La Buganvila, Marbella

Sunday 23rd February 2014 

It being Sunday, we are off to Marbella on the bus, and Kathleen goes to church, followed by a pleasant lunch overlooking the beach.

Waiting at the bus stop, on our way back to the campsite, Kathleen gets chatting to another woman, waiting for the bus. It turns out she too originates from Jarrow. It is almost like a normal family Sunday as a list of potential mutual friends and/or relations  are named, to no avail of course. I tell a lie, there is one "hit" an aunt of the fellow passenger worked as Matron at South Tyneside Hospital, and was known to Kathleen from her nursing days.. 

Monday 24th February 2014 

Rain overnight, but by morning, we are back to blue skies.

We are running out of food, and, more importantly, we are running out of wine, so, a trip to the supermarket is needed.

Kathleen has hurt her back, she claims, it is through washing clothes, I think it is through lying on the ground sunbathing.

While Kathleen takes it easy, I am free to ride about on the motor scooter, a bit of gentle cruising around Puerta Banus.

Tuesday 25th February - Thursday 27th February 2014.

I feel I have been a bit tame with my blog writing, not sure what it is. Kathleen says I am spending too much time reading the newspaper, perhaps she is right, she usually is, so she tells me.

We leave La Buganvilla on Thursday, and head for Almeria, which is about 200 miles along the coast, more or less North.

The old N340 has been dramatically improved, now, a lot of it has been replaced or upgraded to be the A7, mostly dual carriageway. 

It is a little disconcerting however, to every so often come across a section which the satnav thinks is finished, but, which in fact has come to a grinding halt due to Spain's financial woes. The satnav keeps telling us to "join the motorway", when all that is there is a stretch of unfinished carriageway, and a few abandoned earth moving machines.

There are still some pretty impressive sections or road, curving along the coast, with almost sheer drops into the sea, But, you could not really call the area north of Malaga "scenic". The hills which border the coast are composed of some kind of rock, which looks just like a "pit heap".   

Not only that, but sadly much of the countryside is marred by miles and miles of Polythene "greenhouses". No doubt they are very profitable, but, they do not look very attractive.

We arrive at Roquetas de Mar (N36 47'51" W2 35'28"), another ACSI site. A bit bigger than we would normally choose, but, it seems to be well cared for.

One bonus, it well off the A7, and, there appear to be lots of smaller and (hopefully) quieter roads, which may allow me to coax Kathleen onto the back of the scooter.

Went out for a scout around this evening (by myself) on the scooter, discovered the small quiet roads are almost totally lacking in sign posts, I thought I was going to run out of petrol before I found my way back to the campsite!