After a late morning breakfast, we got dressed, gathered things, made sandwiches, etc, and were off. We drove up the coast a few minutes to a town called El Campello and walked out to a rocky point that I was assured was chulisimo//very cool. We were excited by the weather, which in Alicante (and indeed when we got out of the car in Campello) seemed perfect. Warmer than it's been since I got here, sunny, not a cloud in the sky... well, a picture's worth a thousand words:
When we got out to the rocks, it was a slightly chillier than perfect. Of course, compared to the Pacific Coast, it was practically tropical, but my host sisters complained of the cold first thing. The wind was the real problem. My sister Ali explained that Alicante is sheltered by the surrounding hills and mountains from the brunt of wind and weather that hits other places along the coast, and indeed, it was much windier just ten, twenty minutes north than it had been in the city. Nevertheless, we made the best of it, throwing bread into the surrounding sea to tempt any cruising fish. My other sister Andrea set herself up with a long pole that she called valenciano, in reference to Valencia, which is the name of a city, but also this particular region of Spain. She hooked a piece of stale bread onto the end, and perched happily on a rock, the hood of her sweatshirt pulled up against the wind.My host mom and I clambered around on the rocks, and she explained to me that this particular spot had been an ancient Roman village. There are a few scattered remains of walls and buildings up above, fenced off and open to visitors only during certain hours. But the rocks down by the sea were used by the Romans to form an old-school fishery. They shaped the rocks into pools, compartments where they could, with little floodgates, conceivably control the water flow and the fish populations. Very, very cool.
Other man-made holes in the rock have a more romantic story attached - one that gives it's name to this particular place: Los baños de la Reina//The Queen's baths. Story goes that in ancient (again, Roman) times, the queen would come here, of all the places in the Roman Empire, to hang out in the summertime. And looking around, wind aside, I can completely believe it. I can't wait to come back when the weather gets warmer, and swim around in the ancient Roman queen's pool.We fished, picnic-ed, and ended up shivering. Andrea was determined to catch something, so we lingered, huddled on the lee side of the rocks, while Ali and I discussed her English class, the lyrics of popular songs in Spanish and English, how she finds starfish and octopi here with her cousin Dani in the summers, and how she wants to be a marine biologist. By the time we made it back to the car, we were all glad for its sun-baked interior.
Next on the list: actually catch a fish.
no big deal to fish in the Mediterranean!!!! Or is it just how you always go crabbing along the Oregon coast?
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