On leaving the desert plains of the Cabo de Gata we decided to head back to the Banos de Fortuna with a view to finding the ruins of the Roman baths – which we summarily failed at on our last visit!
This time we had a couple of days at the back of the site (Camping La Fuente) with no electric before moving back to the access road with electric for a few nights. We would have been really happy to stay where we were, but couldn’t as there was someone booked in. (Note: If you have a non-electric spot the swimming pool is included in your 15Euro nightly charge – bonus!)
Anyway we were very happy to be back – and it was very much hotter this time! Our first mission was to find the roman ruins, which turned out to be much easier than we thought. It helps if you talk to the right people of course! Straight up through the village past the church, slight left and hop over the ‘chain’, follow the track – the ruins are on the right, but it’s worth looking to the left as well 🙂
We were really surprised at how much there was left and also at the fact that nothing is being made of them at all since an earthquake (I would have loved to have seen them before the earthquake). Apparently this is actually only a tiny proportion of the original site, much of which is now buried beneath the ‘modern’ buildings (built in the 18th century). See here for more information on the area.
Having finally succeeded in our mission we tured our attention elsewhere. On searching for a new gas bottle (we should have just bought it on the site) we drove past, for the 2nd or 3rd time, a reservoir that looked to be worth a visit. So we headed back out there and followed signs to try to find somewhere to park up and explore.
We found somewhere and were able to walk across the top of the dam, from where we found the water didn’t appear quite so enticing 😦 We chatted to a couple of other Brits who had attempted to walk around the reservoir – they told us that it was very uneven and you never really get close to the water, and having walked for a couple of hours they didn’t really seem to have got very far! So we decided against it 🙂
Instead we had a little wander finding a couple of abandoned old buildings, and also plenty of evidence of drug taking and, seemingly, someone taking potshots at bottles (lots and lots of glass). So not the best of expeditions, but at least we know now!
The other thing that we did that we hadn’t managed on our last visit, was to visit Tina’s bar properly and eat there (we had fish and chips – very good).
The only other activities that we engaged in whilst staying here was taking advantage of having free entry to the pool for a few days, finding new running routes and basically lounging around doing very little 🙂
We would highly recommend a visit to this area. We thoroughly enjoyed our time here (on both occasions).
Next stop, Valencia 🙂
We stayed: Camping La Fuente, Banos de Fortuna
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