2013 - 2014 Blog
Week 24 - A new year and a new country.
Saturday 4th January 2014
It was dry but windy today, not a day for walking about so of course we went walking about - to “Italica” a roman town around 9km north of Seville. Italica is a well preserved roman site with the most wonderful Roman amphitheater I have ever seen. The buildings, roads and pavements are extensive and the mosaics must be amongst the best in Spain. As at Almeria Castle entry is free to EU nationals.
Sunday 5th January 2014
Our last day in El Rocio, Donnana National Park and Spain today as we plan to move into Portugal tomorrow. We went for a last drive around the area, it turned out to be a little surreal. Following our Spanish road atlas we tried to put a couple of towns in the sat-nav that were rejected but we eventually had one accepted and it took us in a direction we did not want to go although we knew that sooner or later we would find the road we wanted which we duly did. It was a narrow road with forest either side, very soft, very pretty. “We will eventually have to come back this way” said Sue “as the road ends further on”. We followed for miles and the road continued with no road signs and only tiny dirt tracks joining or leaving. The Spanish road map suggests if we are on a road at all it is a dirt track and the sat-nav insists we are “navigating off road” despite being on a black top. We went through not one, but two, quite large towns (they were far to big to be called villages) that although were marked on the map did not exist as far as the sat-nav was concerned. We saw a small sign pointing left saying El Rocio we followed and all but the last 7km of the next 50 km road journey we could not identify on the map and simply did not exist for the sat-nav. As it turned out we were fortunate to go the way we did as if we had gone as planned we would have got hopelessly lost and given up. Instead we drove through hectares of paddy fields and saw more raptors than we had ever seen including we think (we will check the bird books) an eagle and a hen harrier.
Monday 6th January 2014
Moving day. We were going to get moving early although I suppose stumbling out of bed at 9:15 to make tea is quite early for us. Never mind we only have a hundred or so kilometres to go and when we cross the border we gain an hour as Portugal time is the same as UK time.
When we arrived at the new site - Quinta do Xoclatl or Chocolate Farm (the owner is a Belgian chocolateer) all the fabulous pitches we saw last week are filled. Just one pitch was available, in the lower field. Steve and Chris who have spent a great deal of time at this site said “DO NOT CAMP ON THE LOWER FIELD. If you get bad weather you will be stuck until the field dries, could be a week, could be a fortnight, could be longer”.
I’m writing this from our pitch on the lower field.
Dogs, dogs, dogs and more bloody dogs we had forgotten that Portugal’s Algarve is an area dedicated to barking dogs. They seem to have quietened down (a bit) at nightfall but then the Cicadas and noisy frogs started, but at least those noises, for me, eventually disappear into the background unlike barking dogs that get louder, louder, louder. It’s quite possible we will move on tomorrow.
Tuesday 7th January 2014
Not a peep from the dogs all night and so far this morning (10:15am) we have not heard a single one - fingers crossed it stays that way.
With Portugal being on the same time as UK we stayed in bed as long as normal but got up an hour earlier, early enough to visit Olhao fish market. Unfortunately nothing on offer tickled our fancy but we got a few bits in the fruit and veg market next door. Having scoured the fish market for something for dinner we finished up buying fish from the supermarket, don’t actually know what sort of fish it is it’s about the size of a herring and right or wrong it’s going on the barby.
Wednesday 8th January 2014
Today dawned warm and sunny, time for a walk. The site is just a few yards from the Ria Formosa Nature Park that boasts miles and miles of walking and cycling. There is a cycle track that runs for miles along the coast which here is reminiscent of the Walton Backwaters where the path runs alongside the salt marshes sometimes close to the sea sometimes a good distance from it.
We walked for an awful long time, very pleasant walking, but we always seemed as far from arriving somewhere as when we started. After walking for well over an hour we about turned and walked back. During the walk we saw a good variety of bird life including a couple of “Hoopoes”, lots of Avocets and Azure Magpies.
Thursday 9th January 2014
After yesterdays walk we thought we would have an easy day and go for a drive. We drove for miles in the hills through countryside the like of which we had never seen before. It seemed the countryside was constructed from hundreds of small hills which looked as if the ground was folded fabric, very green and criss-crossed with narrow dirt roads that if the one we followed was typical lead to isolated villages where the road was at times so narrow it was difficult to get between the houses of which there were no more than a half dozen but built very close together. Strangely just outside the village was a bus stop, I can’t see even a minibus getting through the village, it must turn around and go back although we didn’t notice a turn point.
Friday 10th January 2014
Cycling today. We retraced our walk of the day before yesterday but this time we went into Fuzeta, we had reached about half way when we went for our walk the other day. It is a seaside town that has a campsite on the seafront and a newsagent that sells English, Dutch and German newspapers but for all that seems typically Portuguese. The fishermen, with small boats and hand operated nets were sorting their catch with locals buying direct from them. Just up from the harbour was a municipal market building where fish, meat vegetables and fruit was on sale. Best of all was a cafe that was cooking fish on the barbi, it looked and smelled delicious and it’s customers were all locals. Seeing our interest one of the cooks showed us the fish they had ready for cooking - fab, we hope to go there one lunchtime soon.
Week 22 & 23 Christmas and the New Year
Well we have set up camp in good time for Christmas and for the last time this year as it will be 2014 when we next move.
