We met up with family at La Paz and, with temperatures in the high 30s, didn't do much except sit in the shade, cool off in the pool, enjoy BBQs etc., So, not much to tell you except that on one day we all escaped in their beautifully air-conditioned car, up into the Sierra Nevada where, at 2500 m, there was still wall-to-wall sunshine but much cooler in the low 20s.
One low key entertainment was watching the sunrise from my bedroom balcony:
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| Some days no cloud |
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| Other days artistic bits of cloud "Bomb burst behind Parapanda" |
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| Or even apparently threatening clouds |
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| These didn't take long to disperse though, leaving us with another clear blue sky! |
Another low key activity was eating...
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| Churros in a Loja café |
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| Beer and tapas (with wifi) at Pedro's Bar in La Fábrica |
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| BBQ by Fab in our own shady patio! |
However, back to the Sierra Nevada! We paused (for coffee - what else?) at the Visitor Centre at El Dornajo and then headed on up the hill towards Hoya de Moro where there's parking and food outlets at the end of the driveable road. However, what do young, fit, Spanish chaps do on Sundays? They get on their bikes, go up a mountain, and then come down again as fast as possible - and on this Sunday they were out in force, complete with the Army to block the road, direct the traffic etc. Luckily we could still make our way up through the back streets and hairpins of the ski resort and come out further up the hill so we got there in the end!
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| Hoya de Moro is just below and left of the crags in the centre - there are bars, food and, in season, ski hire. No loos! |
After enormous tapas - the grilled pork slices on bread were a meal in themselves! - we walked it off by ambling up the road to the monument further up. Jan and I ambled up the road at least, the Swiss Family Burdet headed straight up the slope (they are used to low oxygen at altitude I suppose!). The advantage of going our way was that we found some nice mini-curly-rocks by the roadside. The highest parts of the Sierra Nevada are made up of a couple of thrust sheets of Palaeozoic rocks that have "had a hard time". We even found some with garnets in them with which to impress our visitors!
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| Plenty of schist exposures to explore by the observatory. |
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| Curly rocks |
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| Flat-lying folded schist - the folds picked out by folded quartz veins |
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| More curly rocks |
We met up by the monumental altar, dedicated to "
La Virgen de las Nieves" (Virgin of the Snows) pleased with our 112 m of mountaineering and lunch duly walked off, before going down to the car for a nice cool drive (down the back road to El Dornajo) and back to La Paz.
There is actually a road right over the top of the Sierra Nevada, but no cars are allowed past Hoya de la Mora. There's a bus service though, which gives easy access to the higher parts of this end of the sierra, including the peak of Veleta.
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