ALLAN ROGERS IN SPAIN Olé it's a Spaghetti Western! We were certainly up to our ears in dust and bullets It was not quite what I expected to find in Spain, but we were in the land of Spaghetti Westerns. The term "Paella"Western would have seemed more apt.

It was high noon as we leaned on the hitching rail outside the yellow Rose Saloon.
I hooked my thumbs into my gun belt as I squinted from under the brim of my hat at my companions,
a bar-room floosie, called Sue and the, mean looking, lanky fellow with the rifle.

They seemed a mite familiar and as the stagecoach raced into town and the cloud of dust cleared, it dawned on me that we had once travelled together.

Yes, they too had been on the holiday flight down to sunny Almeria on the Spanish Mediterranean and they were enjoying their visit to "Mini Hollywood" just as much as me.

We had been togged up with costumes and the prop guns for souvenir photographs and the photographer suggested that we keep them on for the stunt show that was about to start.


I suppose we added a bit of colour to a production that had the bank being robbed, deputies shot from roofs and the sheriff catching and hanging the bad guy.

We were certainly up to our ears in dust and bullets It was not quite what I expected to find in Spain, but we were in the land of Spaghetti Westerns, though the term "Paella"Western would have seemed more apt.

The Desert of Tabernas, and the bright reliable sunshine has attracted film makers from all over the world. They have largely moved on now but some sets remain with a couple still in use.

Films such as "The good the Bad and the Ugly, Clint East Wood's "Fistful of Dollars," "Indiana Jones" " Back to the Future III" "Mad Max" and "High Noon" have all been shot in the area.

The mountain and the desert scrub gave a perfect impression of the "Bad lands" and at Mini Hollywood which is essentially a tourist park the illusion was complete.

There was everything from Doc Holliday's dentist shop to the funeral parlor complete with an unhealthy looking corpse. The only sound in the dusty roads came from the horses that a gaggle of visitors rode past the gallows.

You could hire a mount at the livery stables and explore the place on horse back. A friend decided to have a go and leapt up impressively up to the saddle, unfortunately she shot across the beast and landed on the ground on the other side.
She was not amused when I asked her to repeat the performance for the camera.

Tthere are tours from most of the holiday resorts that include a visit as part of an day long excursion.

Other film epics that have been made in Almeria used locations near the coast in the natural park Cabo de Gata-Níja and include ‘Lawrence of Arabia,’ ‘King of Kings,’ ‘The Last of the Mohicans.’
‘The Hill’ and ‘El Cid’ .

All benefited from the impressive scenery and the North African atmosphere. Volcanic craters and lava columns make it one of the most distinctive areas of Andalusia.

It was the coastline and the wildlife that fascinated me and we lost count of time as we watched the flamingos feeding on the salt lake near San Miguel.

The breach there is almost 9 miles long and beside the fishing boats I found Maria and her friend who told me that ‘the’ time to visit that beach is on the evening of the 21st June when they have a mid summer festival.

They spend the night dancing and partying round the bonfires. Sardines are grilled on the barbecue and, she told me;

“At midnight you must swim, so that you can put water on your hair and make a wish.”

I took the narrow winding road round the cape to the old lighthouse where jagged rocks rose from the sea.

Beyond lay a great collection of bays.

My two favorite beaches on this dramatic coast were the spectacularly beautiful Playa del los Mortes with it’s fine white sand and unusual rock formation.


(The name means, the ‘Beach of the Dead’, apparently if there are any shipping accidents it is where the bodies will be recovered.) The other is near San José and called Playa de Los Genoveses.

The approach is down a rough stone track that gives your hire car a bit of a shaking, to reach it you pass an old windmill and a weird futuristic house with windows like small eyes.

 

Along the coast and just inland from a large holiday development, we found the ancient hill top town of Mojácar.

It was a town that was built for humanity rather than cars. Sitting at the café in the square it was a pleasant place to ‘people watch.’

Nothing, I thought, could be further away from the world of movie making with which we began, but I was wrong! I was told that once upon a time a local lady had two sons, one was called Waldo, she eventually married a certain Captain Disney who took her and the two sons to California.

Waldo became Walt and the rest is history.

Report by Allan Rogers..

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Fact File

Spanish National Tourist Office 020 7467 5505

http://www.tourspain.es

http://spainforvisitors.com/archive/features/aa081501a.htm