Sunday 14th June
Hola
We had a great couple of nights in Mojacar which is pronounced Mohacker, we spent the days exploring the town on our bikes and then at night sitting at the beach bars sipping on wines and beers taking in all the scenery. You could have a massage on the beach on massage tables right on the waters edge – we did think about it for about half a second but not being show ponies it wasn’t our thing! Mojacar is quite a touristy town but very enjoyable.
After Mojacar we headed further south to San Jose (photos attached) – pronounced San Hosay,
remember the song Do you know the way to San Jose I am going back this time ??????? sound familiar – Brent is singing this again to me as I type???? Driving to San Jose you drive through dessert like roads and then come around a corner and there is the deep blue sea with houses/apartments all in stark white up on the hills surrounding the town – very beautiful. Brent went diving here and whilst he enjoyed it he does appreciate NZ waters for the scenery and not to mention the hunt for crayfish. We stayed in San Jose for two nights and took some phone numbers of rental units in case we decide to come back here at the end of our holiday. A beautiful place with great beaches for swimming! 
From San Jose we travelled further down the coast and stopped at Almeria to do some groceries – when we walked out of the air conditioned supermarket it was like walking into an oven – it was about 11.00am and the temperature was 39.5 degrees - there were two more temperature gauges confirming this down the road – wow, we put the groceries away as fast as we could so we could drive to get some air through the camper!! We drove to Almerimar which is on the beach and stopped and had some lunch – decided not to stay there as the town had some interesting looking people wondering around – they looked like they had spent their lives in the sun – great dark tans they had!!! Whilst the weather was hot it was also quite windy so the decision was made to head inland. We ended up in a place called Orgiva which is just south of Granada and 335m above sea level. A small village surrounded by some magnificent mountain ranges – whilst sitting a small bar with the locals having a Tinto Verano (red wine with slice of lemon and lemonade) we spotted an eagle soaring above us – what a sight!! On Saturday we walked 2km up a steep hill from the camping ground into the village – this may not sound much but at 10.00am in 28 degrees – we were pleased to jump onto an air conditioned bus and headed into Granada.
Granada is a city that whilst the main area is centered around their famous cathedral the rest of the city is very urbanised. 
We had a walk through the beautiful cathedral (photos attached) and by that time it was 2.00pm and 38 degrees – ah what to do – When in Spain do what the Spaniards do – head to a bar buy a beer and get a tapa. In Granada and its surrounding areas, when you order a beer you get a free tapa – they just bring one out to you so you have no idea what you are going to get – we had Russian salad, chicken nibble, paella, pate and chirozo on bread, olives, fish, croissant type sausage roll, croquettes, bagels – just to name a few – as you can see it was thirsty work visiting this area!!!! 
Much of our driving over the last 10 days has been through areas where there are shade houses 
where they grew tomatoes(and some melons) – if you can imagine Christchurch to Ashburton literally being covered in shade houses that is how big an industry it was here, just huge – unfortunately 
the bottom has fallen out of the tomato industry and they can’t afford to grow them so about three quarters of the sheds are now empty – this has a big impact on the villages and people that live here – such a shame.
The other really sad thing that we are seeing often each day is great big apartment blocks (usually seaside holiday blocks), hotels and houses that had started being built but with the recession happening here everyone has been ordered off the construction sites – they have just literally walked off – the cranes are still on site as there is no money to remove them and I guess that at some stage they will be needed again. Some of the buildings/new towns that have been finished are now like ghost towns with lots of for sale signs up. The government has had to set up soup kitchens down the coast for the construction and tomato workers to be able to eat. This has of course put the prices for everything up over here and the tourist industry is worried that people may not come down here these July August holidays or if they do they may not spend the money they would have normally. There are 40+million people in Spain, 4 million approx unemployed and there are over 1 million houses on the market – so the world recession is really noticeable here and they are saying it will take at least 2 years to recover. Not sure what is happening in NZ?
We are currently in Torre del Mar in a camping ground right on the beach – the water down here was quite cold so no swimming here for us today even though the temperature is a very pleasant 31 degrees. Not sure how long we will be here for – we will decide in the morning. We are just about to go to the local bar and see if they do free tapas down here.
Rae’s Useless Information:
Banks are open here from 8.30am until 2.00pm and then again (sometimes) from 5.00pm until 7.00pm.
