19th March 2017. Almonaster La Real, Spain.

We were going to sit and work in the van today but the mosque looked so interesting and the weather was so beautiful that we walked into town instead.

We took the little footpath that wound its way down from the car park.  As we were chatting I suddenly saw something bright red appear in the undergrowth on the hill behind Darren and as I started to point to it a chicken popped out of the vegetation and flew down to the lane, squawking as it went!  I wasn’t expecting that!  It was a very pretty lane and at the bottom of the valley there was a little stream with a bridge crossing it.

We crossed over and as we walked round the corner we caught sight of the road that ran between the houses.  It’s amazing how your eyes can play tricks on you, from across the valley the road didn’t look that steep, however…!

We puffed and panted up to a square with a dolphin fountain in the centre and followed the sign up to the mosque, THAT hill was even steeper, we were ‘sweating buckets’ by the time we reached the top but it was well worth it.

Entering the mosque we felt like Indiana Jones finding a lost treasure.  It had a rill coming down the front steps  from a pot of water that was in the entrance hall.  Water was overflowing from the container and running down the rill and out of the door.  Inside there were lots of arches.  It was a beautiful building and the view through the back door was breath taking.  We spent a lot of time watching the swallows swooping around us, they loved the tower, there were loads of them going in and out of it.  I liked the mosque so much we walked back to the front door and went in for another look around.  Darren spotted two swallows huddled up at the top of the wall.

When we’d had a good look around we wandered along the lower path around the outside of the mosque and down into the town where we found a little restaurant and had a very nice snack in the shady building.

We eventually made our way very slowly back to the van where we did some work and phoned Darren’s parents.  As we were talking to her a stork flew right past the side of the van, if ONLY I’d had my camera ready!

Darren decided he need a hair cut so we took advantage of the good weather and set up a barbers shop outside the van.  In the late afternoon another motorhome arrived and parked up on the opposite side of the car park.

We watched the sun go down over the town, there was a gorgeous sunset this evening and then as darkness descended over the town the mosque and the town lit up.  It was a very pretty sight and I felt honoured to have been able to view it from our van.