There is currently a debate raging about the future of Mojácar’s tourism.
To understand the debate, you must understand that Spain attempts to quantify tourism into neat little socio-economical blocks, which academics can then pigeonhole into whatever half assed plan the politicos come up with.
So we have many different types of “theoretical” types of tourism, such as turismo rural, where people go and stay in a rural hotel; turismo gastronomico, which are tourists attracted by the cuisine of a place – you can break down these budding gourmands into such categories as Neo-alimentación, where the gastropod travels far to go to a nouvea cuisine restaurant (think of the sort of person who goes to Barcelona just to try out El Bullí) or Tradicional, where people travel to Garrucha just to try the gambas, or Los Gallardos for the gurullos. Or you may have Ictioturismo, anglers; turismo social, where people go on holiday to help the less fortunate; etc. All attempts to work out why you spend your money travelling, in an attempt to lure you into a certain resort. The best, to my mind, is turismo residencial, residential tourism: people who buy holiday homes here for their holidays.
This picture of a not so sunny beach resort called Mojacar was taken early this morning from Turre, after a cloudburst hit the region overnight.
According to reports from early morning people, car parks are four feet deep in water, basements are flooded, and La Parata was cut off after the rambla there filled with water, washing the road away.
I assume that the lack of vegetation in that area isn’t helping with the rain washoff.
Rain started at 4am and continued, heavily, all night. Police and Proteccion Civil units continue to assess the damage caused, and warn that we could expect more rain today. The area continues under a yellow alert for heavy rain. Hardly normal weather for mid-August, but it gives the tourists something to talk about.
The Junta de Andalucia has agreed with Mojácar’s townhall that as the population of the town doubles in summer it should be designated a major tourism town (zona de gran afluencia turística).
This means that opening hours for shops are relaxed for the summer and easter periods. (Not, however, June and December, as the Junta said that there were insufficient tourists around then to permit this).
“These extended opening hours will only improve the tourism experience in our village” said the townhall in a note.
Just imagine – now you can buy tourist tat 24/7, instead of having to wait until dawn!
This is a Readers Review submitted by Britt Arenander on the Mojo Picón Italian restaurant on Mojácar Playa.
I have discovered a little pearl of an Italian restaurant on Mojácar playa, unpretentious and cosy, situated on the Casa Egea stretch, more or less opposite Tito´s.
It´s still called Mojo Picón, as when the chicken with mojo picón was the main attraction.
Now it´s run by a friendly young Italian couple who serve really good homemade Italian food – I´m stuck on the ravioli filled with pumpkin, accompanied by bolognese sauce or a fresh tomato sauce, but there are many other pasta dishes to choose from. Last time my friend had pasta with homemade pesto, great!
There is also a selection of meat and fish dishes. If you ask for it a small salad comes with whatever food you choose, which saves you from ordering one of those huge salads that usually cost around 6 euros and that you can´t possibly finish.
I haven´t tried the pizzas yet, but I´ve seen they are big, and look highly appetizing.
If you don´t have a pudding a small bowl of fresh fruit is served after the meal, and the very reasonable bill comes with a chupito of a delicious liquor.
This is a Readers Review submitted by Britt Arenander on the Mojo Picón Italian restaurant on Mojácar Playa. To submit your own review, please use the Add your own review option above.
Mojacar’s beach bars are an institution with which I have a love hate relationship.
On the one hand, I love visiting them, eating there, having a few drinks, maybe bopping to the live music and in general having a great afternoon.
On the other, it’s a long way to get there (from Turre) when the traffic is heavy, there is always a large police presence making their greasy little fingers felt on your wallet (via the state mechanism of fines, I should add) and there is always the fear that your car will be broken into whilst you are off enjoying a brief few minutes of bliss away from work. The cops being too busy fining tourists to actually bother catching the crooks with crowbars.
Last year, the family made Neptuno’s beach bar a habitual stop. Easy to get to (turn left at the Parque Comercial, second place on the beach), with many easy access routes over the fields back to Turre and Los Gallardos, with excellent food, few riff raff and attentive service, it ticked all the boxes.