Purple and grey/silver are the in colours for both France and Spain.
Fringes are back in fashion.
Brents Useless Information:
Driving:
Both the French & Spainards love round-a-bouts, they are everywhere. We can be way out in the country and there is a new big round-a-bout, with only option 1 exit to go straight ahead, weird. We’ve used them well though especially when you get to one with about 8 exits and you’re not sure which one, easy, we just go around and around and round until we find the right exit. This has happened quite a few times.
Lot of money spent on roading etc. Huge new motorways, viaducts etc. Actually the road quality is mostly excellent, puts NZ ones to shame.
Driving in the old cities is a bit of a nightmare, the roads are usually very narrow and “the Bitch”, my affectionate name for the female voice on our GPS, seems to send us into some strange, narrow streets. When I ignore her she gets a little miffed and keeps telling me to do a u-turn asap, great thing is I just turn her off, but then Rae imitates her to get me going, haven’t found her off button yet!!! We have had to pull in both mirrors several times with only millimetres spare to either buildings or cars. In narrow roads having vehicles coming the other way I have seen Rae literally suck in her breath and crossing her fingers, scary stuff sometimes.
Can you imagine driving up a windy road, similar to Mt Pleasant but narrower, and when you get to top you turn onto a 6 lane highway?? Driving here is like that all the time, you don’t know what is around the next corner.
Yesterday came under a bridge in the middle of nowhere and there were 2 motorcycle cops in the shade, it looked like he waved me over but then saw the foreign plates and right-hand-drive and changed his mind, I waved at him as we went past. It seems dealing with non-spanish speaking drivers is difficult so most of the time they are left alone.
Boring stuff on the camper.. 2.3 litre 130HP Multi-jet Fiat Ducato. 6 speed, fairly quick, sits on 120kph at only 2600rpm. So far running at 10.2 litres diesel per 100kms, a fair amount on uneconomical hilly terrain so quite pleased really. Done about 5300 kms on trip so far.
Diesel cost the equivalent NZ$2.20 – $2.45 / litre so expensive to fill up. No RUC road tax like NZ though.
Diving:
Yes got a dive in, down to only 60ft but could see bottom of boat clearly from there. As it was a marine reserve I expected to see a lot more. Quite a few smaller fish and got a glimpse of a very large groper that is resident in a big hole but nothing too spectacular. Stayed down for 55 mniutes on a tank, didn’t use air strapping saddles on huge crayfish and riding to surface like back home haha.
Other:
We have stayed at 33 different places since we landed in London 23/4/09.
Wednesday 17th June
No free Tapas in Torre Del Mar but we did bump into an English couple Sue and Danny whom we had met a couple of nights before in Orgiva so enjoyed the evening with them learning more about the area we were in as they had lived there for the last 10 years.
At Sue’s suggestion we headed inland again to Antequera – we parked the camper and wandered through the narrow streets and browsed in the shops – well Brent browsed and Rae bought a couple of things! The temperature once again was about 36 degrees so we checked into the camping ground and headed for the pool. The mountains surrounding the camping ground were quite breathtaking and we could imagine them all covered in snow!
The following day we went to the local market in the village and then drove even further up the mountains to a place called Al Torcal..JPG)
Al Torcal is 1200metres above sea level with some spectacular rock formations that have been there .JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
for over 20 million years (Jurassic Age). The area was once under water – the place itself was quite surreal and as you drove in the rocks looked like lots of villages. As we were .JPG)
walking back to the camper a fox walked by us – less than 6 metres away – lucky Brent had the camera out – he then started calling it but fortunately the fox must of spoken Spanish as kept strolling away. As we were driving back down the mountain we saw 4 booted eagles just soaring in the sky.
We then drove onto Torremolinos where we learnt of the sudden unexpected death of Mike – Brent’s sister Sherrill’s partner – we once again are feeling a long way away and our thoughts are with her at this time. We will remember Mike as a very relaxed, nothing a problem sort of guy and one that made Sherrill very happy.
We have today visited a small village called Mijas which is a very pretty village set against pine forested hills and has narrow stepped streets with great views over the sea and mountains. We watched some flamenco dancers who put on a show - quite enjoyable.
We walked for quite a 
distance around this village opting for our feet instead of a donkey which are the local taxis in this village. 
We are now in Marbella and heading towards Gibraltar tomorrow.
