A Costa De La Luz Christmas - Part 2

Having left Pinar San Jose on Thursday, another of Spain’s blue sky and sunshine days, we headed for the white hilltop town of Vejer. It was a real treat as we followed one of the suggested walks in and around the old town walls. It is so picturesque that we could have spent a week just blending in and appreciating it. The environment wasn’t practicable for a motorhome stay, however, so after a lazy wander and a tapas lunch we left and made our way west to another seaside town called Rota. Through our book of “All the Aires - Spain and Portugal” Gareth had found a large motorhome aire next to the beach and we got there to find it well populated. We squeezed in beside another old-but-in-good-nick van and settled ourselves. It’s where we are now, at time of writing. 

Around us is an encampment of Brits, Germans, Netherlanders, French and a few Spanish. Many of the vans are huge and top of their range, accessorised with trailers, motorbikes or other additional vehicles, barbecues, free-standing satellite dishes, solar panels and all sorts of other paraphernalia. None of these are following the etiquette of aire usage as we understand it. Aires are for stays of up to 48 hours at the most and camping behaviour (i.e., setting up your outside lounge and kitchen and hanging out your washing) is not permitted, we thought.

I’m finding it hard to see much difference between such ‘travellers’ and the ‘gypsy’ community who have a really bad reputation. The couple in the van next to us, both in their seventies, nice people, free-camp here for two months every winter. They’re a bit miffed that when they arrived this season their favourite parking spot had been taken. Another van is here permanently and not lived in at all. The owner apparently comes along occasionally just to start it up and check it over. Seeing that most vans are up on their chocks we did the same, even though it’s also not aire etiquette as we’d been led to believe. When I commented on all of this to our elderly neighbour he told me that the president had been around once (I don’t know what president.......Trump? Lol)) and told everyone that they couldn’t encamp as they are doing. But, everyone ignored him! 

One couple have settled next to a grassy verge that has become their garden! They’ve even decorated the little shrub that resides on it with Christmas baubles and tinsel! Maybe I should have mentioned to him that one of the gossamer baubles on the top was definitely wobbling, like something about to burst. Has he heard of those killer caterpillars, I wonder. I’ve not yet seen any processional insects patrolling the area, but one of the garlands on that makeshift Christmas tree was decidedly brown and hairy. Everywhere there are cats, too - feral ones, and clearly someone is feeding them by leaving opened tins of cat food and bowls of drinking water in the shrubbery. Sheesh, even the cats are free-loading. (By the way, Pwdin has been transfixed, watching a kitten that climbs into the chassis of parked vans and mews pitifully......and I have no intention of taking it in, honest!).

None of these characters are ‘gypsies’ in the true meaning of the word. They are all snow-birds - Northern Europeans whose retirement has awoken the migratory instinct to fly south in the winter, drink wine and get skin cancer. I can quite understand the resentment expressed on-line by some Spanish motorhomers. They complain about these encampments leaving little room for the Spanish weekenders, and sadly they seem to think it’s the British mostly doing it. What a slur! 

Why do people with obviously sufficient wealth to have equipped themselves with luxurious rigs and all the add-ons, set themselves up like this? Maybe it appeals to some vestigial rebelliousness and a hangover from the 60’s “f**k-the-establishment-and-live- free” culture. These old wannabe hippies never forgot the freedom-dream as they settled for conventionality, and nurtured it until they’d accrued a big enough pension to walk away from the shackles of working life and family raising. Living the dream now is to take up as much free space as possible in car parks where they don’t have to walk or cycle far for anything, the sun shines and there are enough kindred spirits around to provide safety in numbers and discuss the demerits of the host country.

Ok, so we’ve been free camping too, some of the time, and are doing so on this occasion, so who am I to judge. We don’t drape our bedding in the bushes though or blind our neighbours with big, shiny portable solar panels and smoke fish in empty parking spaces. We don’t wash our hair under the water tap (yes, it happened!) or snore on our sun beds on the verges (we don’t have a sun bed anyway). We got into motorhoming for the adventure of seeing places. What would be the point of our attempt not to shrink into a small life at home only to shrink into another, albeit sunnier, one.

This aire in Rota is definitely an attractive place to hole up in for a short while, though, if you don’t mind being surrounded by the strange outside-living habits of your fellow motorhomers. Here there are thoughtfully provided cycle tracks into and around the beach front and town (shame we didn’t bring our bikes). The beach is lovely, and just across the way. Apparently there are two laundrettes in the area (so WHY, oh why the laundry festooned hedgerow?), some inexpensive eateries and a good selection of supermarkets (why shop local when you can keep the BigCorps happy, eh?). There’s also an American air-base here that provides a lot of opportunity for plane-spotting, if you like that sort of thing. There are no aire charges at all and there’s a basic service of water, plus grey and w/c disposal points (handy for hair washing 🤔😱). But I’m the sort who feels uneasy about taking advantage and I certainly won’t do what so many have done by taking up more than one marked space and creating territory.

