Mojácar

The morning bus from Mojácar Playa creeps uphill in first gear, engine whining as the driver negotiates hairpins cut into ochre rock. By the time it wheezes to a halt outside the stone archway of the Pueblo, the Mediterranean has shrunk to a cobalt stripe 152 metres below and the temperature has dropped a good three degrees. Step off and you’ll hear two soundtracks at once: the breeze rattling cane awnings on whitewashed roofs, and, faintly, the bass thump of pool-party playlists drifting up from the beach clubs. That split-screen effect—ancient hill town on one side, modern costa on the other—never quite resolves in Mojácar, and that is the point of coming.

The town that painted itself white (and kept the receipts)

Inside the gates the streets are barely two donkeys wide. Houses climb in cubist terraces, their walls the colour of fresh yoghurt, their wrought-iron balconies geranium-red. Unlike many Andalusian hill towns that mutated into open-air museums, Mojácar still functions: schoolchildren career around the Plaza Nueva at home-time, the baker takes deliveries through a doorway no higher than a cricket bat, and the town hall clock strikes quarters only a local could hear. English is spoken, but as a courtesy rather than a necessity; the year-round population includes barely five hundred expats, not enough to dilute the Saturday-night queue for churros.

Start at the Fuente Pública, a sixteenth-century water trough the size of a London taxi. It photographs like a cathedral fountain; in life it’s knee-high and usually hosting a pair of gossiping housewives. From here Calle Esteve tilts upward past studios where potters fire Indalo-inspired clay figures—the stick-man symbol that started as a prehistoric cave painting in nearby Vélez-Blanco and now adorns everything from key-rings to the regional road signs. The church of Santa María appears suddenly at the top, its Mudejar tower built from the same honey-coloured stone as the mosque it replaced. Inside, the air smells of candle wax and damp stone; outside, the mirador delivers a widescreen view that stretches from the lighthouse at Garrucha to the razor-backed hills above Carboneras. On clear afternoons you can pick out the ferry leaving Almería port for Morocco.

Down on the front: 17 kilometres of “choose your own” sand

The descent to the coast takes eight minutes by car, twenty by bike, or an hour on foot if you follow the old drovers’ track that zigzags through prickly-pear and dwarf palm. Mojácar Playa is not a single beach but a chain of sandy coves stitched together by a palm-lined promenade. near the roundabout at Parque Comercial you’ll find the widest stretch—sunbeds ranked like deckchairs on the Titanic, pedalos painted fluorescent pink. Walk five minutes east and the apartment blocks shrink behind dunes of sea-grass; walk west and the shoreline turns to pebble, then to volcanic grey grit, then to nothing at all when the tide barges in.

British families like Playa de las Ventanicas because the rock shelf creates natural paddling pools; Spanish teenagers prefer El Descargador for its surf-rental kiosk and the chiringuito that serves mojitos in plastic coconuts. Water quality is Blue Flag standard, but bring sandals—coarse grit hides beneath the surface and can raise a blister faster than you can say “factor fifty”. In July and August the sea sits at a bath-warm 25 °C; May and October swimmers earn respectful nods from fishermen mending nets on the prom.

Eating: rabbit rice at midday, sardines at sunset

Mojacar’s kitchens still cook for the field rather than the filter-feeding tourist. Arroz con conejo y caracoles—rabbit and snail paella—arrives in portions big enough to floor a ploughman; the rice is soupy, tinted gold with saffron and pimentón, and invariably contains enough rabbit to reconstruct half an animal. Look for it on weekday menús del día in the Pueblo at Casa María (€12 including wine and pudding). Down on the front, lunchtime is for fish so fresh it twitches. At Hola Ola wooden tables are planted in the sand; order espeto de sardinas and you’ll get six silver fish impaled on a cane, grilled over a driftwood fire, served with nothing more than lemon and a paper plate. Dinner tends towards safer international territory—pizzas, steaks, Irish stew in bars showing Sky Sports—because even the Spanish seem to tire of stew after dark.

When the fiesta starts, the hill becomes a drum

Third weekend of August: the Fiestas de San Agustín. The Pueblo’s single-lane streets become a human conveyor belt. Locals dress as Indalos—white tunics, stick-man painted on the back—carry statues of the saint down impossible gradients, then sprint back uphill behind a brass band. Midnight brings a firework display launched from the old Moorish fortress; sparks tumble into the dry riverbed like a shower of defective stars. If you prefer your noise coastal, arrive for San Juan on 23 June. Bonfires dot the shoreline, revellers jump seven waves for luck, and someone always attempts an acoustic version of “Wonderwall” while the tide soaks their guitar case.

Getting stuck (and getting out)

The nearest airport is Almería, 90 minutes by hire car on the A-7. If you’ve booked a package, the coach will drop you at your beach hotel and collect you a week later; nothing compels you to leave the sun-lounger except curiosity. A local bus shuttles between Playa and Pueblo every thirty minutes in summer, hourly in winter, last return 22:30 sharp—miss it and a taxi costs €12. Car hire is useful for the hinterland: the lunar badlands of the Cabo de Gata, the ruined hill-town of Lucainena, or the Sunday market at Vera where you can buy a wicker basket big enough to smuggle a small child. Roads are good but petrol stations thin on the ground; fill up before you head inland.

Rain is rare—Almería province is technically Europe’s only desert—but when it comes the Pueblo’s cobbles turn slick as soap and the beachfront rambla floods in minutes. Pack a light jacket for March and November evenings; even when daytime temperatures flirt with 24 °C the hilltop wind can slice straight through a cotton shirt.

Last orders

Mojácar doesn’t need to be the highlight of an Andalusian grand tour. It works best as a two-centre split: mornings among the alleyways where washing flaps like prayer flags, afternoons on a beach that never quite fills up. Stay a week and you’ll fall into the rhythm—coffee in the Pueblo at eleven, siesta during the furnace hours, gin-tonic on the promenade while the sky bruises from turquoise to violet. Stay longer and you’ll start recognising the same dogs, the same waiters, the same British couple who swore they were only passing through in 1998. That could be cautionary or irresistible, depending on how much you like the idea of time slowing to a Spanish pulse.