Hola
We had a great couple of nights in Mojacar which is pronounced Mohacker, we spent the days exploring the town on our bikes and then at night sitting at the beach bars sipping on wines and beers taking in all the scenery. You could have a massage on the beach on massage tables right on the waters edge – we did think about it for about half a second but not being show ponies it wasn’t our thing! Mojacar is quite a touristy town but very enjoyable.
After Mojacar we headed further south to San Jose (photos attached) – pronounced San Hosay,
remember the song Do you know the way to San Jose I am going back this time ??????? sound familiar – Brent is singing this again to me as I type???? Driving to San Jose you drive through dessert like roads and then come around a corner and there is the deep blue sea with houses/apartments all in stark white up on the hills surrounding the town – very beautiful. Brent went diving here and whilst he enjoyed it he does appreciate NZ waters for the scenery and not to mention the hunt for crayfish. We stayed in San Jose for two nights and took some phone numbers of rental units in case we decide to come back here at the end of our holiday. A beautiful place with great beaches for swimming! 
From San Jose we travelled further down the coast and stopped at Almeria to do some groceries – when we walked out of the air conditioned supermarket it was like walking into an oven – it was about 11.00am and the temperature was 39.5 degrees - there were two more temperature gauges confirming this down the road – wow, we put the groceries away as fast as we could so we could drive to get some air through the camper!! We drove to Almerimar which is on the beach and stopped and had some lunch – decided not to stay there as the town had some interesting looking people wondering around – they looked like they had spent their lives in the sun – great dark tans they had!!! Whilst the weather was hot it was also quite windy so the decision was made to head inland. We ended up in a place called Orgiva which is just south of Granada and 335m above sea level. A small village surrounded by some magnificent mountain ranges – whilst sitting a small bar with the locals having a Tinto Verano (red wine with slice of lemon and lemonade) we spotted an eagle soaring above us – what a sight!! On Saturday we walked 2km up a steep hill from the camping ground into the village – this may not sound much but at 10.00am in 28 degrees – we were pleased to jump onto an air conditioned bus and headed into Granada.
Granada is a city that whilst the main area is centered around their famous cathedral the rest of the city is very urbanised. 
We had a walk through the beautiful cathedral (photos attached) and by that time it was 2.00pm and 38 degrees – ah what to do – When in Spain do what the Spaniards do – head to a bar buy a beer and get a tapa. In Granada and its surrounding areas, when you order a beer you get a free tapa – they just bring one out to you so you have no idea what you are going to get – we had Russian salad, chicken nibble, paella, pate and chirozo on bread, olives, fish, croissant type sausage roll, croquettes, bagels – just to name a few – as you can see it was thirsty work visiting this area!!!! 
Much of our driving over the last 10 days has been through areas where there are shade houses 
where they grew tomatoes(and some melons) – if you can imagine Christchurch to Ashburton literally being covered in shade houses that is how big an industry it was here, just huge – unfortunately 
the bottom has fallen out of the tomato industry and they can’t afford to grow them so about three quarters of the sheds are now empty – this has a big impact on the villages and people that live here – such a shame.The other really sad thing that we are seeing often each day is great big apartment blocks (usually seaside holiday blocks), hotels and houses that had started being built but with the recession happening here everyone has been ordered off the construction sites – they have just literally walked off – the cranes are still on site as there is no money to remove them and I guess that at some stage they will be needed again. Some of the buildings/new towns that have been finished are now like ghost towns with lots of for sale signs up. The government has had to set up soup kitchens down the coast for the construction and tomato workers to be able to eat. This has of course put the prices for everything up over here and the tourist industry is worried that people may not come down here these July August holidays or if they do they may not spend the money they would have normally. There are 40+million people in Spain, 4 million approx unemployed and there are over 1 million houses on the market – so the world recession is really noticeable here and they are saying it will take at least 2 years to recover. Not sure what is happening in NZ?
We are currently in Torre del Mar in a camping ground right on the beach – the water down here was quite cold so no swimming here for us today even though the temperature is a very pleasant 31 degrees. Not sure how long we will be here for – we will decide in the morning. We are just about to go to the local bar and see if they do free tapas down here.
Rae’s Useless Information:
Banks are open here from 8.30am until 2.00pm and then again (sometimes) from 5.00pm until 7.00pm.
