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Rather livelier than the eastern resorts is the strip of coast between Carboneras and La Garrucha, centred on the town of Mojacar. This is some way up the coast and to get there you'll have to travel through some of Almeria's distinctive desert scenery. There are two possible routes: via Nijar to Carboneras, or via Tabernas and Sorbas to Mojacar. NIJAR is a neat, white and typically Almerian town, with narrow streets designed to give maximum shade, and it makes a good base from which to explore the coast. There are two or three small hostales ; try Montes , Avda. Garcia Lorca 26 (tel 951 360 157; ?12-18), with en-suite rooms, a comedor on the main road into town. For food , further up the same street Casa Pedro is a very good bar-restaurant and there are more tapas and raciones bars in the upper square beyond the church. The most dramatic landscapes, however, lie further north, between TABERNAS and SORBAS . Both towns look extraordinary, especially Sorbas, whose houses overhang an ashen gorge, but neither is really a place to linger - this is the middle of a desert. Just outside Tabernas, in a particularly gulch-riven landscape, is Mini Hollywood (daily: July-Sept 10am-9pm; Oct-June 10am-7pm; ?9 or ?14.50 including zoo; reductions for kids), the set of the spaghetti western A Fistful of Dollars and various other movies. This has been preserved and opened up as a tourist attraction: you can wander into the saloon for a drink, and three times a day in season (noon, 5pm & 8pm) the fantasy is carried a step further with an acted-out "show" including a mock bank raid. The complex has now also added a somewhat incongruous zoo , featuring birds and reptiles as well as lions and other big cats prowling depressingly small cages.
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