El Perro Negro

Grumpy old mountain man living in Spain

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Since Dec 2022 we have been running our own Mastodon & GoToSocial servers. What a breath of fresh air the Fediverse has been. We have made many hundreds of new friends from around the world, mostly related to our mountain, tech and nature interests.

Connect with me/us on the Fediverse at:

Spring has definitely arrived in southern Spain. Even where I live, at 700 metres of altitude, it's 26c+ this afternoon. Here's an image of our Siberian Husky, Arko enjoying the dog walk this morning before it got too hot for him.

A Siberian Husky dog with blue eyes walking along a dirt road, blue sky behind

Having a quiet afternoon listening to Patti Smith and wondering where her music has been all during my misspent youth. Now age 76 and still touring

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The pretty village of Polopos in Andalucias' Sierra de Contraviesa hills. This village has been brought back to life after a Dutch reality TV series brought people back here. A picturesque village being lovingly restored by the locals. Sat on a hillside overlooking the Mediterranean.

A group of hikers walking through a narrow spanish village street

Street scene in Polopos, Spain. Whitewashed houses and narrow streets

Spanish village of Polopos sat on a hillside overlooking the sea

The pretty village of Sorvilán in the Sierra de Contraviesa. Slow, sleepy Spanish life where time has seemingly stood still. Superb views south over the sea towards Morocco.

Front of an old spanish village house that needs a bit of love and care

Cat walking up a spanish village street. Blue sky above

Spanish village street scene.

Spanish village of Sorvilán with lenticular clouds above signifying strong winds

Delighted to finally have our Solar Hot Water system installed. Together with our solar panels we can now produce about 95% of our annual electricity needs.

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Just had to be my luck, didn't it? My first time hiking in the Gorafe Desert Badlands & temperatures were forecast to be below freezing. Now in my eyes, the words "Desert" & "Freezing" shouldn't go together. "Hot" & "Desert", that would surely be the norm, wouldn't it?

Generally easy walking on good tracks or dirt roads unless you get off route in which case it will be purgatory & you will possibly die horribly of heat, cold, drought or exposure 😂

New blog post https://elperronegro.com/ice-cold-in-gorafe/

Dry badlands canyons in southern Spain

Hikers going through a rock cutting with now capped mountains beyond

Person stood looking down a twisted deep rock gorge

Two hikers stood looking down into a dry desert badlands landscape in southern Spain

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The illusion in a photograph. The top 3rd of the image shows the Sierra Nevada which rise some 3000m above the plains of Guadix (marked by the obvious horizontal line). The bottom 2/3rds of the image into the fertile valleys near Gorafe represent a mere 200m altitude difference.

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"To Blog or Not To Blog", that is the Question? (a grumpy thread)

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Writing blogs seems to be more and more a thing from the past, I guess partly due to the expanded influence of Social Media and everybody's increasingly busy lives? I know that when I write a blog it gets hardly any interaction from the public, certainly nothing as much as a nice photo of an adorable fluffy dog nor even as much as what I had on my dinner plate the previous evening.

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Usually when I point my camera at Arko he turns around and shows me his backside. Either that or pulls a funny face. Today he must have seen something of interest over my right shoulder as I managed to get the little blighter 🤣

Siberian husky dog sat on a green forest floor surrounded by trees