Week 6 - campervan advetures

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Day 36 25^th September 2013 Lux : Camping – Turiscampo Algarve

Steve was a lazy sod this morning and stayed in bed while I went out for a run. It was just a plain boring run, no exciting adventure today, unlike yesterday. On returning I was going to participate in aqua aerobics in the campsite pool, but I chickened out because I was scared that all the oldies would be better than me. Instead Steve and I went for a bike ride into town as we needed to get some food shopping. Sometimes food shopping is a chore but today it was very exciting, the supermarcardo ‘Spa’ was full of English goodies, hobnobs, lays crisps, pot noddle, Heinz baked beans this list goes on, the only thing I was allowed to buy was some squash/cordial which we had run out of weeks ago and had not been able to find it anywhere else. If I wasn’t trying to be good and eat healthy I could have had a right spend up, lucky my husband helps me to keep control. After the supermarket we had to go to the post office as we had some things to post. Once again we had made the school boy error of going during ‘siesta’ while waiting the 45mins for the post office to open we sat on the sea front and people watched, while it drizzled. 99.9%!o(MISSING)f the people we seen and heard where English. Our plan for the afternoon was to laze by the pool, shame the weather put a stop to that for us, it has been bucketing down all afternoon and I don’t think it’s going to stop any time soon. To pass the time we are currently sitting in Stan in the dry laughing at the people in tents who are sitting in their cars reading or some of them may have gone to the campsite bar, they will be laughing at us. Well that’s what you call calmer. I think the highlight of our day is going to be dinner, I am trying a new recipe – lentil and eggplant lasagne. I will let you know if it’s any good.



Day 37 26^th September 2013 Lux – Lagos – Gale (by Albuferia)

Today we had to pack up Stan, gave him a little wash and checked out of our campsite, with our plan being to check out Lagos and while in Lagos try and get ‘the beast’ (Steve’s bike) fixed due to his back break being dodgie the whole time we have been away. Following Lagos we were going to go in hunt of one of the beaches on Steve’s list of ‘Best beaches in Portugal’. The day sort of went to plan. The two bike places in Lagos where unable to fix ‘the beast’. We did explore the city though, it’s a nice old city with long windy streets, the streets are full of cafes, restaurants and bars, which are all aimed at the English tourist, all the signs are in English. If you didn’t know better you would think that you were in an English beach side resort. While in the town square, Steve got asked if he would like to buy some drugs, this seems to be something that happens often, we are unsure why people now think that he might want drugs this has never happened to him in the past, maybe it could be the dirty ginger beard and scruffy blonde hair that make him look like a surfy dude? On leaving Lagos we were going to go and search for Priai de Rocha (a beach) but decided that we would give this a miss due to it not really being beach weather. We decided that we would keep driving, I got rather excited as we were approaching a town called Pera. There had been advertisements all over the Algarve for this town due to it having built a ‘Sand City’ for the summer for people to go and visit. I convinced Steve to go there so we could have a look, we didn’t go in though. It was not even on the beach and they wanted £9 each to enter. As £18 could be a weeks’ worth of food for us we decided that it was not worth paying to look at some giant sand sculptures. I did take a photo of one of them through the fence (see attached). After the Sand City disappointment we got back in Stan and hit the road, we then come across a bike shop, we stopped and he was able to fix the beast but we would have to come back the next day. This meant we had to stay someplace close. We found a nice quiet beach not far from the bike shop, sadly it was blowing a gale so I spent the afternoon relaxing and Steve went out running and now it is raining again, we are really disappointed with the weather in the Algarve, I could go on about it but that is all I will say.

PS. The eggplant and lentil lasagne I made for dinner last night was the bomb.

