Lake dip

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This morning we pack up early. Ian cooks me fried eggs which is very nice. It’s a pity all the sliced bread here is sweet - we just can’t keep the fresh bread as it always goes stale overnight.

Our destination is only two hours drive away but we are taking a bit of a detour to a swimming lake at Arco de Frontier.

No major hassles on the road so far today although the police are out in force doing speed traps. Given the frequency of speed limit changes along the roads here it would be easy to get caught out! We are taking it steady and annoying those that want to exceed the limits. Though there are a number of crawler lanes which we use to let those in a hurry carry on. Ian notes not so many of them actually want to overtake. We also notice that there are not so many middle lane hoggers here…the cars do seem to get back into the crawler lane once they have passed.

So now we have reached the detour turn off. It’s a decent road but passes through a couple of built up areas where the speed limit is reduced to 20kmh for quite some way…that’s pretty hard to maintain for such a long distance.

It’s 11.30am and we have arrived at the swimming beach. There is plenty of room to park by the road. Apart from a few camper vans we’re the only ones here. Ian is amazed as it’s a warm Sunday, but I think it’s just because we are early. The Spanish will come here later I predict.

We find a nice picnic bench in the shade of a large tree that also has a large straw umbrella. There’s a stiff breeze which is a tad chilly but not unbearable. There is no one in the lake.

Our bit of beach faces a roped off water polo area. This is perfect for me. Ian is telling me not to go there but there’s no sign of anyone wanting to play polo so I will stay there until told otherwise!

The polo area provides a nice personal swimming area. The water is warm but I wear my thin top as I don’t want to burn. I reckon the area is 20-25m in length so not much different from the pools I swim in at home.

The lake is also home to a gaggle of small geese, who scarper once I get in. They are scouring the beach for picnic leftovers - though there are good bins that people are actually using so not rich pickings.

I swim 25 lengths for around 35 minutes. The sun is out now and the breeze is a warm one. Perfect for drying out my swim gear.

We eat our picnic lunch. The beach is much busier now…just as I thought. Not packed mind…there are a few families, some sunbathers and some dog walkers. No one else has jumped in the lake but there is a canoe out there now. Ian tells me there were also large cat fish in there…I didn’t see them!

It’s half past one and we need to meet our host at our rental flat in Jerez de la Frontera at 3pm. It’s 45 minutes drive from here but we must add at least 15 minutes ‘getting lost’ time. I’m not looking forward to this as our flat is right in the centre of the town. The beauty of hindsight - don’t ever book a town centre place in Spain if you have a hire car! They have a parking space for us in a community garage - whatever that means. I think it might be an underground place as we are in a block of flats.

Anyway, it’s 2pm now so we are off…just about to vacate our spot which is quite probably the best on the beach! I think there may be a mad dash for it when we get up!

Back on the road and we make good progress. In fact we’ve arrive half an hour ahead of schedule so we park up on the outskirts. We don’t want to be caught loitering in those narrow streets!

Ping! My phone has a message…our host, Estefanía, is at the garage door so we can go. I manage to navigate Ian through the maze of streets with only one wrong turn which is not disastrous. Now we have entered the old town through an arch…this will be the interesting bit! There’s a lot of riad works going on but we reach the church beside our goats reasonably easily. Now just one narrow street and a ninety degree bend to negotiate and here we are at the garage door! It is, indeed, an underground carpark. Ian reverses into a very tight spot and wing mirrors are pulled in. We can only hope the space beside us is still empty on our exit as I’ve no idea how the doors could be opened if anyone parks next door. It’s certainly not the best parking space in the garage!

Estefanía is lovely. She takes us up to our one bedroom flat, which is very smart. She tells us about places we might want to visit and explains that the best place to taste sherry is in a ‘Tabanacos Plateros’ - here the sherry us served direct from the barrel. We are also planning to visit Cadiz. Don’t take your car she warns…take the train to the catamaran, then sail across. much nicer and both traffic and parking are a nightmare there! This suits us as it was another journey that I was panicking about!

We have a washing machine in the flat and could do with some clean clothes so I stick a load in and we go off for a walk.

Jerez is one of those cities that don’t rate highly on the general tourist list. It’s a bit rough around the edges but we can see a lot of effort is going in to improving the roads, the paving and some of the tattier buildings.

We take a walk around the cathedral which is architecturally impressive. There are some youths hanging around and a very strong aroma which I strongly suspect is weed. We wander on through some pretty narrow streets and end up at a square with lots of outdoor restaurants and sherry bars. The sherry bars are still closed. At 6.30pm it’s still a little early for them. Mañana mañana we think.

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