Escape from reality and difficult situations by diverting focus from important things? This is the modus operandi of many young people and children, mainly using electronic gadgets and looking for entertainment for the mind rather than facing reality. My husband and I touched on that topic yesterday evening when we saw a young mother pushing her baby in a stroller, with a mobile phone attached to it. The baby was looking at the screen, instead of getting to know the surroundings. We were shocked. Wouldn't it be better for that baby to be curious, to observe and ask her mom (if she can talk) about the city, people, flowers or trees she sees, pets she would see and so on? Just because her attention is tied to the screen, she is deprived of the opportunity to learn about real stuff, to develop attention, curiosity and therefore intelligence... I don't know; it just left us with the question of where we are going as a society. Although it is not the topic of today's post, I started with this thought because sometimes it is necessary to divert our thoughts from worries in some way, from things that we cannot directly influence.
So, yesterday afternoon, to get out of my worries and clear my mind, I went with my son, quite unplanned actually, to a place that piqued our curiosity when we drove by on the highway the other day and saw some people in an unexpected place. Who would have thought that here, where we thought there was absolutely nothing but dry and red earth, there was a source of healing water and that once, long time ago, there was a spa? Unbelievable, I know.
Just look at these photos and you will think I am lost on another planet. Practically without much vegetation, just arid land prevails here. But what is this? A shallow and thin thread of water... let's follow it.
We actually came just to see why people gather there, but this little excursion turned into a long walk. At the place where this stream springs, we saw a small natural pool, made of stones. People were standing in the water in swimming suits, and I approached to ask about the spring. One woman said that the water that comes out of the mountain is cold, very salty and medicinal, and that is why they come here. I didn't take a photo of the place because it was awkward for me to take pictures of people in swimming suits; I only took out my mobile phone when we decided to walk around a bit. We followed the thread of the water.
You can see how salty it is because the salt has accumulated on the edges of this super small stream. Later, I found out at home that for every litre of water from this source, which is called Salinetas de Novelda, there are 150 to 250 grams of salt. It is quite salty if we take into account that the amount of salt per litre of seawater is about 35 grams.
Although the water is very shallow, to save your shoes it is better to either jump over if you want to cross to the other bank or use one of these little improvised bridges. Some were made of a couple of larger stones, some were wooden planks, but we also came across one real, high bridge.
This is the dried salt on the edges of the stream that I mentioned. I suppose the water evaporates because of the heat, so that is why the salt stays on the rocks and dried mud. My son joked that we could take home a bit of it.
We followed the water and thought we were following the right hiking route, until we stumbled upon this rock. To be honest... I don't know what it means, whether we should go there or not. 😂 But you see, we didn't get lost, as I am here today writing this post.
For some justified reasons, I could not go on longer walks for the last three weeks so my skin also noticed the sudden exposure to the sun yesterday afternoon. My son said I was red in the face. It would be a smart move to find some shade... With almost no trees around, it wasn't an easy task. Ok, I found in the end... 3 trees! 😂 That is already something!
Under this third tree, I took a little break while my son continued exploring around. He went to cross the ravine and came back after some time to the tree where I stayed.
This was my place and time to rest until he came back and suggested finding the old mines and some ruins he saw on the maps. The signs here notify us about the place where this stream starts, and also some other places we haven't visited. Although I recognised one name, La Mola. We have been there a while ago.
His idea was to approach the ruins that we also saw from afar from that place with the signs. We went back to the bridge we passed earlier and climbed to that level. Here we are crossing the bridge, the same one you already saw in this post from another angle.
These are the only ruins we found. That is what is left of the chapel dedicated to Our Lady of Sorrows, nothing else. Just at home, I did some research and found very interesting things about this place.
According to a few sources, and especially this source, in the middle of the 19th century there was a spa here, Balneario de Salinetas, using the medicinal water. It grew over the years, and in the 1920s it also had two salons with a gramophone and a piano to entertain the guests. It was expanded to 50 rooms, and the main reason to come to this spa was the healing effect of the water. In 1931, the owner died, and the resort began to decline, shutting it down in the end. Nothing is left nowadays from it, just the ruins of the chapel. This is the only photo I found of what the spa looked like in the past.
A pity it was closed and demolished, although that happened almost a century ago. I can't see how something similar could be built again here, once the hill and the area of Loma Salineta were used for mines and recently for solar panels.
Young people... they are never tired! My son also wanted to see the abandoned mines so there we went. I was already dead haha, no danger of falling into one of the abandoned mine shafts and dying there.
We were careful anyway, and did some exploration around, climbed a few more hills but all that we found were these irregular ravines and holes. We didn't find any entrance to the mine shafts, although that would be cool.
As a consolation "prize", I found some nice seeds and a spider on its web.
Oh yes, I also took some photos of the area covered with solar panels. When we started this hike, we wanted to get close to the solar farms. Well, this sign made us turn back.
However, from one of the hills while we were searching for the abandoned mines, I got a better view of the solar farms. I have mixed feelings about them... I know they are important as they produce clean power - well, it should be the reason they exist.
On the other hand, the reason for setting up these huge solar farms is not always so "clean" and good for the environment and our future. However, this entire post (and congratulations if you made it to the end) was not about that, so I say nothing else. This was a simple Wednesday Walk, which happened completely unplanned, for mental well-being.
