the Gemasolar website will give you answers.
After being politely told not to take any photos of the tower by a bloke driving around the place in a car, possibly security, we headed back to the motorway. A short ten minute drive brought us to Fuentes de Andalucia. The town created motorhome parking places and a service point last year (N37.47342, W5.35032), with a view of the Gemasolar in case it started glowing, so it would rude not to stop the night.
Here I hit a low point. We started to walk into the town for a look around but my knee was very uncomfortable. I had just changed the dressing which doesn’t help as I don’t like the sight of blood, especially not my own. Not feeling the love for walking, I let Jay carry on and headed back to Zagan for a little cry. Frustration had got the better of me. When Jay came back he told me that I hadn’t really missed much, a few baroque-fronted churches, some bars and a Chinese shop. He was trying to make me feel better, but I was gutted I missed the Chinese shop – I love those places, and we are in need of a potato peeler so I have an excuse to go in one.
I picked myself up and made an extra effort for tea, learning how to make lemon butter sauce to go with our hake fillets, spinach, broccoli and mashed potato (skins on!). This morning I tied a bin liner around my knee and had my first shower in over a week. It was great to be able to wash my hair again, without having to rely on Jay, and I feel so much better.
We left Fuentes de Andalucia under a blanket of cloud and headed towards Seville. Having visited the city in 2012 we didn’t mind scooting around the edge of the city and blasting north on the motorway to here. We have full cupboards after a big supermarket shop and full LPG tanks as we topped up on our way here. We’ll be able to take our time to explore the city over the weekend and maybe find ourselves a tasty menu del dia. Have a great weekend wherever you are.
Ju x
PS. After the big food shop we got talking about the price of food in various European countries. Jay found this report which sort of confirms what we have been thinking – supermarket prices in Spain are similar to those in the UK (for food and non-alcoholic drinks – the booze is much cheaper), and prices in France are more expensive than both Spain and the UK. We’ll be stocking up again before we head over into France!
I love reading your blog. You’ve been a real inspiration to me. I agree that being to able to change plans on a whim is the best thing. It’s just so easy to do. Hope you’re properly better soon x
Hope your knee gets better soon Ju. On your way back, stop off at Mérida if you haven’t been there before and you like your Roman stuff – there’s a fantastic theatre and amphitheatre there, and a museum with loads of mosaic floors. The aire is a 10 minute walk away.
Hi guys. Hope you have a a great time in Badajoz. If you have time take a small detour to Monsaraz, Just over the Portuguese border. The views from the aire are spectacular and the nights Templar’s village is glorious.
Fascinating to learn about the Gemasolar…had not heard about that before. Ju give yourself few more days of taking it easy and you will be as fit as a fiddle again very soon. You can’t rush the healing process and it is so hard to accept that it takes time. Very wise decision to change your plans 😄
Sorry to hear you’re feel a bit down. You’ll be back zooming around in no time heading back to all those China shops. I’m still busy knitting through my own wool wall. Just did our first supermarket ship since we returned after our year. Yikes the U.K. is deofn8tely more expensive than Spain. There are some similarities with pricing but the quality was way better in Spain and the overall shop was much much cheaper. However, definitely stock up before you head back into France. You know how much we managed to squeeze onto Frank!
Keep the blogs coming, your our link to travels and we miss it so much. We really resonated with you changing your direction – we were always changing our minds. Hugs to you both stay smiling. We all send our love and Piglet sends her woofs, snuggles and cuddles. Xxxxxxx
Also if you’ve time, drive to Los Barruecos, near Malpartida de Caceres and take a stroll through natural park of huge rounded boulder formations topped with storks. Good cafe, free aire in above village. And/or drive through Monfrague national park and view famous cliff covered in black, griffon and Egyptian vultures and a rare black stork or two. So sorry to hear the injuries are still painful and restricting but take care and get well.
Gill
Poor you Ju, having an injury is no fun, especially when you want to be out and about exploring, I hope things get better soon. Take care and try and keep your spirits up x
This will probably the closest we’ve come to not quite bumping into you on the road! Badajoz is our next stop, but I’m sure you’ll have moved on by the time we arrive.
Hi you two…
We have been following you since you inspired us to up roots in 2013!! And every time we get close to meeting you… either one of us changes directions! We’re in Sanlucar but heading north and east soon so will probably miss you again! : (
But as you say.. that’s the beauty of life on the road ☺️
Keep inspiring 👍
I can sympathise with you Ju.. did my knee over Christmas.. the tears! Argh!
Wishing you a speedy mend Ice Ice Ice 😩
Hope you are getting better Ju. Badajoz has a lovely old town, just hope you can enjoy it!
I agree with Marie, Monsaraz is a beautiful medieval, I believe museum village. Perched on top of a hill, with amazing views over Alqueva Lake. Having said that it would be heading in the wrong direction.
If you plan to carry on heading towards home, and you’ve not already been there, have a look at Cáceres, Avila and Segovia. They all have interesting, lovely old towns.
Enjoy!
Hi guys your definitely right about France , I would say 20-35 % dearer than UK !!!
Noted on one of your earlier posts you have changed your camera , what are you using now for all your photos? Can’t see reference anywhere on your info files
Hi Stuart. We loved our little bridge camera so much, that when it died (Sahara sand had a big part to play in its demise) we bought the latest version of it. There is a link in the update of our camera review page, and once we’ve got to grips with the new version we’ll do a proper review update. https://ourtour.co.uk/home/review-sony-hx200v-zoom-camera/
We also use our phones a lot these days as they are always with us, and take really great shots.
Cheers Ju x
Hi Julie,
Just a note to say I hope you feel 100% soon. The mental side of running is fascinating – and I know how down you feel when you cant go out, even if you don’t really want to go out when you are healthy!
Get well soon
David
Hi
I’m enjoying your blog. You might be interested that Nazare is predicting epic waves of 30+ft on Wednesday afternoon/Thursday morning. The direction of the swell looks like it might well exceed the prediction.