If Carlsberg Made Fiesta's

I've previously bored you all with how much we like Benidorm, so I'll not go into that again, however, being back for the fiesta and the largest fancy dress in the universe is well worth a mention. To start, the weather was amazing, the first week in November and it didn't drop below 85F on any given day. Second, there is a buzz in the town that we hadn't felt before. It was filling up rapid and lots more Spanish were arriving daily in readiness for the week of celebration.

The thing we have loved about this trip is the getting to know all the people on route and returning to Camping Villasol meant that we could actually say hello again to some familiar faces from our visit in October. Most of the folk we spoke to were looking forward to the big parade, or the massive firework display and even some of them were going to the fancy dress day.

The week of festivities were great, the Spanish love their big firework explosions and every day at 2 pm, there was a Big Bang display in the Main Street. I've never seen daytime firework explosions before, so Jake and I took our place as near as the police would allow to the display, along with thousands of others and waited expectantly for the off.

I've never witnessed war and have never been in a situation where explosions have been set off in close proximity. Jesus H Christ on a bike. We were both stunned, literally by the impact of these cannons let off in the streets of Benidorm. And, as it is a town of high rise buildings, the noise was magnified over and over by the echoes. Absolutely amazing!

I'll just mention here that the fiesta itself is built around groups of families and friends called Penya's. Each Penya group save money all year and at Fiesta time, spend this cash on hiring shops in the town for four days and turning them into bars and dance places. They eat and drink and party in the streets outside these places, but it really doesn't really get going until after midnight, when the bands and dancing in the streets becomes noisy and raucous.

We stayed in the Old Town of Benidorm several nights until the early hours and watching Jake dancing with the locals and having as much fun as we did, is one of the highlights of the trip. Not many Brits venture into the heart of the fiesta as we did and it's a shame, as they miss what it is really all about.

Days and nights flew by as we partied as hard as age and legs would allow. Even our fellow campmates passed comment about 'are you two going out again?' It's why we were here after all.

The night before the parade we decided to be sensible and take it easy on the partying. We went for a walk early in the evening and wandered back to the van just before 9 pm. As we approached our camper, Jake's attention was drawn to another van along side us and her eyes and head were focused on the awning at the side of the van. Suddenly her feet hit a speed bump in the road and she fell face first to the ground. I managed to get a hand onto her shoulder, which gave her time to put her hands out. Instead of landing face first on the gravelly road, both hands and knees took full force. Blood everywhere, top of her finger almost sheared off on one hand, scraped fingers on the other, knees bloodied, muscles twisted and pulled!
All the other nights we staggered home just about holding each other up nothing happens and the night we decide to take it easy.......

There's a moral there somewhere!

The final day parade was wonderful. Each of the Penya's build a float and fill it with people and millions of sweets and confetti to throw to the crowds of people that line the streets. We got a couple of street side seats to watch it all go past and sat next to another Scots couple who were great fun. He was celebrating his 70th birthday and his patter was straight from 'Still Game'. Jake had great fun collecting armfuls of sweets and passing them back to the aged Spanish ladies behind us, who were almost crying with gratitude every time Jake showered them with sweeties.

No sooner had the parade finished, then we were off, along with countless tens of thousands of others to the beach at Poniente, to witness the closing fireworks display of the fiesta. And what a display it was. Pictures would just not do it justice, it must be seen once in a lifetime. The BEST display we have ever seen.

And then it was over for another year. But not quite...............although the Spanish Fiesta was done, there still remained the little matter of the 'British Day'. We had no idea what this would be like, other than it was fancy dress. OK, It's the largest fancy dress in Europe, but hey, how big can that be?

It was MASSIVE!!!!!!!!!

To say there were 20,000 people in the streets could be accurate, but who knows. I've never seen so many people dressed up in one place. The day started at 12 midday and ended, well it ended when the last person left, whenever that was.

We bade our farewell to the masses around the 8pm mark and wandered back to the van with laughs and smiles and a touch of sadness. After all, we go back to Orkney tomorrow.

