La Azohia Village

La Azohia is the fishing village we see from the caravan window, tucked under the headland in the photo. It forms one of the points of Mazarron bay.

It makes a particularly good view in the golden evening light as in this zoom shot.

We walk to La Azohia on a nearly new, purpose-built path, supposedly paid for by Euro money, following the coast all the way. It’s about 4 miles and easy walking with scenic views as shown by the next few photos. 

We walk through the village towards the tower on the far side, past many restaurants and low-rise holiday apartments. Tourism is now the main activity although fishing in the bay of Mazarron has been recorded from Roman times and is still active today. It still looks fairly unspoiled.

The tower of Santa Elena gives us a fine viewpoint over the whole bay. Built in the 16^th century as a lookout point for pirates, it also acted as a refuge  should the brigands land and attack. A chain of such towers was built along the coast demonstrating the real threat of piracy at that time.

The tower entrance is about 5 metres above ground level, accessed by a spiral metal staircase. This would have been a wooden or rope ladder able to be pulled up inside in past times. It seems the refugees in the tower also meant to fight back, looking at the cannon on the upper floor. Might be more effective if they aimed it through one of the windows.

From the top of the tower they had a great unrestricted view all round, ideal for defence purposes. We also had a great unrestricted view of a fishing boat hauling in its nets.

Coming down from the tower, we stepped smartly to the harbour to see the bumper catch being unloaded. We were sadly disappointed: no heaps of silver fish,  just one medium sized sunfish swimming, alive, in an on-board tank. A specimen for research perhaps as there is an oceanographic institute a few miles away? We didn’t ponder too long as a tapas lunch was proposed and seconded- and we weren’t planning on dining on fresh fish anyway.