By The Crazy Guy
We’ve been experiencing such high temperatures recently in southern Spain that it’s good to find somewhere to cool off. So, where’s the best place?
A pool or a lake?
A river or a reservoir?
An air-conditioned building?
An underground cave or pot-hole?
Swimming pool
Public swimming pools are only open for two months – typically from mid-July to mid-September - to coincide with the school summer holidays.
Private pools operate for longer.
We are fortunate that we have our own pool at home near Ronda (Málaga). I started swimming in February this year. The water temperature was a bracing 14 degrees Celsius! But it did the trick during the hot spell we had that month.
This month, July, the air temperature has exceeded 40 C a lot of the time. So cooling off is essential.
But I have to say that going in the pool doesn’t really ‘do the trick’ for very long. It’s great when you are in the cool water – currently between 24 and 30 C – but as soon as you are out of the water and have dried off in the sun, you want to go straight back in the water!
Lucy and Amy cooling off in my pool
In the period before we had a house with a pool, we used to cool ourselves down with the goma, hosepipe, but that too had a short-lived effect.
River, lake or reservoir
There is plenty of open water around, although you need to jump in the car to get there.
Popular spots by rivers around here include Cueva del Gato (Benaoján), and places along the Guadiaro River at Jimera de Líbar, Algatocín, and in El Colmenar.
I’ve tried the first of these a few times years ago, but the water is absolutely freezing where it emerges from the Hundidero-Cueva del Gato underground cave system. Yet at the weekends it is heaving, presumably with families who live in nearby towns and villages and don’t have a pool of their own.
Cueva del Gato [Photo courtesy of 20 Minutos]
Reservoirs at Zahara de la Sierra (Cádiz) and Guadalhorce (Málaga) offer great swimming. I’ve tried both. If you pick your spot, you can even go skinny-dipping! And there are plenty of places to drink and eat.
Beware of thieves!
Sadly, you sometimes hear that cars parked a little away from these spots have been broken into and the contents stolen. Hire cars, which are usually conspicuous, are the most vulnerable.
Many years ago my young family was on holiday in Burgau, Algarve, Portugal. As a change from the beach, we travelled inland to a reservoir near Silves, where there were jet skis for hire. We had to walk from the car park to the shore and were gone for some time, enjoying the swimming.
When we returned to the car park, our hire car had been broken into and the entire contents removed. Fortunately, I had taken my expensive SLR film camera, a Minolta, and lenses, with me – no mobile phones with cameras back then; in fact, no mobile phones!
Photo of Silves reservoir courtesy of La Sexta
We needed to report this ‘crime’ to the police to get a crime number for the insurance company and to cover the damage to the hire car – a smashed quarter-light. So, it was off to the police station in Silves. Fortunately, one of the ‘bobbies’ spoke reasonable English so we completed the denuncia. We had to return a few days later to collect the document we needed, as there was nobody available to type it up the day we made the report.
Air-conditioning
Air-con can be a blessing, but it has its disadvantages. It can dry out throats and lungs; it can encourage infections; it is loud; and, above all, it is expensive to run.
We have air-con in our house, but we hardly ever use it, for all the reasons quoted above. We have air-con in our cars also, but only have it on if the car has become unbearably hot after being parked in the heat for a while.
If I’m out and about in Ronda and need to cool down, I head for one of the big supermarkets which have brilliant air-con, sometimes even too cold. Trouble is the longer you linger, the more you tend to spend!
Then, when you leave and go back outside, the heat hits you like a ‘sledgehammer’.
Aldi, Día, LIDL, Mercadona, Supeco, Super Chisme and Super Carmela all offer a cool environment. So do the Chinese stores, eg Bazar Jaydan, Décor Asia, Merkabazar, and Superoriental.
STOP PRESS: “JYSK” has just opened a new branch on the Polígono Industrial in Ronda. “JYSK” is a Danish retail chain that specialises in household goods. The name “JYSK” refers to anything or anyone from the Jutland Peninsula in Denmark, reflecting the company’s Danish roots and values. The term “JYSK” is often associated with qualities like modesty, thoroughness, and honesty, which are integral to the company’s brand identity.
Photo courtesy of JYSK
© The Crazy Guy
Links:
How to keep cool during a heatwave in Spain with top 10 tips from health experts - Olive Press News Spain (theolivepress.es)
www.help-me-ronda.com
Acknowledgements:
20 Minutos
Aldi
Farmers' Almanac
JYSK
La Sexta
Paul Whitelock
Tags:
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