Could the three months have gone by so fast? We had seen and been to so many places and done so much. Life on the road, albeit in a certain amount of comfort, is better than we ever thought it would be. So back to Orkney for Christmas and New Year, refresh, play snowballs, do Hogmanay and then come back and do it all again for longer.

The Road Trip hasn't ended, it's just begun.......................

End Stats

So we are at the final point of this trip. Journey's end, Benidorm again for the Fiesta. It's been amazing from start to finish. Some stats for the record.

Total driven - 3,683 miles
Average fuel consumption - 26.8 mpg
Average speed - 42 mph
Total driving time - 87 hours
Total fuel bought - 148 gallons
Total cost of fuel - £802 or €955 or $1,282 depending where you live.

For my own record I will at some point put down how much was spent on campsites, but that can wait till later.

On with La Fiesta.

Close Encounter

So we're sitting out front of the van and it's getting late in the afternoon. I've been watching jets fly across the blue sky leaving fluffy contrails in their wake. Jake is on Facebook next to me.

I see a jet high in the sky directly overhead, when from nowhere, a silver orb appears below it and starts to climb vertical towards the plane. I tell Jake to look and we both watch as this ball of light, in bright daylight, move toward the plane. Suddenly, the totally circular ball of silver, accelerates away upwards as the jet fly's East. The UFO glowing against an azure blue sky just blinks away.

We both know what we saw, no idea what it was, but one thing is certain, it wasn't ball lightning. It was silver and had direction. Jake, who is the biggest cynic in the world, now has something to think about. Me, for a brief moment, I felt like Richard Dreyfuss.

And Freddie Came Too

There's a certain amount of bittersweet in reaching Sitges and Barcelona, in that when we first thought about doing this trip, it was in Barcelona that we would turn round and head South and finish our travels. So getting to Sitges, we looked forward to the buzz of the town and the bars and nightlife that it offered. We were not disappointed either as it's a great place to visit. For the unknowing, Sitges has the unofficial title of Gay capital of Spain, maybe even Europe and has a Joie de Vivre that permeates through the town.

Late night in Sitges

We decided to stay on the site for five days as we wanted to use the buses to get into Barcelona over the weekend.

The shore front.

The weather is still warm and sunny and every day is spent just soaking the rays. We've both lost a fair amount of weight since we left the UK, due to all the walking that we do and the very healthy food that we eat every day. Of course this loss of calories is offset by the volumes of wine and vodka that is consumed, but I count the wine as part of my five a day fruit intake, so no guilt felt there.

The church in Sitges.

We've picked up a few 'war wounds' on the van, mainly due to low trees and adventurous parking. I'm hoping that with a bit of elbow grease and some cleaner I can get rid of the worse of these. When I will get time to do that I just don't know.

There's a song from an old musical which really sums up most of the days we've been travelling.
'We're busy doing nothing working the whole day through,
trying to find lots of things not to do,
we're busy going nowhere isn't it just a crime,
we'd like to be unhappy but, we never can find the time.........'

So the days in Sitges passed and mucho fun was had and then it was Barcelona time. Remember, we wanted to go to Bordeaux but mozzies forced our early departure and then it was gonna be Seville, but the storm put paid to that, so the capital of Catalonia and arguably one of the best cities in the world was not going to be missed.

Friday was spent hunting for Gaudi and cathedrals and good food and better wine. Plus Jake met some of the locals.......

A Gaudi house at the top of La Rambla

I don't know if anyone told him he looked good in Lycra...........

We walked and walked and walked. God knows how many miles, but I felt that we should have had sponsorship. Could have paid for the trip!!

Inside one of the beautiful churches in the city.

The most wonderful building in the world.

Then it was Saturday and El Classico. Barca at home to Madrid, the best football game in the world and we are in the city. Messi versus Ronaldo, would Bale make the team, can Barca defeat their age old enemy and once again rub the noses of the Ruling Spanish into the sand as is their want?