It seems to me that there are at least two sorts of motorhoming snow bird. There is the sort I describe above - hard to distinguish from the notorious ‘gypsy’ community other than their age profile, handbags and the nationality of their vehicle. And then there are those like the Pinar San Jose winter residents who, instead of brazenly taking advantage of free space, congregate every season in a proper paid for camp-site for their feelings of safety, comfort, conviviality and convenience (except for killer caterpillars and bitey mosquitoes, that is).  The group we spent Christmas with have all mostly at some point done the Europe-wide travel thing and, like the free-campers described above, finally settled on a place they like and where they have gravitated towards each other in friendship and support. They even have their own Facebook group.

And they have stories that make us think. One lady, for whom I felt an instant fondness when we met, has for years spent most of the year at the site, living in a big fifth wheel rig with her husband, two dogs and a cat she adopted when it wandered in as a kitten. They had sold up at home to invest in their rig and a life of sunshine. Unfortunately, her husband passed away a couple of years ago and she is trying to sell the now-old rig, preparing for the inevitable of going back to Blighty to face her later years. Contrary to our assumption that the people we were meeting are, unlike us, all living on fat pensions, this lady doesn’t seem to be one of them. She told me how ‘home’ in the UK is a tow-caravan and I felt sad as this lovely lady, so welcoming of us, and clearly a fun person, told us about how she contemplates her future; how she will live on a meagre income and avoid having to depend upon her children. The others, too, are making the best of whatever resources they’ve managed to accrue in order to have their still-fit, reasonably healthy retirement years, “living the dream”. Some have made this lifestyle choice as a result of redundancy (aka ‘early retirement’), and I can relate to that.

We really like the Pinar People and have resolved to stay in touch, but in the chats over Christmas lunch and the camp chair gatherings beneath the pines, there is the unspoken knowledge that the dream has to end sometime, particularly with Brexit looming. The dream came to an end suddenly for one couple we met, Peter and Christine. This is their first time out; new to the lifestyle, like us. Gareth and Peter had so much to chat about as regards travel itineraries and the practicalities of our respective rigs. We had so much in common, we newbie travellers. Just after we left we heard via the group’s Facebook page that this lovely couple had their beautiful, new 2018 Burstner stolen from the woodland car park where they’d left it to go for a walk. They are now motorhome-less and are left, we imagine, with a very sullied impression of their trip of a lifetime.

We don’t know where we’ll head for next, and we will leave Rota tomorrow. Peter and Christine’s experience has made us suddenly more wary and I’m understanding motorhoming huddles better. It’s no different, really, from those wagon trains we used to see in the old Cowboys and Indians films, getting into a circle for protection. Now that Andalucia has voted in a far-right government with an anti-immigration policy, there might soon be a different treatment of invading snow-birds and the huddles will get even tighter!

PS Jess asks me whether it’s cheap, living like this. Yes it is if you don’t eat out, you free-camp staying put as long as possible and you shop at the cheap supermarkets like Lidl and Aldi, none of which contributes much to local economies, whatever they say about the value of tourism to countries like Spain. Oops, we’re as guilty as other snow birds, then (“Let he or her who is without sin....”) Unfortunately the exchange rate is rubbish at the moment, as well.

It can be reasonably cheap to pitch up for a month at a time on campsites out of season. I discovered how cheaply when I paid for our stay in Pinar San Jose. Having just parted with €114 for six days, I heard a new arrival ask about prices and was told that an 8 night stay would be €12 per night (I’d paid €19 per night! If only I’d known to ask about offers in the first place!) A month stay there would be €310, you’re happy to risk being poisoned by a hairy caterpillar, though, and bitten by the flippin mosquitoes. 

A Costa De La Luz Christmas

Costa De La Luz fronts the Atlantic Ocean in a more laid back fashion than the resorts of Costa Del Sol. The coastal landscape is flatter and scattered with low-rise towns and villages that lie lazily along the beaches; no noisy mountainous apartment blocks here. There is a hippy ambience in places where the surfers have moved in and beach front businesses, mostly closed as this is low season, promise languorous lunches and lively evenings in summer time.

The sand here is soft and golden. The inland landscape undulates gently unlike the craggy backdrop of Costa Del Sol. The hills are encrusted, not with snow, but with Andalucia’s traditional white towns, and broccoli-like pine woods provide shady cover.

We came here after a night’s stay in old Cádiz. What a lovely old town! Seville, grand and polished as she is, displays her touristy credentials expensively, whereas a wander around the sea wall and the streets of Cádiz felt more authentic somehow. It’s an old sea-faring town with its Moorish heritage evident. Its geography is intriguing, being out on a spit of land and fortified from the sea and invasion. We hadn’t intended to, but we parked up for the night near the port and in the evening went back into the old town for a meal and a chance to people watch. 

