This week’s photos can be divided into three main themes. The Magic Cactus I inherited from my mother gave us flowers after a few barren months. We also went to Hostal Maruja for lunch; and I cycled down to Santa Pola on Saturday at the end of the week and enjoyed a brief rest in the fishing harbour and a ride home along the coast.
19_1
I start with the cactus, going back a bit to the previous week to document the complete sequence. On Friday the 7th, the flowers were still closed:
19_2
Saturday the 8th, beginning to open:
19_3
Sunday the 9th, fully open:
19_4
19_5
Monday the 10th, still open but beginning to show signs of wilting:
19_6
Tuesday the 11th–the decline is evident:
19_7
Wednesday the 12th–that’s it for now:
19_8
I had Friday off, so we went for lunch at Hostal Maruja. This was the overall, familiar setting:
19_9
We ordered the usual seafood dishes and a few fix-ins, such as the patatas bravas here:
19_10
And the chipirones:
19_11
Sepia a la plancha:
19_12
At the neighbouring table, the couple had a beautiful Dalmatian with them:
19_13
The doggie was quite well-behaved, but at one point he wanted to participate in the meal:
19_14
My final image from Hostal Maruja is this young Muslim couple enjoying a walk at the water’s edge:
19_15
On Saturday, I did a long but relatively easy bike ride, around 80 km but with no mountains to climb. The most challenging moment was a parking lot of a convenience store where I was too slow to unclip and went down. The embarrassment (there were people sitting at tables outside) was worse than the resulting road rash. I was bleeding a bit, but cleaned up and cycled another 50 km after the incident. I took a break in the fishing harbour of Santa Pola:
19_16
Many boats, and many buildings in the harbour, displayed posters protesting the new agreement in the EU to limit the quantity of hake and other species taken from the Western Mediterranean. As usual, the fishermen, many of whom are elderly (and whose sons do not wish to continue in that business), care more about the here and now than about the long-term sustainability of the fishing:
19_17
I sat down to drink a Coke and eat a banana while looking at the fishermen mending the nets:
19_18
I also looked at the human–and canine–traffic:
19_19
I then continued north along the coast. The stretch of road just north of Santa Pola is wonderful, with views like this, of the island of Tabarca:
19_20
Further along the road, it looked as if the dogs were fishing:
19_21
But they did have their human with them:
19_22
A couple of km further, there is this small chapel, called Ermita de Nuestra Señora del Rosario:
19_23
I often see people praying when I pass the chapel, and not wishing to disturb them, I just move on. But this time there was nobody, so I lingered a bit. The plaque explains that the chapel was rebuilt in 1946. A Google search took me to a site that explained that the chapel was built in the 18th century and was either neglected or damaged during the Civil War and subsequent years:
19_24
Befitting the name of the chapel, someone left a rosary on the door:
