It´s ages since I last posted and I´m a bit overwhelmed by the sights seen, distance travelled and probably more so by the evenings of wine-sipping and star-gazing that keep me away from the keyboard.
As a brief résumé we visited eighteen campsites, stayed 11 days with my aging parents in Fuengirola, popped over to the UK for four nights to celebrate a birthday and now there are no plans and little teaching I´m struggling to do anything. Oh to be madly busy, I work so much better then!
The highlights of the kms travelled was the clear water quiet bay at La Herradura where my eldest is working with Stephen Hill making guitars and the Mariposario (or Butterfly House) in Benalmadena. The butterflies were incredible, the chrysalises like jewels, really enjoyable, even my 18 son and 80 year old mum agreed.
The lowlight was Gibraltar, lots of waiting and queuing to enter a tacky pot-holed road rock. Everything, cable cars, entrance to the apes and caves was I thought very expensive. The cable car was 19 Euros return trip, so would have been 133 Euros for seven of us to go up to the rock, then another 69 Euros for us all and two cars to get into the nature reserve to see the apes and another fee to enter the tunnels and caves.
Another option was a minibus costing 25 Euros per person (175 Euros for a taxi for an hour and a half!) then we´d still have to pay 65 to see the apes. We ended up driving up ourselves and then us parents and grandparents decided not to go and see them but sent the three sons in with the apes, they did come back and they have some fab photo´s.
Bars outside the town itself were practically non-existent; my mum almost got crushed by a taxi while sitting on a bench. The small beach area was really run-down and a dead dolphin was found by a lifeguard. I didn´t enjoy the trip at all.
My first visit was a huge disappointment, I´ll probably go again one day just with hubby so we can visit see the caves and apes first-hand without taking out a loan, but certainly wouldn´t want to stay there, not even overnight.
The most amusing thing was the road signs ´Spain´. I notice in Spain they weren´t any to the ´UK´.
