Our decision to return to Cabo de Gata has proven to be the best of this year so far. One day is simply not enough to visit the main sights of this Nature Park, which is more than 45,000 hectares big. 3 days is far better. There are advantages and disadvantages though of traveling to this area during the low season. You will not be trampled by big masses of tourists, on the other hand, in less touristic places it will be difficult to find a tourist information office that is open and most restaurants will be closed during the evenings. Stick to touristic places such as San José.

A word of warning when booking a hotel on booking.com: a lot of cheap options that the website suggests are located NOT in the Natural Park, but rather in the city of Almeria. Try to find a room in hotel Alba in Albaricoque: centrally located, cheap, comfortable, very good restaurant.

Moreover, this is a unique location, but more about that in another post. After having put our luggage in our room, we decided to go to nearby Rodalquilar. According to the map that the hotel owner had given us, there should be a tourist information office over there.

We followed the road signs and, a bit to our surprise, quickly ended up on a dirt road, which became rougher and rougher, as did the landscape.

Notwithstanding the great beauty of the landscape, we started to wonder where we would end up. We decided to trust our GPS, which indicated that only a handful of kilometers was separating us from Rodalquilar. Abandoned building gave the landscape a dramatic flair.

Afterwards, we discovered that from Roman Times until the 1960s, Rodalquilar was known for its gold mines. The ruins are the remnants of its industrial past. There is a tourism information office but during the low season it’s closed.

In our next post, we show you the main sights of the Natural Park.