Orgiva, Spain

We awoke the next morning to ducks quacking, birds whistling, and the sound of the river. The park had picnic benches, a fire pit with cozy chairs around it, a steel swinging bridge for pedestrians, trees to hang our hammock, and a river. We even had the whole place to ourselves. It was one of my favorite camp spots. Our bicycle ride into Orgiva was all up mountains. I walked most of the way. While walking I saw a line of 22 caterpillars crossing the road, all in a line. They were yellow and black, fuzzy n cute. Later that day, I learned they're poisonous and you can even die from them. The caterpillar will sting you if you touch it. Our friends in Orgiva have a puppy who got stung by one of them and lost a portion of his tongue. We were warned about them right away since it's their season. Getting back to it, the last 4 kilometres into Orgiva is breathtaking. From atop in the mountains you can see a view over to the Sierra Nevada mountains covered in snow. Orgiva is nestled below with mountains. Surrounding it, is a river at the bottom. Tons of olive trees, orange trees, and lemon trees. There is a few smaller towns higher up in the mountains.
We stayed at Mathew and Heather's house who lives in a neighborhood close to the river. Joe knows them from Portland, Oregon. They moved to Spain about a year ago and love it in Orgiva. We made it to their house before another storm hit. We set up our tents on their back porch area in the distance. It poured down hard our first night there. Our tent started to flood with water . I felt it since the bottom of my sleeping bag was wet. Then I noticed under my blow up sleeping mat was also wet. I gathered up my belongings and put them underneath the covered porch area. During all this, I kept trying to wake up Joe but he turned over and tried to sleep through it all. I on the other hand, put 4 chairs next to each other underneath the covered patio area. I slept there with one arm hanging down for the chairs weren't quite big enough. Luckily I have a Artic Pod sleeping bag and it's long so I didn't feel the dampness and slept most of the night feeling toasty. The next day was sunny so we checked out the town of Orgiva in hopes of playing at the market. As we walked into town, up a stream and over a bridge, we saw explosives hanging on lines of wire all strung up. It was 1000 explosives and people were gathered all around. There were police everywhere and a couple of fireman. We found out it was the beginning of a Spanish holiday called Christo. At noon, all of the explosives went off in waves starting at the far end and worked their way forward. We were right with all the people. It was the loudest thing I've ever heard in my life that I even covered my ears. Later I found out by covering your ears is a insult to the festivities. Who knew. Flashes of light with tons of smoke followed by tiny pieces of paper flying everywhere. It was so intense. Shortly after, the church by all this going on was let out. All the towns people were dressed up and left immediately to go to all the bars around. The market was cancelled due to all the festivities.