Purple and grey/silver are the in colours for both France and Spain.
Fringes are back in fashion.
Brents Useless Information:
Driving:
Both the French & Spainards love round-a-bouts, they are everywhere. We can be way out in the country and there is a new big round-a-bout, with only option 1 exit to go straight ahead, weird. We’ve used them well though especially when you get to one with about 8 exits and you’re not sure which one, easy, we just go around and around and round until we find the right exit. This has happened quite a few times.
Lot of money spent on roading etc. Huge new motorways, viaducts etc. Actually the road quality is mostly excellent, puts NZ ones to shame.
Driving in the old cities is a bit of a nightmare, the roads are usually very narrow and “the Bitch”, my affectionate name for the female voice on our GPS, seems to send us into some strange, narrow streets. When I ignore her she gets a little miffed and keeps telling me to do a u-turn asap, great thing is I just turn her off, but then Rae imitates her to get me going, haven’t found her off button yet!!! We have had to pull in both mirrors several times with only millimetres spare to either buildings or cars. In narrow roads having vehicles coming the other way I have seen Rae literally suck in her breath and crossing her fingers, scary stuff sometimes.
Can you imagine driving up a windy road, similar to Mt Pleasant but narrower, and when you get to top you turn onto a 6 lane highway?? Driving here is like that all the time, you don’t know what is around the next corner.
Yesterday came under a bridge in the middle of nowhere and there were 2 motorcycle cops in the shade, it looked like he waved me over but then saw the foreign plates and right-hand-drive and changed his mind, I waved at him as we went past. It seems dealing with non-spanish speaking drivers is difficult so most of the time they are left alone.
Boring stuff on the camper.. 2.3 litre 130HP Multi-jet Fiat Ducato. 6 speed, fairly quick, sits on 120kph at only 2600rpm. So far running at 10.2 litres diesel per 100kms, a fair amount on uneconomical hilly terrain so quite pleased really. Done about 5300 kms on trip so far.
Diesel cost the equivalent NZ$2.20 – $2.45 / litre so expensive to fill up. No RUC road tax like NZ though.
Diving:
Yes got a dive in, down to only 60ft but could see bottom of boat clearly from there. As it was a marine reserve I expected to see a lot more. Quite a few smaller fish and got a glimpse of a very large groper that is resident in a big hole but nothing too spectacular. Stayed down for 55 mniutes on a tank, didn’t use air strapping saddles on huge crayfish and riding to surface like back home haha.
Other:
We have stayed at 33 different places since we landed in London 23/4/09.
Wednesday 17th June
No free Tapas in Torre Del Mar but we did bump into an English couple Sue and Danny whom we had met a couple of nights before in Orgiva so enjoyed the evening with them learning more about the area we were in as they had lived there for the last 10 years.
At Sue’s suggestion we headed inland again to Antequera – we parked the camper and wandered through the narrow streets and browsed in the shops – well Brent browsed and Rae bought a couple of things! The temperature once again was about 36 degrees so we checked into the camping ground and headed for the pool. The mountains surrounding the camping ground were quite breathtaking and we could imagine them all covered in snow!
The following day we went to the local market in the village and then drove even further up the mountains to a place called Al Torcal.
.JPG)
Al Torcal is 1200metres above sea level with some spectacular rock formations that have been there .JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
for over 20 million years (Jurassic Age). The area was once under water – the place itself was quite surreal and as you drove in the rocks looked like lots of villages. As we were .JPG)
walking back to the camper a fox walked by us – less than 6 metres away – lucky Brent had the camera out – he then started calling it but fortunately the fox must of spoken Spanish as kept strolling away. As we were driving back down the mountain we saw 4 booted eagles just soaring in the sky. We then drove onto Torremolinos where we learnt of the sudden unexpected death of Mike – Brent’s sister Sherrill’s partner – we once again are feeling a long way away and our thoughts are with her at this time. We will remember Mike as a very relaxed, nothing a problem sort of guy and one that made Sherrill very happy.
We have today visited a small village called Mijas which is a very pretty village set against pine forested hills and has narrow stepped streets with great views over the sea and mountains. We watched some flamenco dancers who put on a show - quite enjoyable.
We walked for quite a 
distance around this village opting for our feet instead of a donkey which are the local taxis in this village. 
We are now in Marbella and heading towards Gibraltar tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment