Day 4 Saturday Palace of the Faro

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Ah yes another day in paradise. I wake after a fitful nights sleep tossing and turning dreaming of vampire hordes and Vietnamese prison camps. The beds here are some of the most uncomfortable I have ever slept on and have these horrible rubberised incontinence pants mattress protectors on them which squeak and rustle every time you move. What’s even worse on mine is the fact that the elastic holding the pad in place has decayed and so it just ruffles up and wraps itself around you. I seem to be a restless sleeper and so unlike Dee whose bed is completely as perfectly made in the morning as it was the night before, mine is a mass of twisted bedding. The pillows also are enormous thin width ways but very high and as solid as a rock but horribly spongy at the same time placing your neck at a weird angle, I try to do without one but the feel of the rubber under sheet is just too much.

The sky is blue and the sun is shining but I somehow feel rather disconnected, rather melancholy. At breakfast, it turns out the peanut butter we thought was crunchy was actually smooth and after breakfast while showering I find that the shower gel I bought is actually bath foam and smells more like washing powder than anything else - ahh the joys of translating your shopping.

Since we are up relatively late again, we decide to laze around the bungalow for the morning and go out after lunch rather than head out into the noon day heat.

Neither of us feel like walking too far today so we decide to venture to the Faro 2 Shopping Centre in Maspalomas. The guidebook delightfully describes Faro 2 as the most upmarket shopping complex in the whole area. Unfortunately when we arrive we find that like nearly all of the other commercial centres on the island it has seen better days and is predominantly composed of empty derelict units which are to let. Those shops that remain are of the generally tacky variety and it’s another rather sad and depressing sight.

The residential area around Faro2 (we are intrigued to know what happened to Faro1 since there doesn’t seem to be one) is quite nice and we could actually envisage ourselves living there (apart from he fact that it is like most things around here miles from anywhere else and the sea) but whilst its well kept and litter free there is something menacing about the fact that all the houses are set behind high fencing and gates with video intercoms and barbed wire behind the flowers.

Another disappointing day draws to a close and we retire once again to bed and hope that tomorrow may bring a miracle.

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