Murcia | Ray and Shelley's Retirement Adventures

There are a lot of Almond trees in Spain, we come across them almost every day when we are out in the country side. Almond are very common and are part of the Mediterranean culture. Almonds have been around for centuries and is mentioned in the bible. That is why it is not surprising that Spain is the second largest producer of almonds in the world.

At this time of year (January-February) the almond trees are in full bloom. We were out for a walk with friends in the Murcia countryside and there were a lot of almond trees in bloom. The smell of the almond flowers which are pink or white were wonderful and it gave us the sense that spring was just around the corner. The white flowering almond tree has the sweet almonds while the pink flowering tree has bitter almonds.

We walked along the mountain trail admiring the almond blooms and taking in the wonderful smell of the flowers.

We stopped at one of the trees and took an almond off the tree. and broke the shell. The almond tasted sweet and was quite enjoyable.

Almond trees are just one of the many enjoyable features of living in the south of Spain.

“Adios y que tengas un gran dia”

We decided to go to the province of Murcia with some friends to explore one of the many cave systems. We arrived early and met our two guides Fran and Victor from Entrena adventura. They explained the cave system and how we were going to explore a part of it. We then began by walking up the mountain to the entrance of the cave.

Walking up the mountain towards the entrance of the cave system

The cave entrance was not easily seen and was quite small. We had to crawl through a narrow gap in the stone into the cave system.

Once we crawled through the narrow space of the entrance the cave system opened up into numerous cave systems.

One of the cave systems throughout the caves

We crawled and worked our way along the cave system for several hours. During that time we came across some challenging spots which we had to climb down or crawl through.

Shelley taking a break in a larger area of one of the cave areas.

We went down approximately 17 meters to different areas of the caves.

Susie, Shelley and Sonja in the caves in Murcia

Marcelo, Ray and Izac In the caves in Murcia.

Our guides would stop at certain areas of the cave system and explain some of the features of the cave.

Our guide Victor explaining some of the features of the cave

Calcium formations on the cave ceiling area

Graining of minerals along the cave wall

There were some interesting features in the caves including calcium carbonate formations which are produced through slow precipitation. These included stalactites, stalagmites, and other features.