And to top it all off, the large, clean and safe beach in front of the restaurant allowed my many nieces and nephews free reign to indulge themselves making sandcastles on the high tide mark whilst indulgent parents beamed with approval from the terrace.
Assuming we spent an average of between 100€ and 200€ a visit…. let’s say we dropped a couple of grand there last year. Infrequent visits, but every one was pleasant.
So, when the clouds over Mojacar finally lifted, we restarted out visits to the beach there. I’ve been there twice this year. The clouds may have lifted from Mojacar, but not from my heart after going there.
Neptuno is a main building, enclosed with large plate glass windows, which allows for easy indoor eating when the wind is strong. On the beach.
Should the breeze be lighter, you can sit outside on the many enjoyable shady tables. Larger parties out front, smaller tables on the boardwalk around the main building. Comfy chairs, large tables, and lots of sparrows to feed while waiting for the food. Or you can watch the elderly chef cook sardines on the sand filled boat, and feel your mouth water with anticipation at the sight. It should be paradaise.
Of course, it isn’t.
The last time we went there, with a cousin from the UK, we found ourselves relegated to the beach front patio, in full blast of the wind. We complained, but were told that there were no tables in the lull of the wind. The waitress was right. Not because they were full – because they hadn’t bothered to set them up. So I had to sit there, and fill my teeth with sand from the wind every time I smiled.
The sardines were cooked on the plancha that time (no fire, we were told). The salad was indifferent. The paella was full of tomato, tasted frozen and was unappetising.
We left, feeling sad, but determined to give it another go, on the understanding that they had just opened and weren’t up to speed for the summer season.
Anyway, ’twas Maters birthday. I have made jokes about this in the past, and been threatened. I pass over the jokes. The family was there, along with two little ones. We were sited in a nice table. It was cloudy, but not cold, and not windy. The sea was calm. The fire in the boat was roaring.
For starters, we ordered a salad, chipirones and two plates of fire cooked sardines.
Now, the Neptuno, in case you didn’t know, has an old fishing boat outside where they cook the fish. It’s full of sand, and fish are speared on spikes before being roasted over the flames.
The sardines were delicious. Perfectly cooked. Five to a plate, as always, and fresh, with rock salt. The salad was also wonderful. The chipirones were frozen and deep fried. Heh ho.
For main course, we had ordered a number of fish (I forget which types), a steak and two BBQ grilled chicken breasts.
The fish turned up in a timely fashion. We watched them being cooked on the open fire. One of them was badly undercooked and was sent back. It was returned, and was reported as being lovely.
Meanwhile, the meat eaters wondered where our food was.
When the fish eaters had half finished their dishes, we asked where the meat was. The waiter looked surprised, and fled to the kitchen. We later realised, from the length of time it took for the meat to arrive, that someone had forgotten to put the order in, and they started cooking it the moment we complained.
The fish were eventually finished. The fish eaters took it slowly, but still finished before our meat turned up. This gives you an idea of how long it took.
The meat turned up. I dug my fork into the meaty chicken thigh, and a spurt of blood hit my sun glasses. The chicken was returned to the kitchen for a “repaso”.
Meanwhile, to hide my fury at the chicken episode, I took the two young ones to the sea. We had a paddle with grandma (she had finished her fish ages ago and was now on the coffee). A lovely time was had by all until grandma discovered quite a lot of broken glass scattered amongst the beach chairs. Bottles and glasses, we agreed. The children were scooped up and returned to the boardwalk.
Now, who leaves broken glass on a beach, when you’re selling deck chairs there? Words fail me. We scooped up some of the glass and gave it to a waiter with a stern word, but I doubt anything was done.
Eventually, the chicken was returned. It had been ripped apart by the chef, burnt on the outside and flipped several times in the flames. The chips and the vegetables were the same as before, only now cold and greasy. The chicken was not much edible.
Nothing wrong with the meat, I hasten to add. It was a fine chicken thigh, firm and meaty. But it was far too large to be cooked on a BBQ. It should have been done in an oven before being finished off over the flame. And by the time the amateur in the kitchen had finished with it, it was basically chicken strips burnt over a flame.
