On
Wednesday (18 Feb), we took a day trip to Jerez. It wasn’t a cultured one though, but a
mission to purchase goods for Dora (and Pete).
First stop on the agenda was Ikea, for some rugs and other bits to make
it even more homely than it is already! They
were all necessary purchases of course...
Next up, was a trip to Decathlon.
I’m not sure how popular or even how present this shop is in the UK, as
we haven’t spent a great deal of time there in the last few years. However, in France and Spain, they’re pretty
popular. They are huge sports stores,
stocking everything you could possibly need for just about any sport
going. Their own brand stuff (Quechua)
isn’t really up to much (only our opinion, of course!), but they also sell
better quality, known brand kit, especially of the running variety. Anyway, we’re both after a new pair of
walking shoes each as our current ones have seen better days. Pete succeeded in finding a pair, but the
search continues for mine...
As we were
on a roll with the spending spree and because we’d manage to have 4 days of
free overnights, we treated ourselves to Burger King before heading back to
Sanlucar and hoping that there were still spaces on our return. We needn’t have worried and parked ourselves
next to one of the many Swedish vehicles which had appeared that day while we’d
been away.
Thursday
was a chilled day of admin, mooching and Powell walking, followed by our first
run in months on Friday. We blew the
cobwebs off our trainers and I managed 3.5 miles before my body decided enough
was enough for one session. To be fair,
it’s over a year since I did any serious running, so it’s hardly
surprising! I was quite proud of myself
for having managed more than a mile and it was pretty warm when we went out
too; the hottest day of the week so far, in fact, at around 22 degrees C. I think Powell would have been happy to have
stayed behind, but was kept well watered on the way round to stop him getting
to warm! Stretched off and showered,
after drinking plenty of water, we celebrated our return to the world of
fitness with a beer (after all, that’s the reason anyone keeps fit...to justify
the excesses...right?!). We had intended
to have a wander around town that evening at it was Friday, but after a couple
of beers and a big dinner, neither of us had the heart, so we stayed in.
Saturday
was carnival day. We took Powell for a
couple of good beach walks in the afternoon before heading out to see what all
the fuss was about. It took a little over 2 hours for the whole parade to go
past us and there were literally all sorts of costumes. The theme was the 500th
anniversary of the first voyage to the new world. As a result there was a ‘wild west’ wagon
float and a couple of tribal looking floats, with everyone having ‘blacked up’
and wearing grass skirts, pretend bones etc.
I’m not even sure how PC that is nowadays, but we are in Spain and not
the UK, so no one batted an eyelid! To
be honest, we couldn’t really see much of a link with the theme in a lot of the
floats...it was all mish mash of pretty
much whatever people wanted to wear and whatever floats were available from
what we could tell! It certainly was
different to anything we’d have in the UK, with an almost complete lack of
security staff, no barriers, or people lining the route and even a tractor
driver drinking rum and coke whilst pulling one of the floats!! I guess driving tractor isn’t the same as
driving a real vehicle....apart from the latter, it was quite a refreshing
change! It was certainly nice to see
people smiling for a change. The only
annoyance was the huge number of over tired kids who were obviously coming down
from the sugar rush from all of the carnival sweets when everything started to
come to an end at around 2200. One
parent in particular, trying to get her little rascal under control, tried to
take him to one side and whilst doing so, literally shoved him into Pete,
without so much as an excuse me; we’ve noticed manners don’t seem to be a
priority with some people around here...one of the things we won’t miss about
Spain.
After a
week of free nights, we left Sanlucar on Sunday and headed to Olvera. Although I initially objected, Pete was
pretty adamant that he wanted to return to the scene of the accident and try to
recover his brake lever, despite having ordered a new one and the old, broken
one being no use whatsoever if he even managed to find it (it’s a trophy
thing). We stopped off at El Bosque en
route for a Powell leg stretch and a bite to eat, before arriving at Olvera at
around 1430. The aire, which is supposed
to accommodate 4 vans, was already full, with a further 3 vans parked in close
proximity. As we’d already driven a good
way, we parked up where we could and after a quick brew, set off at 1500, on
the broken wrist pilgrimage. We were
fortunate to have a gloriously sunny day, but I’d under estimated just how much
my legs were aching from the run on Friday.
