Christmas
has been and gone and we’re still in Marbella.
Well, when I say we’re in Marbella, we’re actually about 5 miles from
the centre, but we’re still in the same campsite we were in on Monday!
After
settling in on Monday, Tuesday saw us attempt to find a way into Marbella that
didn’t involve riding down the side of the motorway (something that seems to be
the done thing around here). Pete had
already looked on Google maps and had thought that it looked quite
promising. Unfortunately though thanks
to the mass of private grounds and golf courses around here, we found ourselves
taking detour after detour. After 2 and
a half hours, we found ourselves back at the campsite, having got no closer to
Marbella than this...
We got the
impression from the houses we passed on our magical mystery tour, that anything
in the shops and bars around here might be slightly out of our price bracket...that
was confirmed by our neighbours, who had a more successful trip to town (they
took the bus), that we hadn’t missed much anyway and that most of the shops
appeared to be either super expensive designer shops or naff tat shops, with
little inbetween. Nevertheless, we got some
exercise!
After our
failed ride out, we consoled ourselves with a beer, which turned into wine with
our neighbours, Mand and Ash, which turned into a meal at the campsite bar
/ restaurant, Enrique Iglesias on repeat and some interesting dancing with Pepe
the restaurant manager! Pepe also
introduced us to the Spanish version of Jaegermeister...oh dear.
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| Pete and Ash finishing off the meal with a brandy |
I seem to be getting less alcohol intolerant as
I get older and although it was a great night, Wednesday was a total right off
for me. I also seem to be getting
forgetful as this seems to happen every time we’ve had a social gathering
recently...!
Thursday
was Christmas day. As we already had our
early presents (bikes), there were no presents to open. After a chilled out morning, we headed to the
beach with Mand and Ash at around midday and spent a leisurely afternoon
soaking up the sun, eating canapés, drinking fizz (bitter lemon for me
following Tuesday’s excesses!) and people watching. There were quite a few people on the beach,
but we still got a few odd looks as no one else seemed to have set up camp with
food and drink. Pete and Ash went for a
swim while we girls took pictures. I
figured if I kept hold of the camera, I couldn’t get thrown in! We chatted to a few guys on the beach who
appeared to be selling designer goods... none of it was
original...or even slightly tasteful, but we wished them well and sent one on
his way with a consolatory biscuit!
 |
| Happy Christmas! |
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| Courtesy of Mand and Mr Snuffles the penguin! |
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| The boys go for a Christmas swim |
Once the
sun had set, back at the campsite, we sat together outside and ate our
respective Christmas dinners of BBQ food and Tapas, before having a couple of
glasses of wine and a relatively early night.
So now it’s
Friday and we’ve had a morning of clothes washing, tidying and general sorting
out of lives before we depart to new pastures tomorrow. Pete and Ash are off for a bike ride shortly,
then Pete’s cooking supper for the four of us tonight before we head off in our
opposite directions tomorrow. It’s been
a really lovely few days and we’ll keep in touch, but again it’s time to move
on to new pastures.
As our
budget has pretty much been blown out of the water over the Christmas period,
we’re now on a mission to go free for a good few days to make up for it and go
back to ‘roughing it’...it’ll be strange to start with; I’ve grown accustomed
to the luxuries and relative security of campsites, but we can’t really afford
to keep using them, so it’s back to the aires for us!
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