To cut a long story short (I could go on) this used to be a fine restaurant, in a wonderful location. But the maitré d has gone.
He now runs Finca La Parata, and I have yet to go (I will).
But I blame the collapse of this once fine restaurant on him.
Take away the firm hand and watchful eye, and you get what I’ve had this month – an amateurish, sloppish mess of a restaurant, where the waiters don’t talk to the kitchen, the kitchen doesn’t know what’s happening with the open fire and the staff couldn’t care less.
Neptuno Beach Bar.
Playa del Descargador s/n, Mojacar Playa.
Mojácar Playa. Turn left at the Parque Commercial towards Garrucha, about 600m along on the beachside. You can’t miss it.
616005387
A large fire is raging at the end of Mojacar Playa.
The fire is between Los Amigos and the hotels at the end of the Playa.
I am told that emergency services have evacuated the area and are trying to control the situation.
At 11:30pm the fire was behind both end hotels but it appears that so far it has not spread to any more buildings. Use the comments box to update us with news.
Well, one can forgive the Euro Weekly News and the Sol Times for forgetting about the annual Mojacar Moros y Cristianos fiesta (described in the special supplement of El Ideal as “the Levante’s most important fiesta” and Diario Sur de Málaga as “unmissable – eastern Andalucia’s trademark June festival”). Football is so much more interesting, and will fill a bar for an afternoon.
After all, despite the Euro Weekly News claiming to be “the paper that makes Mojacar matter” they are very big, and Mojacar is very small, and they don’t employ any reporters (just translators, as they themselves admit). After all, they can’t bother themselves with every little town they distribute in.
And the Sol Times seems to limit itself to copying and pasting typicallyspanish.com news articles. And is obsessed with its new edition in Roquetas. And is based in Albox.
But why oh why didn’t ACEM, the self styled Mojacar chamber of commerce, drop an email to their friends in the press (they used to get a whole page free in the Euro Weekly News for their self publicity! Use it for this!) to tell them about the festival? After all, if the EWN can print a half page about some shop opening in the parque comercial, and another half page about a Nigerian scam letter that someone called leapy Lee (who?) got, surely they could have printed something of interest to more than three people?
If the ACEM wanted to bring in more tourists, this is exactly the thing they should be promoting in the expat press. Just a round of emails with a decent press release and a couple of photos would have done the trick.
The Mojacar tourist board seems to have done a good job promoting the festival in the Spanish press (A quick google shows me that, amongst others, La Voz, Ideal -all three editions-, Diario Sur, La verdad de Murcia all ran special reports on the fiesta last week – I know a large number of Spanish families have turned up for the event). But we all know the tourist board can’t be bothered with the local expat press.
And that is what ACEM has constantly decried, and was supposed to have been formed to prevent. Remember?
Or has everyone, now that summer has arrived, forgotton about the hand wringing and fine words of the quiet winter months and gone back to their bars and estate agents to make as much money as possible before the summer ends? Because if they have, what was the point of all the fuss over the winter? Is ACEM even still going or has it foundered?
Because an organisation like ACEM needs to be there constantly, working all year round – not just when everyone is bored in February and looking for something to do.
Meanwhile, another missed opportunity to get expats up from nearby areas, and into our businesses, and get the word out about our little area (now full of abandoned half built transportation links).
Costas has agreed to send a boat to squirt 8,000 m2 of sand back onto three of Mojacar’s beaches, in an effort to at least pretend that Mojacar has some nice beaches for the summer.
The beaches that are being restored are El Cargador, Villazar and La Rumina.
Works start today, will be finished before the summer and will cost around 100,000€.
If he didn’t write an interesting blog over at www.theentertaineronline.com, the GF would never have found out about Raimundo Amador coming to Mojacar.
And if she hadn´t, I wouldn´t be going to listen to him tonight in Mojacar.
Shouldn´t be too crowded, my ticket numbers are 16 & 17. Might have a chance at winning the guitar they’re raffling off!
or see a 
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