The coloured lights have been put up in the awning, mince pies and sausage rolls made. Looks like we will be on our own over Christmas as we don’t know anyone here - well, there are two other caravans on site, both Dutch, and three motor homes and although one had a Brit plate they were too far away for getting to know.
We had a drive to the nearest seaside town today - Matalascanas and went for a long walk along the sea front and saw several groups of men walking calf deep in the ocean pulling a strange metal contrivance - what an earth were they doing? It turned out they were collecting Coquina a very small pebble like clam, it looked very hard work for the rather meagre rewards. The eating of them also seems like hard work for little reward they are so small 50 to 60 is a normal portion each with a tiny meat morsel that has to be picked out of the shell.
Christmas Eve and the place has started to fill mainly with motor homes but there is a caravan directly behind us, it has a Portuguese plate but the owners are ex-pats who live in Portugal. They too have a large twin axle van but with no mover at all. It was great fun getting it in on the soft sand, it made us realise that, with all it’s shortcomings, our single axle mover is far, far better than none at all.
The site restaurant is open Christmas day and has a special four course “Menu del Dia”, a meat menu for €18.00 and a fish menu for €20.00. A group of us went and had an excellent meal that, although we left the restaurant around 5.00pm, Rosemary & Frank, the ex-pats, came back to ours and didn’t leave till well after midnight.
We had some dreadful news last night - my sister Pam suffered a stroke and has been rushed to hospital. We wait for more news.
A visit to La Rabida today and like at our last visit two years ago, it was closed. For those wondering why we would want to go there and what there is to see, it was from there that in 1492 Columbus set out on the first of his voyages to the Americas and there are replicas of the three ships that formed the first convoy.
While looking around the local area we were standing at the end of a short pier looking out to sea when a young boy, apparently alone, approached us rabbiting ten to the dozen in totally unintelligible (well to us anyway) Spanish, eventually dad appeared and after listening to what the lad was saying explained to us that he was offering us one of his chocolate sweets. We spoke to dad and mum (when she arrived) while the young lad continued to chat seemingly fascinated that we were English. The boy then sang us the Christmas song he had learnt at (nursery?) school. The family live in a village west of Salamanca near the Portuguese border where the temperature at this time of year goes down to minus 10 degrees while in the summer it rises to plus 45 degrees, so they take holidays in the winter and travel to the south. While we were chatting they explained that New Year was party time for the Spanish all shops etc would close for New Years Eve and New Years day. New Years Eve would be party night and New Years day spent recovering. At the end of the conversation mum and dad told the lad to say “decir adiós” and dad, in whose arms he was, by then, sitting, then held him forward while he kissed us both goodbye and then with a big grin and still waving he was carried down the pier to continue the family holiday. We could not help thinking that had we been approached by a child apparently alone in UK we would certainly not engaged in conversation but would have left the area in case we were seen by the parents and thought to be up to no good - how sad is that!
Good news. Pam seems to have improved a little.
New Years Day.
The local Spanish certainly partied last night. The fireworks - the Spanish only use one sort and thats the sort that makes a very loud bang - started around lunch time New Years Eve and continued right through the night reaching a peak between 11pm and 2am and, as I write this around 11am New Years day, fireworks can still be heard. The site restaurant is open today and has another four course “menu del dia” for €20. We met fellow Brit Chris there at around 5.00pm and had a splendid meal.
Thursday 2nd January 2014.
Yesterday Pam passed a swallow test and was given a number of spoonfuls of pureed food and some thickened water. She sat in a chair for several hours and joined in a ward sing-song. That is good news.
It’s raining today and not forecast to improve so we went for a drive and finished up in Portugal (we are close to the border) so, while we were there we visited the next site, one that had been recommended by Rosemary and Frank. We had seen the site earlier in the year from a train (the railway runs at the bottom of it) and were not overly impressed as it looked a bit “shanty townish” however when we went in the front it was very pleasant with 10 well kept toilet shower blocks dotted about (that also indicates how big the site is). It was quite full but the lady in reception said that quite a number of motor-homers would be leaving soon. We are glad it’s a good site as we plan to stay here for a while and use it as a base to explore the Algarve. On the way back we passed a sign to Pinheiro and remembered that was where friends of ours stayed all last winter and for some weeks the winter before so we went looking for the site they used, we had visited them there once so knew roughly where we were going. We found it fairly easily and had a look around. The site is a bit rough and ready but the views are good. Sue insists that we go here for a while before we move around 10km further on to Camping Olhao.
Friday 3rd January 2014.
We thought we would try for a third time and return to La Rabida today and lucky we were. The site at La Rabida has lots of displays and information about Columbus, his journeys and the natives he encountered as well as the three replica ships, two of which you could clamber all over (the third is being refurbished). Virtually all explanations, information etc., are in Spanish but we still found much of interest.
On the way back we tried turning off the main road to get to the coast which we knew from the map was just a short way in the Donnana National Park. Unfortunately much of the park is closed to the public and we found difficulty in accessing the coast. By turning down every turning on the right getting only a few metres till we got to a gate necessitating a turn around Eventually we found a road that was not barred, it led to a disused police training centre, and by following indistinct tracks down hill we eventually found ourselves on a deserted beach. It appears that since the training establishment had been closed this beach had been walked on by very few people, there were no footprints and there was no litter or rubbish that had not come from the sea. It was testament to how often people went on the beach that the lobster pots and marker buoys that had broken loose and finished up on the sand were still there and had not been filched by a passing fisherman.