Cabo de Gata: Spain's dramatic desert coastline
June 4, 2017 4:47 PM Subscribe
Cabo de Gata, near Almeria in southeastern Spain, lies relatively unspoilt in Europe’s only true desert. Explore in the off-season and walk among giant aloes, get a glimpse or two of life there in the 1970s, or just chill with some flamingos. (1st, 3rd-5th links: videos with music)
Plus, it was the general backdrop (the Spanish parts) of the movie Sexy Beast.
posted by CosmicRayCharles at 8:26 PM on June 4, 2017
posted by CosmicRayCharles at 8:26 PM on June 4, 2017
Hollywood has been making movies in Cabo de Gata and the surrounding desert since the 60s. They filmed Lawrence of Arabia and parts of Indiana Jones there.
Those "giant aloes" in the photo look to me like the amazing agave plants. They grow wild along the coast all throughout the Mediterranean.
They spend 12 years or so accumulating nourishment in the leaves, and then once they reach maturity, they use up that stored energy all at once to produce a tree that looks like a giant extraterrestrial asparagus. The leaves shrivel up and dry as the tree feeds on them, and it grows from nothing to 20 feet high or more, with a foot-wide trunk, in just a couple of months. After that the flowers, which are shaped like lawn darts, start to fall.
In the same photo, you can also see lots of cactuses that the Spanish call chumbos. The fruits are so prickly that you have to put on a pair of heavy gloves and move them around in a bucket of sand for a long time to get all the little spines off. They're incredibly sweet, but it's such a hassle that I almost never eat them.
If you want to go see Cabo de Gata, be aware that the article about being all alone on the beach was published in April. You have to go out of season. In the summer, it's overrun with tourists just like all the rest of the Spanish coast, and you definitely don't want to be in the Almerian desert in the summer heat.
posted by fuzz at 2:32 AM on June 5, 2017 [1 favorite]
Those "giant aloes" in the photo look to me like the amazing agave plants. They grow wild along the coast all throughout the Mediterranean.
They spend 12 years or so accumulating nourishment in the leaves, and then once they reach maturity, they use up that stored energy all at once to produce a tree that looks like a giant extraterrestrial asparagus. The leaves shrivel up and dry as the tree feeds on them, and it grows from nothing to 20 feet high or more, with a foot-wide trunk, in just a couple of months. After that the flowers, which are shaped like lawn darts, start to fall.
In the same photo, you can also see lots of cactuses that the Spanish call chumbos. The fruits are so prickly that you have to put on a pair of heavy gloves and move them around in a bucket of sand for a long time to get all the little spines off. They're incredibly sweet, but it's such a hassle that I almost never eat them.
If you want to go see Cabo de Gata, be aware that the article about being all alone on the beach was published in April. You have to go out of season. In the summer, it's overrun with tourists just like all the rest of the Spanish coast, and you definitely don't want to be in the Almerian desert in the summer heat.
posted by fuzz at 2:32 AM on June 5, 2017 [1 favorite]
Would it be better to go before or after summer (IE: April or September?)
posted by Mitheral at 11:23 PM on June 7, 2017
posted by Mitheral at 11:23 PM on June 7, 2017
April - slightly cooler weather, clean water but coldish for swimming and snorkeling, almost no boats. Possibility of combining with Easter Week in an Andalucian city, which is a hallucinatory experience straight from medieval times. Easter Week will be crowded everywhere and if you want to be alone in nature, find a different week to go.
September (or even October) - warm warm water, more people than in April. Sometimes boats leave the water dirtier than in spring, but in Cabo de Gata it will still be transparent.
posted by fuzz at 3:41 AM on June 8, 2017
September (or even October) - warm warm water, more people than in April. Sometimes boats leave the water dirtier than in spring, but in Cabo de Gata it will still be transparent.
posted by fuzz at 3:41 AM on June 8, 2017
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posted by gorbichov at 8:10 PM on June 4, 2017