Garrett Fisher

Email subscription form header
Subscribe
Your email address:*
Please wait...
Please enter all required fields Click to hide
Correct invalid entries Click to hide
Powered by FeedBlitz
  • Writings
  • Documentary & Interview
  • Press
  • Economics
  • Maps
  • Flying Videos
  • TEDx Talk: Forget Economics
  • About Me

Powered by Genesis

Flights: Spain: The Antipope, Package Holidays & A Clandestine Metropolis

April 11, 2022 by Garrett

While much hay was made in the last few posts about a 16-hour monastic act of aeronautical deprivation, few reasoning pilots would fly to such a point in such a circuitous path only to turn around and head back. The plan was to spend some time in southern Spain, as a friend had extended an invitation and aided in making facilities available. Four years ago, I made a much shorter trip to the same area in the PA-11, flying down from the Portuguese coast north of Lisbon, where I had been staying for some months on end, so this wasn’t the first rodeo in the area. At the time, I only spent a long weekend, before returning to Portugal.

I could write a book on the differences between the PA-11 and PA-18 and what it means for flying. In summary, the Super Cub makes many things in Europe possible that the PA-11 cannot do, owing to sparsity of viable refueling points and time-consuming anachronisms involving each refueling. What usually takes 30 minutes in the US can consume up to 2 hours. Add poor placement, which means often stopping early (as continuing would mean fuel exhaustion), and what should take a few hours might take two days, which means it does not happen. Cartographus interruptus is a frustrating condition where one stares at interesting sites on Google Maps, desiring to fly there and ultimately unable to do so. A Super Cub is a cure for the condition.

I came to the conclusion, one that I already knew yet had not organized in my own thoughts, that I like mountains (in particular glaciers), coastline, desert and, if it is anything else not in the above that is flat, it had better be interesting. Otherwise, I am not keen on it. Therefore, it left some coastal exploration to be had, though I first had a point to visit not far away.

On a drive with a friend to Seville along the wide-open coastal farmlands, he pointed to a town on the map called “Palmar de Troya” and mentioned how “there is a sect there” to which I immediately remembered the name from a Dan Brown novel about a freakishly large cathedral in the middle of nowhere in Spain. It was confirmed that we were discussing the same thing, which I found surprising as I had mentally filed the location of this strange church as being somewhere in the deserts of Central Spain, but I digress. On the next flight, I needed to go see it.

The Palmarian Catholic Church is a breakaway group that has declared the pope of the Catholic Church an apostate. They anointed their own Pope, built a large cathedral with a giant razor-wire fence wall around it, and carried on living the life of cult-like seclusion. Browsing Wikipedia shows a fun list of “antipopes” all over the world; these people are not the first. Anyhow, the first Pope left, married a nun less than a decade ago, broke into the place trying to rob the basilica, got into an altercation with a bishop where neither of them turned the other cheek and ended up stabbed, arrested, and sentenced to prison. He has since said the church is a hoax but it carries on.

Flying over the place was indeed quite interesting. Cortina wire and a gated entrance clearly not keen on visitors reminded me of the searing enthusiasm for Christ and the need to spread the gospel…potentially in an act of reverse psychology, by making it harder to receive the blessings of the “real” Pope? Perhaps they took a page from the Jewish faith, where would be converts are viewed with suspicion and traditionally rejected when attempting to join? Anyhow, the “reverse psychology” guard installations plus suspicious glares coupled with my repeated circling of the place made me wonder if the Holy Spirit would send a hypersonic piece of lead into my aircraft (if a bishop can stab, he can probably shoot), so like the good devil that I am, I made haste in my Satanic chariot of the skies and got out of there.

After that sinfully devilish escapade was completed, I tried to overfly Seville to get some photos of the city, but the knife-wielding bishop must have phoned ATC, as they rudely refused to let me get within 10 miles of the city. I frolicked in the open agrarian plains and called it a night.

The next flight was a coastal run all the way to a refueling point at La Axarquia east of Málaga. I crossed the mountains in Andalucía where the Atlantic gives way to the Mediterranean and enjoyed a few hours of beautiful coastal flying eventually getting to a point where the Sierra Nevada was visible at a distance. I had to cross Málaga’s airspace, which involved lots of holding, given that it is the fourth busiest airport in Spain. The city itself is the 5th or 6th largest in Spain, yet I hadn’t ever heard of it. It is funny how it was hiding the entire time.

Palmarian Catholic Church.

The True Christian faith….visitors not welcome. Maybe it boils down to this: if a man can cough up the cash to build something like this and convince people to follow him, perhaps he deserves to be the Pope?

Coastal plains of Andalucía. It is a dreamy landscape that I do not tire of.

Mediterranean Coast west of Marbella.

Marbella. Slightly overbuilt.

Holding point Papa Whiskey One for Málaga. Thanks to the “package holiday,” the Spanish coast is astonishingly and horrifyingly overbuilt. Natural coastline is hard to come by.

The port of Málaga. Part of the city itself is in the background. I am surprised I did not know about the place before. Airline traffic was virtually nonstop arriving and departing on two runways. 

A breath of relief…natural coastline. It turns out it is more “natural” than I thought! The small cove in the center right is Cantarriján nudist beach according to Google! Too bad I wasn’t paying better attention with the zoom lens.

After fueling in La Axarquia, I intended to go into the Andalucían hills, except I was only allowed to cross Málaga at the VFR points, so I continued along the coast instead.

Ojén. There are many of these “pueblos blancos” (white towns) in Andalucía. It would be sensible to identify that the nomenclature derives of the colors of the buildings, presumably intended to reflect flaming summer heat.