I wish I could do that through the centre of Barcelona.

We decided to go to the official Bar de Barcelona to watch the match on one of the ten large tv screens in the place. We got in early and informed the barman we we're on a five hour marathon. As the game approached, the place became packed with maroon and blue and the singing began. The bar played traditional Barca songs to whip the crowd into a frenzy, all of a sudden, Freddie bloody Mercury and that Caballe woman erupted on every screen and the song 'Barcelona' was blasted throughout the bar.

 Hairs on the back on the neck stuff, tears in old men's eyes, beer waved in the air and then Kick Off.

It's enough to say that Barca won 2-1 and a whole city, nay a region of Spain rejoiced in unison. We had a ball, we witnessed one of the great sporting occasions at first hand and became for a fleeting moment, one of the cules or soci and it was great.

All to soon our time was up and we prepared the van for our journey down to Benidorm for the Fiesta and then our return home. Oh, and it's Jacky birthday too, so something else to celebrate, as if we needed an excuse.

We are Young We are Free

.............keep our teeth nice and clean, are words from a song we liked a few years back and are pretty relevant in the way we are beginning to feel on this trip! We've knocked up a lot of miles now and a fair few campsites and the one thing that has come clear, is that we are at least 10 years younger than most of the folk we meet doing the same thing. But that's OK as well, means we can be doing this travelling stuff for a while yet.

So back to matters at hand and where were we. Benidorm. Dad was coming out for a week, which he did and we all checked into the Hotel Nereo for some family time. All went well and dad was on his usual form, making folk laugh with his jokes and enjoying the singing at the many karaoke bars we visited.

The weather has been excellent since we hit the coast and this week with dad was no different. The sun shone continuously and not a sign of rain anywhere. All too soon we drove dad back to Alicante airport and once again, started our next trip North. To Benicassim.

Which in the summer, is famous for its House Music Dance Festival, with most of the worlds top DJ's giving it some toons. In October it's much more laid back and the campsite mirrors that. Great bar and restaurant on site and friendly staff.

Again, the beach at Benicassim is beautiful.

Quiet ain't it?


We stayed five days here and as the sun was still shining every day, we decided to go further North to Salou. This is a summer holiday resort favoured by the Brits, but with an obvious Russian encroachment taking place. It is evident that new Russian wealth is creeping into the Costas and that in a few years, they could be the main toursists in this part of Spain.

The campsite we wanted to stay in was closed for the season, so we moved up a wee bit to Camping Sanguli, which is the first 5* site we've stopped at.

This place is class and is massive, favoured by the Spanish at this time of year. In fact, the first few days of our stay, the place was full of kids and mums and dads, all weekending in their residential caravans. These are the professional Spanish, no worries about unemployment with these folk. Designer everything! But good on them. It was refreshing to be in among younger people after so long with the zimmer team. (joke)

This campsite has one drawback. Trees. Hundreds of the bloody things and as I sit writing this, I don't know how I'm gonna get the van out without ripping something off the camper or the branches of these trees. And they're not willowy things either. They're horrible stunted, gnarled and thick branched. The sounds of wood against fibreglass is a regularly heard thing.

To wrap, we head to Sitges on Wednesday. The Gay capital of Europe. We will also use this stop off as a base to explore Barcelona. Could be mental.

OMG

We are the neighbours from hell.

The Long Termers

So what is it with this. It's a strange one because I never gave any thought to the fact that living on a campsite for some is what they do! I knew there were people who stayed for a few weeks, but we are now in the realm of the Long Termer. These folk have given it all up wherever they came from and have set up, lock stock and lounge chair in the sun in Benidorm.

As a wee aside here, I can't wait to get to Vegas, as I hope it will outshine Beni. I have my doubts, but we will see.

Back to the matter at hand. We have real 'trailer' folk here, salt of the earth, wine for breakfast kinda people. Not that there's anything wrong with wine for breakfast you understand, but for me it's a holiday thing rather than a way of life!

