Saludos Amigos

Saludos Amigos

Monday 8th June

We had a great time in Valencia, biked around the port and saw the Team NZ Yacht headquarters, whilst the place didn’t have many people around we could just imagine it buzzing. Apparently they are holding the next Americas Cup there. We had a fantastic lunch of chicken and seafood paella sitting down by the beach – yum yum yum.
After tackling the traffic again we drove south through all the orange orchards to Miramar. Miramar is a quiet little village by the sea where we spent a couple of nights. The bikes were great here as the camping ground wasn’t right in the town – we biked through the orange groves into another little village called Piles, however Brent forgot to take any money so we just looked at the people sipping on their cold drinks.
The weather now is averaging about 28 degrees…..a little warmer than back home! The heat is quite different to what we are use to – it is a damp heat and the sun doesn’t seem to burn like at home. We are both starting to get great tans and yes we are using lots of sun block!
After Miramar we went to Santa Pola where we stayed in a camping ground up on the hill and we looked out over the city which we had walked around earlier in the day.
We have stayed in camping grounds every night that we have been in Spain – the Spanish aren’t at all keen on ‘wild camping’ and if the police don’t move you on the locals will and with the amount of graffiti around we are not going to argue with the Spanish. We haven’t seen so much graffiti in all our lives, it is everywhere along with rubbish. We can be driving in the country which is very barren and almost desert like when you come across ‘tagging’. I think they drop all their rubbish on the side of the roads as they are driving to find a piece of building that hasn’t been tagged.
From Santa Pola we spent the afternoon at Mar Menor on Costa Calida (Warm Coast) which is a 170sqkm saltwater lagoon – the water is really warm about 25 degrees. The reputed therapeutic quality of it’s high salt and iodine content had a few tourists swimming and coating themselves in it – we started to put some of the mud on our skins but the smell was terrible so we just enjoyed the swim. The area was surrounded with salt works.
We have just left Puerto de Mazarron south of Cartenga. Brent had hoped to have a dive but when we went to book in found out you must have medical certificate to say you are fit to dive (Spanish Law) and the doctor that does them is only open Tuesday’s and Friday’s – so too hard he will have to wait. We have had a good look around the place which has some beautiful beaches. We had 3 nights here, the bar and restaurant at the camping ground is owned by an English couple so we have had a couple of good nights with them learning about the area and also the different ways of the Spanish - such as they don’t eat until about 10.00 at night – kids included! Last night it was 12.30am when we got home and there were kids about 8 years old still playing!
Found a beach off the beaten path in a place called Calnegre and did the wild thing, wild camping that is (called freedom camping at home). There was 6 campers parked right on the beach so we joined them, all Spanish so couldn’t communicate but at least we knew we could stay overnight in safety. Found a wonderful beach/cove that wasn’t signposted, off some narrow country road, absolutely stunning it was. Sat outside to late and watched the full moon rise over the horizon of the Med sea, it was like a huge orange fireball. Hopefully a couple of the photos will turn out ok.
Anyway one night doing the wild thing was it for us and now in a seaside area called Mojacar. Brent will look into diving here.
We will leave here after 2 nights and head further South where they are known for their Flamengo Dancing and Bullfighting which are keen to go to both.



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