Long time no blogroll - Portugal into Spain

Well, it’s been a very long time and no blogroll, but thank you Alison and John LeS for the comments on here, and everyone else who’s emailed or texted.  Although I too was shocked at the the things that other so-called Spanners seem to get up to - I had no idea, so thank you John LeS - I am delighted to know that we are Googlable, and I really did appreciate the encouragement from you all.  I was actually all fired up with enthusiasm for the next instalment, but then the laptop went and died on us.   We were near Malaga at the time but given the gracias por favor cerveza limitations you already know about, we decided to leave the difficult technical conversations till we got back to France.  Then it was Christmas, so we only heard from the repair shop on 29th December that our computer was completement baise, as they say over here.

This might seem like very bad news, but amazingly (Amazonly?), we took delivery of a new netbook yesterday.  Our budget may also be baise for at least a fortnight – longer if we actually want to eat or drink anything – but on the plus side we managed to transfer all our photos to an external hard drive just in time (we’d have been very sad to lose those, and not just because we intend to bore you rigid with them when we get back – you have been warned) AND our flashy new netbook has four times the battery life of the old laptop.  We’ve also had the unusual and instructive experience of being really, properly, almost long-term incommunicado, which felt very uncomfortable to begin with, then just weird, and then actually became NICE.  Once we got over the have-to-check-emails anxiety, it was really very relaxing, and reminded us of what’s really important in life, like relationships, sunsets and beer.  My Web Sudoku addiction of last year seems like a lifetime ago, and that really does have to be a good thing.

Anyway, I’m rambling.  Here’s a précis of everything up till Tarifa, put together from my scribbled notes.  We’ve had fantastic times – and some difficult ones too – but we’re still standing.  And rambling.

4^th December

Spent the night at Castro Marim, where a Spanish woman was living in her car, parked up with all the campervans for safety, I think.  Some of the other vanners were muttering about her, saying she was parked just where they would need to turn, and did we think she was a prostitute, and so on – but nobody seemed to wonder whether she was actually all right. Not for the first time, I felt embarrassed to be British.  We did try, but not hard enough.  She turned down coffee and showed us the little stove she had, and she said she was ok and that it was a temporary thing.  At least I think that’s what she said – she spoke even less English than we do Spanish – but I do know that her name is Marie-Helena, and that she’s a fantastic hugger.

I wish now that we’d tried harder to help.  I am definitely getting over my fear of sounding  silly in a foreign language (and realising - very belatedly given I’m 48 - that communication is about so much more than words) but I still very much regret letting Marie-Helena plod off up the road by herself.

We have seen a lot of poverty on our way down through Spain and Portugal, and even in France – there seem to be people begging outside most supermarkets – and I’m finding it very shocking, and uncomfortable too.  We’ve been thinking how poor we are, but we're now starting to understand how very lucky we are.

5^th December

Went back West today – maybe we’re scared of Spain – but not very far, to a coastal town called Manta Rota between Tavira and Altura, where we’d been told there was a huge free parking area with dozens of other vans.   We just wanted a day doing nothing much by the sea without having to worry about the van.  There were lots of other vans…

… and we parked up next to another ancient Hymer (they do seem to last well), and started making our way to the beach.  Stopped at what we thought was a beach bar on the way, but it turned out to be a proper restaurant.  We’ll just have a beer, we thought.  But that one was so nice we had another.  Then they brought olives and the menu, and all our resolve was gone – even though one of the dishes was described as ‘fish kebab with spit’.  Mmmm.

 We had probably the nicest lunch I’ve ever had, under the prettiest yellow umbrellas I’ve ever seen, and even though the final bill was nearly twice our daily budget, it somehow felt like money well spent.  I wish we’d taken the camera so you could see how beautiful it all was, but the place is called Sem Espinhas, and I think they have a website.   Someone there really cares about ingredients, cooking, presentation - also about interior design – and the whole experience was lovely.  And we still got to go sunbathing, albeit drunk at 4pm.  We had to dig little hollows in the sand for our enormous bellies but we didn’t care.

6^th December

We stopped just before the Spanish border so we would still be able to use our Portuguese dongle to look up camperstops in Spain, as we’re now heading for Tarifa for Dizzy’s birthday.   We found it really difficult to find places to stop in northern  Spain and wanted to be better prepared this time.

 We left Manta Rota in good time after getting up at 8am to play tennis and then go for a bike ride – and no, you didn’t imagine that.  I can hardly believe it myself, but it is actually true - but we still really struggled to find somewhere nice to stay for the night.  Spain really isn’t easy, and our previously reliable website came up with three duds in a row.  Two places didn’t exist at all – the SatanNav declared confidently that we were “arriving at destination”, when all around were piles of rubble and gangs of disaffected youth - but the third place was worse:  behind a petrol station, fenced in by barbed wire, and patrolled by suspiciously foamy-mouthed dogs, it was the last place on earth you’d want to park in.

So we asked if it was ok to stay the night – we were very tired.  The first person we spoke to said yes, it would be fine, then a really aggressive bloke came up, poked his head right into the van, and demanded 10 euros.   Ten euros, to park in a muddy compound behind a petrol station with no water, no nothing.  We shook our heads and started the engine – we were desperate but not quite that desperate.  He waved us down.  “FIVE euros”, he said, and we said thank you but no.  As we drove away he was shouting ‘One euro, ONE euro” above the barking of his slavering dogs.  Phew.  But we still didn’t have anywhere to stay.

Night was falling when the Guardian Angel of Spanners finally took pity on us and pointed out a camping-car sign in a small town near Seville called Puerto Gelves.  We followed the sign down a back road and then, amazingly, there was another, and then another, until we came to a beautiful marina by the river.  There was a barrier between us and it, but the angel intervened again and a car came the other way.  Mike didn’t hesitate – he stepped on the accelerator and we nipped underneath the barrier before it came down again.   I may have shrieked at him at the time but I was, actually, very proud.  We were then approached by a man with a clipboard – not usually good news - but he just welcomed us to the marina (in perfect English), and directed us to a parking place next to the riverbank which was, almost surreally - but very wonderfully - covered in flowers.  This is the view from the van, and the other side was just as good.

On the other side of the marina was a café, full of people and music and life.  Two beers each and platefuls of olives and nuts and little bits of sausage came to less than 5 euros.  Another lucky escape for the Spanners. 

I forgot to write about Tommy and the Mozzie Zappers, and I meant to write about Tarifa too, but they really do need their own dedicated bits. Will do it tomorrow if the dongle holds out!  In the meantime, lots of love to you all.