Two hours and 8km later, we arrived at the cattlegrid where it all
happened. Pete shuddered as we got
closer, then proceeded to inspect the undergrowth beneath the cattlegrid for
his broken brake lever. Powell, again,
refused to cross it! We finally managed
to coax him across, but then had to carry him back as he dug his claws into the
ground and leaned away from it. 15
minutes later and still brake level-less, Pete called it quits (for now) and we
headed back to Dora. We got back just after
1900, after walking 10 miles. Powell
loved every minute and I’m sure he’d have walked the same distance again had we
been up for it!
We had
planned to go back down the Via Verde on the bikes on Monday, thus affording
Pete another opportunity to search for his brake lever. However, we woke to fog, which by mid
morning, showed no signs of lifting.
Conscious that we needed to so some washing anyway (we had planned to
find somewhere to do it on Tuesday), we opted to find the nearest campsite and
do some much needed admin. While we were
in Ronda, we ordered the ACSI book. It’s
essentially a guide to a number of campsites throughout Europe, which give
considerable discounts during low season.
We found a campsite in the book, which was only 8km down the road. After furnishing Hazel with the coordinates,
we headed down the road...and ended up outside someone’s house...with no campsite
around for miles...as the campsite has only been open since 2011, I’m assuming
there was a typo in the coordinates.
Being the
way we are, determined to find another campsite, we plodded on the way Hazel
had taken us, in the vain hope of being able to find a campsite without the aid
of a book / internet and ended up in Ronda thanks to Hazel’s limited collection
of campsite listings. Pete didn’t want
to stay in Ronda again, but we found a campsite north of town, the opposite end
to the one we stayed at last time, and made our way there to see what it was
like. Although it claimed to be in
Ronda, it was actually a good 5km out of town, right on the main road. It also looked closed...and like it had seen
MUCH better days. Now I’m not normally
too fussy about where we stay, but if we’re paying good money, then it needs to
be half decent. It wasn’t, so we drove
on, heading in the direction of Ardales.
Surely there’ll be a campsite in Ardales (Pete the optimist says). We drove some considerable miles to Ardales,
then past it as there were no signs for campsites. We stopped for fuel and a strop, in addition
to getting our (Pete’s) bearings. Common
sense says (and I had suggested) that we went back to Ronda and booked into
Camping El Sur, but Pete was so determined that he’d rather drive to the coast
than spend one more night there, that we ended up just a stone’s throw from
where we’d spent Christmas, having driven twice the distance we needed to, to
get here! So now, we are in
Estepona.
On the plus side, although
it’s a campsite, it’s only 14 euros a night as it’s one of the ACSI sites, they
don’t charge extra for Powell and electricity is also included in the
price. It’s a nice little site, full of
tropical plants and despite being right by the motorway, it’s actually pretty
quiet. They have a heated indoor pool,
but it’s solar heating, so it’s still bloody freezing as it’s still early in
the year; don’t think we’ll be swimming while we’re here! Pete went on a recce to find a supermarket
earlier this evening. A 90 minute ride
around was fruitless. We’ve checked on
the (really rubbish, but free) internet and it would appear that the closest
supermarket is some 5/6 km away but it’s not on the main road, so Pete didn’t
see it when he went looking; think we’ll have to take a walk out tomorrow and
see if we can find it. The campsite does
have a shop but we think that they must manage to keep the campsite rate so
cheap due to the shop and washing prices.
It cost 4 euros for 4 beers, which would normally be half that price in
a normal supermarket and 5 euros for a wash (every other campsite has charged
3.50). We had no choice with the laundry
cost, as there was a fair bit of washing and there was no way I was doing it
all by hand!! As it turns out, the washers
are proper industrial machines and the washing results were probably the best
we’ve had since arriving in Spain.
However, I get a bit annoyed with paying double the price we need to for
food and drink. Unfortunately, because
of the lack of immediate facilities outside the campsite, they have a captive
audience if said audience doesn’t have a car.
I think that’s a bit cheeky myself, but I guess I’m not the one running
the business, so I have no idea about overheads, but a 100% mark up seems a bit
steep to me.
Anyway, little whinge over,
we are where we are, until Wednesday, at which point, we’ll be heading back to
Ronda for the last time, before winging our way to Seville. We should be in Portugal within a week or so
and I can’t wait to be on the road properly again!
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