Feliz Navidad and all that

"The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain", not in our experience . . .

The weather seemed to rain on us around the coast line – throwing the odd sunny day then reverting to its wet side. We sat out a few days in a campsite about a 1km from the coast, ducking out for a walk when the drizzle abated then after the sun looked as if it was going to stay we packed up and headed for a spot we had noticed during a walk along the beachfront of Torrox Costa.

Wild camp, Torrox Costa

Services – 3/10, views 10/10, convenience 9/10. The weather was warm and sunny, the waves providing a white noise background, snow capped mountains making a backdrop behind us (with apartment blocks in between) and a pretty lighthouse to the right of us. The other trucks were all German but you can’t have everything.

Dancers at breadcrumb festival

When we were at our previous site in the campground we walked cross country through large avocado orchards to go to a festival. The festival was for the locals and called Fiesta Migas – breadcrumb festival.( Note for Tim – Stuart thought it was BYOB)

Migas is a traditional peasant food of breadcrumbs stirred in warm olive oil with a bit of something on the side. When I checked in Wiki it looked a lot more appetising and nothing like the migas I have been served here, the festival food certainly didn’t tempt me to give it another go. We watched Flameco dancing, men playing Spanish guitars, people dancing in the square.

Original houses in Balerma

 Our Christmas base is in Balerma in a coastal campground. It is a well appointed new site so hasn’t attracted large groups and is totally sunny as the shade is provided by removable shade cloths. It is close to a village that was targeted by developers; the economy and market took a downturn and the village has lots of half completed apartment blocks which gives it a strange unloved feeling. Such a contrast to Auckland where there is a shortage of housing, in these parts there is a surplus of apartments. A few of the original houses are left which would look at home in a cowboy movie – actually the remnants of a spaghetti western movie-set is nearby, recycled into a tourist attraction, The Good, The Bad and the Ugly was shot here

Original houses in Balerma

The other big point of difference in this area is the enormous number of ‘plastic houses’ used to grow produce for the supermarkets in Europe. These huge dull-green coloured constructions sit wherever a flat piece of land has been created. At one stage we were travelling with snow capped mountains on one side and the Mediterranean on the other but a sea of plastic houses filled the large gap between highway and water. They seemed to be seamless except for the odd access road. I peeked into a couple of these places near the campground and saw cucumber/aubergine/capsicum plants growing vertically. I could have plucked a huge red capsicum if we weren’t filled to the gunwales with capsicum already.

So cute, a little ice cream served with the coffee

A more adventurous motor home than ours

Part of lighthouse near wild camp at Torrox Costa

Torrox Costa

So here’s wishing you all a jolly good holiday – by the time you read this you will all be back at work wasting company time reading blogs, not that I would know any of that of course.

Feliz ano nuevo