Then there's the gossip. It's fun being a newbie. One of those vanners that pop into everyone's life for a short period of time, so that they can offload all the dirt in the comfort of knowing you'll be gone soon. Peyton Place eat your heart out!

Reg came back from hospital today. Unexpected to all and sundry. He was greeted like a war warrior, where in reality, he had been away to dry out!!

I can see a hundred reasons why life on the road is an experience and an education, but I can also see that living in a place like 'The Camp' in the sun, where wine is cheaper than water and the sun shines almost every day, can be detrimental to one's health.

Benidorm

We hit Beni from the wrong road. I'd been down it a few years before in a taxi and marvelled at the fact you could get a car through there. We turned right according to the Google map, at a sign that said buses and coaches and 100 yards later were on a one way street to mental breakdown.

The van is 7.5 meters long and 2.3 meters wide. This road is 2.4 meters wide and twists and turns like a corkscrew. Not just that, at every bend is a wall, or a tree, or both.

I was bricking it! I was down to 0.1 mph, with at least 20 cars behind me and could only go forward. There is noway I can put on record the terror that I felt for the 15 minutes it took to get to the end of this alleyway. But we did it, and the relief I felt that I hadn't ripped the sides of the van out at least ten times was amazing.

For the unknowing, Benidorm is Europes answer to Vegas. OK, it's not built around gambling, but the lights are as bright, the buildings are much taller and the best and the worse people meet side by side to enjoy everything that is on offer. And trust me, everything is on offer! We love it. It's an adult playground, in the sun, where being broad minded and accepting of all the bad things in life, where no one shakes their head and tut tuts at what is going on around them.

And above all, it's bloody cheap. The cheapest place in Spain for drink and food and just going out. It's cheaper than anywhere in France and anywhere in the UK. One Euro will buy you a good sized glass of wine, or a pint of beer or a coffee. That's in the bars. In the supermarkets, one Euro will buy you a bottle of wine, 2 Euro's will get you a six pack of beer and 4 Euros a bottle of Vodka!

Menu del Dia ( Google it) can be anything from 4 Euro's for a three course meal, with wine or beer for gods sake.

And people watching is just The Best! You couldn't pay to see some of the sights here. Fact, there are more mobility buggy's hired in Benidorm than anywhere in the world. In fact, there are Limo buggy's here that seat three people! There's stag party's of blokes, twenty or more, all on mobility buggy's hammering along the boardwalks. And Beni is built for this. There are ramps into everywhere and everything. It means you can get paralytic and go from bar to bar, without ever leaving your seat. Just brilliant.

Of course it's not all good. The only three hangovers we've had since leaving the UK have been here in the past four days! But if you can't stand the heat an all that.........

Getting one of my tattoo's expanded whilst we are here. Darren runs cobra Tattoo and he's done work for me before and he's a great guy to have in Beni.

Some pics

At the moment we have brilliant internet, so it's a good time to stick some photo's up.

The beach at Mazarron.

The town of Bolneuvo.

So this is us and how our next door neighbors see us.

 So we get to Benidorm and there is a celebration of the Christians kicking the moors out of Spain.

And then we saw a really great rock band called Pablo Bloom. Ian Monkman on lead and Jack Black on drums..................

And then the back window fell out...........

Time, where does it go? There's never enough of it and it's mostly wrong. Of all the commodities available, time is the one thing that slips away.

So where we're we? Going to drive to Tordesillas which is near to Valladolid and get the ipad repaired or replaced. Which we duly did, although a 15 minute appointment slid into a three hour jaunt between Apple and Orange, getting the 3G sim set up. Time......... Half a day almost. Anyway, the campsite at Tordesillas was very nice, with a moated town atop a hill as it's backdrop. there are loads of these towns throughout the country. Must've been amazing back in the day when land was fought over by men on horses and attempting to take one of these hill fortresses was the norm.

Spain is an amazing country. It has it's own regional opening and closing hours. Some places are open from 10 in the morning till 2 pm, others start at 8.30 till midday, then there's the re-opening times. Some start at 4, some at 5 and some not at all in the afternoon. Mondays most shops are shut all day, unless it's a Tuesday, when they could be shut as well!!

