{"id":3259,"date":"2021-05-24T18:55:21","date_gmt":"2021-05-24T17:55:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/?page_id=3259"},"modified":"2021-05-24T18:55:21","modified_gmt":"2021-05-24T17:55:21","slug":"week-19-magic-cactus-hostal-maruja-ride-to-santa-pola","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/?page_id=3259","title":{"rendered":"Week 19: magic cactus, Hostal Maruja, ride to Santa Pola"},"content":{"rendered":"

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.<\/p>\n

19_1<\/strong>
\nI 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:
\n\"DSF7596\"<\/p>\n

19_2<\/strong>
\nSaturday the 8th, beginning to open:
\n\"DSF7599\"<\/p>\n

19_3<\/strong>
\nSunday the 9th, fully open:
\n\"DSF7603\"<\/p>\n

19_4<\/strong>
\n\"DSF7608\"<\/p>\n

19_5<\/strong>
\nMonday the 10th, still open but beginning to show signs of wilting:
\n\"DSF7629\"<\/p>\n

19_6<\/strong>
\nTuesday the 11th–the decline is evident:
\n\"DSF7631\"<\/p>\n

19_7<\/strong>
\nWednesday the 12th–that’s it for now:
\n\"DSF7638\"<\/p>\n

19_8<\/strong>
\nI had Friday off, so we went for lunch at Hostal Maruja. This was the overall, familiar setting:
\n\"DSF7643\"<\/p>\n

19_9<\/strong>
\nWe ordered the usual seafood dishes and a few fix-ins, such as the patatas bravas<\/em> here:
\n\"DSF7646\"<\/p>\n

19_10<\/strong>
\nAnd the chipirones<\/em>:
\n\"DSF7647\"<\/p>\n

19_11<\/strong>
\nSepia a la plancha<\/em>:
\n\"DSF7649\"<\/p>\n

19_12<\/strong>
\nAt the neighbouring table, the couple had a beautiful Dalmatian with them:
\n\"DSF7641\"<\/p>\n

19_13<\/strong>
\nThe doggie was quite well-behaved, but at one point he wanted to participate in the meal:
\n\"DSF7648\"<\/p>\n

19_14<\/strong>
\nMy final image from Hostal Maruja is this young Muslim couple enjoying a walk at the water’s edge:
\n\"DSF7650\"<\/p>\n

19_15<\/strong>
\nOn 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:
\n\"1010167\"<\/p>\n

19_16<\/strong>
\nMany 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:
\n\"1010168\"<\/p>\n

19_17<\/strong>
\nI sat down to drink a Coke and eat a banana while looking at the fishermen mending the nets:
\n\"1010176\"<\/p>\n

19_18<\/strong>
\nI also looked at the human–and canine–traffic:
\n\"1010174\"<\/p>\n

19_19<\/strong>
\nI 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:
\n\"1010181\"<\/p>\n

19_20<\/strong>
\nFurther along the road, it looked as if the dogs were fishing:
\n\"1010179\"<\/p>\n

19_21<\/strong>
\nBut they did have their human with them:
\n\"1010182\"<\/p>\n

19_22<\/strong>
\nA couple of km further, there is this small chapel, called Ermita de Nuestra Se\u00c3\u00b1ora del Rosario:
\n\"1010185\"<\/p>\n

19_23<\/strong>
\nI 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:
\n\"1010186\"<\/p>\n

19_24<\/strong>
\nBefitting the name of the chapel, someone left a rosary on the door:
\n\"1010187\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":3141,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3259"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3259"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3259\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3263,"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3259\/revisions\/3263"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}