Estrepona, with the Rock of Gibraltar on the horizon. More on that in a future post.

Embalse de Guadalcacín. To the right is one of the wettest areas of Spain, owing to terrain and incoming winter storms. 

Approaching the temporary base of Trebujena, the coastal plains appear again.

I can best describe the farmland as “dreamy.” It is an intoxicating explosion of texture. 

Velvet. Not far from the airport. Scenery like this extends in all directions.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

  • Español
  • Français
  • Català

Blog Posts

  • Flights: Switzerland, France, Italy, Austria: Smashing the Monthly Record May 22, 2025
  • Flights: Norway, Sweden: Glaciers at the Arctic Circle March 10, 2025
  • Flights: Switzerland, France, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Norway: To the Arctic Circle December 25, 2024
  • Flights: France, Switzerland: Sunset With a Dose of Medieval Catholic Terror November 10, 2024
  • Flights: Switzerland, Italy: Venice September 21, 2024
  • The PA-11 Turns 75 June 7, 2024
  • Flights: Switzerland, Italy, Austria: Autumn Glaciers & Larches April 22, 2024
  • Flights: Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, France, Switzerland: Desenrascanço February 26, 2024
  • Flights: Switzerland, France, Spain: Exotic Frustration Near the Alhambra January 20, 2024
  • Flights: Switzerland, Italy: An International Smoke Mystery November 25, 2023
  • Flights: Norway: Svartisen, Second Largest Glacier in Continental Europe November 12, 2023
  • Flight: Norway: 750,000th Photograph October 21, 2023
  • Book #33: Glaciers of Switzerland September 1, 2023
  • Flights: Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, France, Switzerland: The Six Nation Commute May 23, 2023
  • Flight: Switzerland: Sunset in the Alps March 29, 2023
  • Flights: Spain, Switzerland: A Crazed Aeronautical Bender…Seven Years Later January 25, 2023
  • Flight: France: Surfing the Wave December 19, 2022
  • Flight: Switzerland: A Mystery on the Eiger, 700,000th Photo November 16, 2022
  • Flight: Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Netherlands: Losing My Flying-Over-Water Virginity October 24, 2022
  • Flights: Norway: Sognefjord, Longest Fjord in Norway September 24, 2022

Archives

  • May 2025 (1)
  • March 2025 (1)
  • December 2024 (1)
  • November 2024 (1)
  • September 2024 (1)
  • June 2024 (1)
  • April 2024 (1)
  • February 2024 (1)
  • January 2024 (1)
  • November 2023 (2)
  • October 2023 (1)
  • September 2023 (1)
  • May 2023 (1)
  • March 2023 (1)
  • January 2023 (1)
  • December 2022 (1)
  • November 2022 (1)
  • October 2022 (1)
  • September 2022 (2)
  • August 2022 (2)
  • July 2022 (3)
  • June 2022 (3)
  • May 2022 (1)
  • April 2022 (4)
  • March 2022 (1)
  • February 2022 (1)
  • January 2022 (1)
  • December 2021 (2)
  • November 2021 (3)
  • October 2021 (1)
  • September 2021 (1)
  • July 2021 (2)
  • June 2021 (1)
  • May 2021 (3)
  • April 2021 (1)
  • March 2021 (1)
  • February 2021 (1)
  • December 2020 (5)
  • November 2020 (5)
  • October 2020 (1)
  • September 2020 (1)
  • August 2020 (1)
  • July 2020 (1)
  • June 2020 (1)
  • April 2020 (1)
  • March 2020 (2)
  • February 2020 (2)
  • January 2020 (1)
  • December 2019 (3)
  • November 2019 (3)
  • October 2019 (1)
  • September 2019 (4)
  • August 2019 (3)
  • July 2019 (2)
  • June 2019 (2)
  • May 2019 (2)
  • April 2019 (2)
  • March 2019 (3)
  • February 2019 (1)
  • January 2019 (1)
  • December 2018 (2)
  • October 2018 (2)
  • September 2018 (2)
  • August 2018 (2)
  • July 2018 (3)
  • June 2018 (2)
  • May 2018 (2)
  • April 2018 (1)
  • March 2018 (4)
  • February 2018 (2)
  • January 2018 (2)
  • December 2017 (4)
  • November 2017 (4)
  • October 2017 (4)
  • September 2017 (4)
  • August 2017 (5)
  • July 2017 (3)
  • June 2017 (4)
  • May 2017 (5)
  • April 2017 (4)
  • March 2017 (5)
  • February 2017 (4)
  • January 2017 (1)
  • December 2016 (4)
  • November 2016 (5)
  • October 2016 (4)
  • September 2016 (6)
  • August 2016 (2)
  • July 2016 (4)
  • June 2016 (3)
  • May 2016 (1)
  • April 2016 (5)
  • March 2016 (5)
  • February 2016 (4)
  • January 2016 (6)
  • December 2015 (4)
  • November 2015 (5)
  • October 2015 (5)
  • September 2015 (8)
  • August 2015 (8)
  • July 2015 (8)
  • June 2015 (8)
  • May 2015 (4)
  • April 2015 (4)
  • March 2015 (5)
  • February 2015 (3)
  • January 2015 (2)
  • December 2014 (10)
  • November 2014 (4)
  • October 2014 (1)
  • September 2014 (3)
  • August 2014 (1)
  • July 2014 (6)
  • May 2014 (1)
  • March 2014 (1)
  • February 2014 (3)