[0:00]Good morning. It's about 7:00 and I had a pretty good night's sleep, although with a lot of strange dreams because it's an unfamiliar bed. Why am I getting up so early? Because I've got a lot of good stuff to do today. Starting with the buffet breakfast. I'm just about to go downstairs now and attack it. And this is the view from my hotel window. So over in that direction, that line of lights, that's the airport. Every five minutes I can see a plane taking off. And the way that I walked yesterday is, well, I'll have to put that onto screen as well.
[0:40]And when I got to there, I could have run across the road, but instead I decided to walk the long way around the loop rather than race across the road. And then I came down here.
[1:21]That feels a bit better. Nice and full. If you'd like one of my internationally famous travel tips, don't bother bringing a face cloth with you on holiday, just use a corner of the hotel's towel. So my first plan for today is, there are some ruins left over from the Spanish Civil War, about three or four kilometers. The whole building vibrates every time a plane takes off. Anyway, my plan for today is, there are some ruins left over from the Spanish Civil War, but I was thinking just for fun, I would try to hitchhike. I haven't hitchhiked for, well, 30 years, something like that. And I asked a guy down at the hotel reception if hitchhiking is, um, even legal in Spain, and if it's a a normal thing to do. And he said, it is legal, and it's not common, but it's not unknown either. So I thought, just for fun, I'll give it a try. And if I can't get a lift, then I'll just walk to the ruins. It's supposed to be a really nice walk anyway up on hills and with lots of miradores, viewpoints.
[2:37]Well, this is El Altet, but I haven't really got time to do it because I've got so many things to do. Okay, let's go and hitchhike for the first time in 30 years.
[2:52]I think that's the last plane I'll film. I like them, but you can only film so many of them.
[3:08]That's even worse than my garden.
[3:33]Nice to see all the pavements are freshly washed.
[3:44]What do you think they use this for? I just wanted to see what was over here. Not very much. It looks like scrubland, but different from English scrubland.
[4:05]It's really nice, the streets are lined with orange trees, with oranges still on them.
[4:22]I think that's where you can drop off charitable donations at the church. Somebody has very kindly left some string. Okay, and now it is El Momento de Verdad, as the Spanish would say, the moment of truth. Will I get a lift or not? Place your bets. I'm wondering if I should smile in order to attract potential lift givers. I don't want to scare people off. What do you think? Well, things have got off to a great start because I realized I was waiting on the wrong road, but never mind, the one around the corner will do just as well.
[4:58]Well, I knew that my winning smile would get me a lift. Probably about the fifth or sixth car that came along gave me a lift. And, uh, he turned out to be a really interesting guy. He's dropped me off in Gran Alacant, which is within walking distance of where I want to go. All these gnarly trees.
[5:20]Some of these villas are absolutely beautiful.
[5:28]Well, as it turned out, I was dropped off quite far from where I wanted to go. But I managed to get another lift, just by asking directions from a guy who was standing beside his car, and he offered me a lift. So now I have been dropped off at the Natural Municipal Park called Clot de Galvany. So it's a natural park and it's got ruins from the Spanish Civil War, so let's go and try and find them.
[5:57]Right, this shows a map of the area, and that shows two routes that you can do. None of it's in English, though, it's in two languages, but Spanish and, I think, the local language, which is Valencian, which, believe it or not, I don't speak. And my Spanish isn't that great either. It was actually pretty difficult making conversation for 10 minutes in Spanish with the guy who gave me a lift here, but I managed. Well, it's a bit difficult to decide which route to walk because there was no scale on those routes, so I don't know how long they are. The guy who gave me a lift was in construction, and he was telling me that virtually all of these houses are occupied by English people and Dutch people and Norwegians. You're not allowed to shoot here. Oh, no!
[6:40]What a lovely day it is, and it's great to be on the road and free and somewhere exotic.
[6:49]Well, back there on the map, they were calling the routes the red route and the blue route. Now they're calling them one and two, and I don't know which is which. And you're not allowed to ride around in a circle on your bicycle. I think that's what that means, and you're not allowed to bring any mascots with you.
[7:15]See the bunny?
[7:19]Don't be scared, bunny.
[7:40]Are these some of the ruins from the Spanish Civil War? They seem to have been tidied up a bit.
[7:55]I haven't researched all of this very much. You can't look up absolutely everything. The main reason why I don't look up everything in advance is that if I know all about it and I spend the whole video just giving you facts, then I'll feel like a tourist guide. And I don't want to feel like a tourist guide. I want to feel as though I'm discovering and exploring new places with you.
[8:29]I think this is what was marked on the map as the old terraces of cultivation.
[8:39]It's all really dry around here, but I see that everywhere they seem to allow for huge inundations of water. Remember those gutters at the airport yesterday?
[8:58]Just when I thought the whole place was really dry. So this is one of the viewpoints in the natural park, and it is a view to die for, I'll give them that. This is called Clot de Galvany. I don't know what Clot means. Well, I know what it means in English. I know better than the Taravich knew. And that icon of the very old camera there, that's what they use for a a photo opportunity. Mountains off in the distance, shrouded in the haze. That's the outskirts of Gran Alacant, which I was driven through, fortunately.
[9:43]All kinds of new stuff being built up there.
[9:48]And that's it, we've gone 360 degrees.
[9:54]Well, it's been really fun walking around this natural park, and I could walk around it a bit more, but I'm going to have to conserve my energy because I've still got a lot of walking to do today. So I think I'll quit while I'm ahead and I'll make for the main road and then we'll see about getting to Santa Pola. I've got no idea yet how I'm going to get there, but I'm sure I'll find a way. Huge picnic area. And I see even the Spanish don't like to picnic in the sun. I'm pretty hot just in my T-shirt, and it's February. Well, I'm reliably informed by the staff here that there's a bus stop really close, just around the corner that goes to Santa Pola. So let's go and see how often it goes. This must be it.
[10:43]Well, that's not very helpful. I'll see if I can look the time table up online. Well, it's nearly an hour till the next one, if the internet timetable is to be believed. So I'm deciding what to do, and I'll decide in the shade. Well, I've decided that there's nothing to be lost by trying to hitchhike again. It's worked okay so far. Well, the bus wasn't supposed to come for another 20 minutes or so, but I happened to notice it arriving. So I gave up on the hitchhiking, ran as fast as I could to the bus stop, just made it.
[12:04]Well, here we are in Santa Pola, and that was a real piece of good luck. No, not seeing the argument, catching the bus. Because I was hitchhiking and I just happened to notice out of the corner of my eye that the bus was turning up, and it was half an hour early. And now here we are in Santa Pola. I'm just mooching around the bus station planning my next move. Isn't that an attractive map of the town where it's all the sites marked on it? I think next I'm going to go over here to the salt flats where there are flamingos. But I'll do that later. I've got to go and pick up the keys to my accommodation first.
[13:12]I wonder what that was. I'll look it up later.
[13:18]Tourist info, that's where I'm going first.
[23:40]I'm afraid my knowledge of salt is not what it should be. I'm just calling everything the thing or the machine.
[31:53]Actually, that was an improvement. I think my explanations about salt production are getting better.
[35:41]Okay, so now the plan is to go and see the mountains of salt, which are a few kilometers walk away. I'm hoping that there'll be quite easy to find. I mean, they should be quite easily distinguishable from other things, shouldn't they? I'll know them when I see them.
[37:14]So anyway, thank you very much for watching. Please like and subscribe, and please check in again to see my video of tomorrow when we have further adventures. Bye for now.