So each new town has us frustrated as we mostly seem to keep getting the timing wrong.

Only stayed in Tordesillas for a couple of days as the weather forecast was looking gloomy. Three to five days of rain and storms sweeping in from the Atlantic. The drive down to Caceres was amazing. Hundreds of miles of olive trees as far as the eye could see in all directions. No towns, no other trees, just olives! This region of Spain, Extremadura, is famous for it's food and hospitality. Didn't get to see much of it sad to say, as the storm front hit as we arrived. It stormed and rained and the days were black as night! The rain in Spain falls mainly on the campervan.

Before the storm arrived it was hot, bloody hot! All the windows of the van were open to let the air through. As the sky turned black, it was a panic to get everything closed and away before the rain hit. Jake shouted to me that one of the back windows was stuck half open. Running to the back of the van, I pushed the window to it's maximum and the bloody thing fell out. The whole window crashed to the ground, hinges and brackets waving in the wind like beached fish. Now what do I do? It's best said that my patience, temper and bodging ability were all put to the test in the next 15 minutes. I apologised to Jake afterwards for my anger and use of the F word so much, however, the window was replaced before Mother Nature let rip!!

Gritting teeth, we decide to head further South and see if we can leave the bad weather behind. The next stage of the journey from Caceres to Seville allowed us to see sights that can only be viewed with eyes and not cameras. Imagine roads that are almost empty, sweeping through mountains and valleys and then, after a long dark tunnel that cut through a range of craggy mountains, we emerged blinking in the bright sunlight and the wine growing area of Spain was reached.

It's hard to describe what it's like to drive through 80 miles of vines where the land is flat and all you can see to both horizons on each side is bloody grapes. We Googled that there are 215,000 acres of vineyards in Extremadura and I'm sure we saw most of them!!

So reaching Dos Hermanas, which is the closest campsite to Seville, we duly prepared for a couple of city days in one of Spain's oldest. Of course, it's that time thing again. The storm followed us. It rained non stop. Stepping outside the van was impossible. The rain was that heavy, the sand and mud was splashed two feet up the sides of the camper! So we sat and watched the rain for a day and made the decision to head to the coast. The sun was shining there and it's why we came on the trip in the first place. Sadly, like Bordeaux, our trip to Seville didn't happen this time, but there will be others.

Ah the Costa's. our first stop was at Torre Del Mar, just North of Malaga. A small coastal town, frequented mainly by Spanish tourists.

Jake examining her Gin & Tonic

Obviously it was fine...........

I would like to say that I don't really know much Spanish, and three quarters of Spain don't know much English. So the trip from top to bottom has been difficult to say the least. And the variations in regional accents doesn't help either. Take the number 6. I pronounce it 'says'. But in the middle of the country, it's pronounced 'sayes'! So the chance of anyone having a clue what I was trying to say most of the time was remote.

At least the coastal towns are used to us 'shouty pointy' people and its easier to get away with my Spanglish.

From Torre we journeyed to La Garrofer. This campsite is in it's own private cove and the vans park on the beach.

There's nothing to do other than chill and that was good as well. One of the highlights of the trip so far for me. Although Jake didn't like it too much as there were squillions of flies and the wind was blowing a bit.

Moving along the coast, we are now encamped at Puerto de Mazarron, where the temperature is a warm 95f. This is the largest site we have stayed on so far and is the complete opposite to La Garoffer which was so small.

We are now in Long Termer territory. The site is full of French, German and Dutch who set up camp for at least six months. Their camping pitches are homes away from home. It's obvious that they return year after year to the same spot and just spend the winter months in the sun.

We've been away five weeks now, so almost half way. It's going so quick, it's that time thing again!

A the weekend we move up to Benidorm. My dad is flying out to meet up with us and we are going to stay in the same hotel for 6 days. It will be nice to have our own shower!