Dec 14-15-16 - Gorafe: 'Los Coloraos', choral singing, icy hot springs and megaliths
After a long drive of +200km, we arrived in the village a little before dusk on Thursday evening Gorafe. This is in the middle of a geodetic nature reserve. There are also 240 prehistoric megaliths spread over a dozen sites in the vicinity. The visitor centre was closed just this week, tough luck.
We spent the night there in a square in the village. It was going to be a cold night because the village is at an altitude of 800 metres and lies in the cold airstream of the snowy Sierra Nevada. When I woke up Friday morning, there were ice flowers along inside on the iron roof of my uninsulated villa Dacia.
Gorafe lies in the deeply carved Valley of the Gor. On Friday, we drove along an extremely steep and winding single-lane concrete road to the 200-metre plateau above the village, from where there is a view of 'Los Coloraos', orange-rose-coloured, deeply incised rock formations. An impressive landscape. I made a short bike ride there of 10 km, 5 km down and then right back. Heavy, but the effort was more than compensated by the breathtaking panoramas.
In the morning we had in the tavern mesón Nani met. She sings in the local choir and informed us that her group was going to rehearse at the Casa Cultural in the evening. That became our evening outing.
On Saturday, we drove to the hot springs of Alicún, 9km past Gorafe. These are closed in winter, but Nani managed to tell us that there was a natural pool for swimming. I could totally see that. We searched for it for a long time and did not find it, but along the way we came across magnificent natural phenomena: steaming streams and waterfalls with long icicles in shaded spots, a natural aqueduct and deeply carved gorges to walk through. With the sound of trickling water everywhere.
In the afternoon, I visited some megaliths. For this, we had to go back upstairs. The megaliths are all numbered. Almost all of them have the same shape, as the photos testify. Each one a single grave, I suspect. The giant standing stones in Ireland impressed me more.
We spent the night on the plateau this time, under a magnificent starry sky. Because it is so pitch black, there is an astronomical observation centre here. You are only allowed to drive here with your stand lights at night so as not to disturb the observations.
Tomorrow we leave for the Tabernas desert where many spaghetti westerns were filmed.
16 September: Opening the door at Diamondway Buddhist Centre in Tallinn The centre's meditation sessions are open