Day 38 27^th September 2013 Gale (by Albuferia) – Faro – Tavira – Monta Rota

Woke to dog shit weather again, it rained through the night, the wind was blowing like mad and it was also overcast. We didn’t let this put us off our ritual run, I wanted to run on my own but Steve talked me into doing the run he did yesterday. I was a little concerned that it may be like the last one up a mountain goat track, it was on a little goat track to start but then it was enjoyable, a little like an inca walk, up and down little hills, finishing with some road running, up a big hill and down bigger hill. While out running the weather turned again and it continued to rain most of the day. We spent some time hanging out in Stan, till it was time to pick up ‘the beast’. In this time Steve finished his second book. We then went to pick up the beast however we had not checked what time his siesta was and his didn’t finish till 3, so we had an hour to kill. Not far down the road there was a shopping centre, so we went and did some window shopping, it was full of English high street shops and also English people. I say we were window shopping, I was window shopping Steve splashed out and bought himself not one but two new running kits. Once we had picked up the beast, we headed to Faro, the capital of the Algarve, a city that doesn’t have very much culture and did not look great in the dull and damp weather. We spent a little time exploring and it was starting to get dark so decided that it was time to leave the city and find our last beach on the ‘Best beaches of Portugal List’. Yes the weather was still dog shit but we were hoping we could spend the night there and wake up to a sunny day where we could relax on the beach in Portugal for our last time. Nope this did not happen, we could not find the beach in Tavira, It was more like salt flats and there was a storm coming. It was decided that we would keep driving in hope that we would find something, we were not really sure what and we did find something. We found a beach town (Monta Rota) that had a big open car park where a lot of campers where parked. There was an autocamper area but you had to pay for that, we took the free one. As it was Friday night we wanted to do something wild, so we went out for a drink. The town was very quiet Steve said this was because it was early, I thought it was because no one wanted to go out in the weather. We walked up the ‘main street’ and did come across one bar that had two people in there, we continued to walk to see if we could find something a little more lively, we thought we had hit the jackpot when we could see flashing neon lights, this turned out to be the real estate agent. Following this we found what looked like a working men’s club, we felt to intimidated to go in there, so we continued walking. Just as we were going to give up, we found a bar, half full of ‘locals’ English locals. It was the best of a bad bunch so we could not be picky plus Steve said it would get busy by 10. Queue 10 the bar was full of people who had holiday homes in the town or who now lived there. They were friendly and it made us feel like we were back in England, one lady even said we could go to her place the next morning for a shower and English bacon. I only had three drinks but I’m feeling a little tipsy and its past midnight. The latest night we have had in a while. A sleep-in will be needed tomorrow.

Day 39 28^th September 2013 Monta Rota (Portugal) – Sevilla (Spain)

We woke to another day of ‘dog shit’ weather. Windy and wet. So there was no enjoying the Portuguese beach for one last time. It was time to leave Portugal and head back to Spain in hope the weather would be better. I had mixed feelings about leaving Portugal, I had really enjoyed our time in Portugal, the north was lovely, the beaches were amazing (when the wind wasn’t blowing) but the south had not lived up to the expectation, it was very English and the bad weather meant that we couldn’t really enjoy it. This time when entering Spain there was a sign telling us we were in Spain which was exciting. Our first Spanish city to visit was Sevilla which the guide book calls ‘a sexy, gusty and gorgeous city’ which I would have to agree with, well the gorgeous bit anyway. O on entering the city we were reminded of how difficult it is to drive a big f**k off van around cities and how hard it is to find parking, a problem we had not really had at the beaches. Anyway we got parked up and it started raining, so much for nicer weather in Spain. We sat and had lunch in hope the rain would stop and it did and the sun even came out. We went to explore the city, which was just beautiful, it was also full of atmosphere. We found out that this was because there was a bull flight tonight. A bull fight is something that I have always wanted to see, but also, it felt very ethically wrong. We enquired about tickets and this made the decision for me, the cheap tickets where €89 each. Clearly there would be no bull fighting for Steve and I. Tonight we are sleeping at a services it’s been awhile since we have not had a nice view to wake up to, but on a plus it has Wi-Fi and a toilet.

Day 40 29^th September 2013 Cadiz – Algeciaras

Yep dark grey morning again. We hit the road early so we could park easy, and it paid off. Cadiz which is the oldest continuously inhabited settlement in Europe. Once again we found ourselves surrounded by the English, this time they had all been let out on day release from their cruise ship, they all seemed overly excited and maybe even a little intoxicated from the night before as they would have to be making the most of the ‘all inclusive’ alcohol on their ship. Finding these English always gives us something to talk about and laugh as we see them taking there typical tourist photos. While having a laugh at the English we explored the city, wandering around the long narrow streets, walking along the water front and around the fort. We even come across a dog show, where people where modelling there dogs down a catwalk, this gave us another laugh. After exploring the city we had our picnic lunch on the water front and then hit the road again. Our destination being Algeciras, our purpose for visiting Algeciras is because this is where we catch the ferry from to get to Africa. On the way to Algeciras we stopped at a view point (Tariffe, just 12km away) and could see Africa, sadly it wasn’t very clear due to the constant crap weather we are experiencing. However it was still exciting and a little down from this view point we could then see Gibraltar. Steve was so excited that he had seen three countries all in one day (Spain, morocco and the UK). On arriving in Algeciras we went and checked out Stans hotel (Car park) for tomorrow night, and then checked out the beach in hope that we could spend tonight there but camping wasn’t allowed so tonight we are sleeping in a layby just outside of Algeciras, we have packed our overnight bag and set the alarm for only the second time on this trip, ready for our departure to Africa tomorrow.

Day 41 30^th September 2013 and Day 41 1^st October 2013 - Tangier, Morroco, Africa

Due to our time in Africa being such an adventure it was decided that it needs its own story. So see – ‘A side step to Africa’ (for the rest of this weeks blog) where you will be able to read about delayed ferries, wrong ferry ports, crazy taxi rides, us being robed nicely and time confusion and lots more!

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Photos

'Sand City'
The photo I took through the fence of the over priced sand city.

Gale Beach
One of the beachs where we spent the night.

Man on Scooter Cadiz
Tee being arty farty

Look its Africa
In Tariffa - looking over to Africa on a 'dog shit' weather day