During my stay in Novelda, my hometown, for Christmas I had an idea: “digitalize” some almost secret places near the river Vinalopó, which is next to the city. The river itself is quite small, with a width of around 2 meters, but the bed is quite wide, due to scattered floods. Walking up next to the river you can find a lot of small salt water sources. And some decades ago, some people decided to build natural pools to have baths in those waters, and get benefit from its mineral composition.
The biggest pool is called “el Clot” (the Hole), and it’s quite famous among the local people. During summer there are groups having baths every day. It’s around 2 meters deep in the center, and quite long (you can swim some meters). It’s 1 Km far from the river’s bed, and gets the salt water from “Salinetes” a gully with some sources. The best part of having a bath is the concentration of salt: you float like a cork, and it’s almost impossible to drown. When you go out, your skin is covered with a layer of salt!
But I knew there are more “Clots”, smaller but with different features, in the river’s bed itself. So I started to (re)find them. I’ve taken pictures, and geo-localized them: now are part of Internet (photos on Flickr)! The first one is the “Clot Roig” (red hole-pool), with a strong red colour, due to its ferrous waters, that covers the nearly stones. The second one, quite more difficult to find, is the “Clot Negre” (black hole-pool), with (guess it) black water. You can see the difference in these two pictures: surprising colours. Moreover, both of them have a lot of bubbles coming from the deepest part in the center.
If only it was summer, to have some baths…