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Published: September 15th 2009
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Yawn, it’s 3.30am and cold and dark as only an English Autumn morning can be. I’ve been up since 2.30am to allow time for breakfast, last minute packing and the “Oh my God I’ve forgotten to feed the goldfish” moments (no wait I don’t have a goldfish - Doh!) and I really feel like I should be going to bed not the airport but hey I can zzz on the plane in between being woken up by the stewardess to ask if I’d like to buy a lottery ticket or support some charity I’ve never heard of. Ahh the joys of travel; no wait some big wig from the BBC might be reading this and I earnestly do want to be a travel journalist..
So, its just time for porridge and blueberries and then Dee’s Mum kindly arrives to take us to Leeds Bradford Airport and were off.. As we speed through the darkened streets of Hull all I can help but think is how many people there are around considering its nearly 4am on a Sunday morning.
Don’t these people have homes to go to? No, were not a taxi, we wont stop and give you a lift
Casa Jaime
My Own Hotel :-) and how can that kebab shop be so full at this time in the morning.
Dee’s Mum has a very wizzy all singing and dancing Sat Nav system in her car but it seems to take us a very strange route to the airport down lots of unlit country lanes and at one point we enter roundabout hell with seemingly a roundabout every 300 meters for miles on end. Still we finally arrive in one piece at the airport and stop for some well earned tea and toast.
Leeds Bradford isn’t as spacious as say Manchester or Heathrow but it does have a speedy turnaround and before we know it were on the flight and off up up and away. We’ve been spoilt a bit by our last flight on Emmirates and whilst the Jet2 seat pitch isn’t bad, there are of course no movies to watch and the seat padding isn’t that comfy, but then its only a two and a half hour flight, not thirty two and half hours and its also a tenth of the price so we cant really complain.
Before we know it we’ve touched down in sunny Malaga. Well it’s sunny
Rainbow
Unfortunatly we are heading towards the dark bit and not the pot of gold end for all of ten minutes but then it clouds over, looks like we brought the weather with us. Flying in, mainland Spain looks brown and scrubby, certainly a contrast from a green and leafy England, but not really foreign like say Dubai. There’s the incongruous sight of a bright green golf course in amongst the brown but apart from that and the occasional blue of the swimming pools it’s not the most picturesque start to our trip.
We disembark collect our baggage without incident and move easily on to the bus terminal for the transfer to town and there begin the contrasts. On the one hand the sight of an exceedingly attractive young blonde girl with lightly tanned legs reaching the sky and a very skimpy pair of white shorts looking likd she’s just stepped straight off the cover of Vogue magazine and obviously off to “Daddys” yacht in Puerto Banus Marbella and on the other the outskirts of Malaga which are graffiti covered and very run down looking.
My appraisal of the sights over, we reach the bus station and settle down for a quick lunch of buggsy sandwiches we brought with us whilst waiting for our
Lanjaron
Our first view of town transfer to Granada only to be very politely interrupted by a young Spaniard who greets us with buen apetito and then launches into a tale (in Spanish) of how his friend has crashed his car and the police were chasing him and did we have a Euro so he could call his Mother. Whether his story was true or not I don’t know but he was very polite and friendly and if I’d had any change I would have given him a couple of euros, only we don’t so we have to say sorry and he leaves us with a smile and wishes us well.
As we progress further into the mountains the clouds darken and we can see flashes of lightening in the distance, so much for the 30 degree heat we had been expecting. The bus driver entertains us by listening to the Italian Grand Prix, once again of course in Spanish and driving one handled without looking at the road ahead whilst constantly trying to retune his radio to the station broadcasting the race.
After changing buses in Granada we finally reach Lanjaron at 6.30pm.
A few minutes later and bang on time our
Lanjaron
Our second view of town host Kate (name changed to protect the innocent) arrives with a cheery smile and a wave but a decidedly smelly and dog haired covered car. From the cars occupants its clear where all the hairs come from; an adorable but scruffy mongrel named sam and a soulful eyed and friendly german shepherd named Lara.
Dee and I gingerly load our bags and ourselves into the car trying not to touch too much or sit in the wet spot on the seat and with Sam climbing all over Dee we hold on for dear life as Kate winds her way up into the hills to our accommodation.
It’s an amazing view from the property and the casitas are almost exactly as described, unfortunately they are all full and we are relegated to the rear bedroom or storeroom of the main house. Not quite what we were hoping for and extremely cramped with almost every available surface taken up by spare towels, bottles and linen, not to mention a wide assortment of fairly unappealing and unwearable “woofing” clothes.
Kate is extremely friendly, talkative and charming but its seems everything is in an uproar due to the sudden downpour earlier
View from La casa
Lovely view when its not raining in the day which has soaked everything, the planned outside dinner for the paying guests in the casitas has had to be moved indoors and Kate is way behind.
Although we are both dead tired we don’t want to appear unwilling so we offer to pitch in and help and before we’ve even unpacked we are busily chopping away in the kitchen.
Kate has been resident in Spain and running La Casa for a number of years and is a charming and very talkative hostess, however one thing that does strike and worry both Dee and I immediately is the bio hazard kitchen. Quite apart from the adorable but distinctly wiffy dogs we have already met, La Casa is also home to an at present indeterminate number of cats. Now Dee and I are both animal mad and love cats in particular and these cats are like the dogs very lovable, but Kate allows them to walk across every surface in the kitchen and even chooses to have their food bowls and eating area on the counter top next to the sink (apparently since this is away from the dogs and the other ferrel cats who live outside).
Cats in the Kitchen
Not the most hygenic way to cook Kate must catch our aghast expressions even though we try to hide them and goes on to reassure us that where the cats are “isn’t a food preparation area”, however as we continue to make dinner it becomes clear that food poisoning is a distinct possibility.
Still, we steel ourselves and go on to meet our fellow guests, a party of five cyclists from the North of England, a couple from East Dulwich with a 5 month old baby and the other two WOOFers currently in residence a very lovely couple Chery (from the USA) and Michael (from Holland).
We finally settle down for a pleasant meal Spanish style at 8pm then help clear away and by 11pm almost comatose with tiredness, having been awake since 3am and still not having had a chance to shower or unpack we make our excuses and retire to bed, only to find that not only do we only have a single double bed, but it has a very saggy mattress which dips alarmingly in the middle and its covered with some questionably clean and very thin bedding. Almost too tired to care we pull out our sleeping bags and endure a
Storeroom
Get off thats my sleeping bag! long uncomfortable and fairly sleepless night.
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Raquel Gonzalez
non-member comment
AT LAST YOU'VE SURFACED!!!!
Blimey, Kedgley! Way to drop out of contact for a year or so! No replies to Facebook/e-mails, etc. SO glad to see you're Ok and off on a new adventure. Have fun WOOFing and write your blog more often. Take Care Love Raquel XX