We have been most amused by the way Spain (except Seville, like most big cities, I guess) runs its day. It’s December, and dark until about 8.30 in the morning (I say ‘about’ as we’ve given up looking at clocks, falling in step with the rhythm of the day instead). Spain starts to wake up as the sun rises. The nights are generally quiet and it’s rare to hear a dog bark, unlike our experience of Italy where dogs and mopeds are insomniac....in June at any rate. Spain seems to go about its business through the morning, until around 1.00 when everyone stops for lunch. Bars are unshuttered, chairs and tables spill out onto cobbled streets and plazas, the air fills with animated Spanish chattering and with smells that make your saliva prickle under the tongue. Then, at around 4.00 pm, all goes quiet again. Doors close and the street furniture is tidied away. At around 6.00 pm, when it’s dark, the town flowers fully into a blooming wonderland of bars, cafes, restaurants, and brightly lit little shops that weren’t visible during the afternoon, and everything spills its enticements into the now crowded chattery streets and alleyways. 

That was our experience of a Christmassy Cádiz, at any rate. That night we ate fried fish and pizza, watching the Christmas bustle, bought some sweet treats for our Christmas cache and then at 9.00 pm everything suddenly went quiet again. Later, back at the van, we got ready for a night’s sleep hoping that the port conformed to Spanish sleepy-time rules, which fortunately it did. But.....we hadn’t taken account of the nightclub that suddenly burst open alongside our car park and ambling carousers serenaded the night with cackling revelries. Well, it IS Christmas, so what could we expect?

We headed south from Cádiz, looking for a proper campsite to pitch up in for Christmas. An area near Conil de la Frontera promised a few ACSI sites so we made a booking, called in at a Mercadona supermarket (I love Mercadona!) to stock up on some more Christmas tit-bits and made for the site. Nice.

Pinar San Jose offered us all of the necessary facilities for 19 Euros a night underneath some strange Spanish pine trees that, as I said before, look like sticks of broccoli. The sleepy village of Zahora is one of three along the coast of Trafalgar in an area called Los Canos De Meca. The beach is peaceful and beautiful so it’s hard to imagine the sea battle that Nelson fought out in the bay there. The mainly dirt streets of Zahora are confusing to navigate, in spite of our little map, so inevitably, each time we walked to the beach we got lost coming back by what was each time a longer route. Fiendishly clever, these Spaniards.

Washing done, our Christmas lights draped in the trees and in the van, we made ready for Christmas. We were curious about a note in the window of another British van asking for Christmas lunch bookings. Dawn, the ‘lady in the van’, told us that it’s a tradition amongst the winter site residents to have a communal Christmas lunch in the restaurant. She invited us to join in, so we agreed and we also accepted an invitation to join in with the ‘settlers’ for afternoon drinks and nibbles on Christmas Eve. It was a delightful, sunny, camp-chaired gathering outside the van of another British couple, Joy and Andy. 

Afternoon ran into evening as the wine flowed generously, and we all sang along to Phil King’s guitar. This guy has written books on his experiences of travelling around Europe as a retiree with a caravan. He and his (fifth!) wife, Hazel, upped sticks, rented out their house and headed into the relatively unknown without an agenda, as so many of the older generation have done and are still doing. I count myself, now, as one of them, of course. European Union has made it so easy, but with Brexit looming, many are wondering how they can sustain this easy, bohemian lifestyle. 

Tarted up a bit for Christmas lunch we joined the throng in the restaurant around a huge table set with all of the Christmas novelties and enjoyed lively conversation, jollification and a Spanish offering of Christmas fare (several courses of fish followed by tasty sweet treats). I sat next to a Swiss couple and conversed for ages in spite of my having no Swiss-German and she having no English or French. We drew numbers and diagrams on the paper table cloth to communicate information about places to see, our families, our travels and even our countries’ different pension arrangements. Admittedly her husband, who spoke some English, was consulted when we got stuck. 

It always fascinates me how well people can communicate in spite of language differences. Gareth has only English but seems to do well enough with hand gestures. Our “Gracias”, “Buenos Dias” and “Hola” and “No hablas espagnole” get us by sufficiently....so far, anyway. We have both, however, resolved to make more of an effort to learn Spanish. I have to admit, again, that mother was right; my reluctant study of Latin along with my old-fashioned education in French, have really helped in my interpretation of both Italian and Spanish - in the written form, at least. I am stuck when it comes to understanding the spoken word though. Mind you, modern technology is brilliant! Our Google-Translate app is a life-saver! Without it the Christmas pudding I succeeded in making in our thermal cooker would have contained a large helping of salt instead of flour.

We had intended leaving the campsite on Boxing Day, but Diana, a lady who lives in a big old fifth wheel rig, had invited everyone for nibbles and mince pies on Boxing Day. The promise of mince pies did it for Gareth so we stayed and once again enjoyed the easy acceptance of us into this community of ‘snow birds’. Eventually we said our goodbyes and the disappointment expressed about our leaving was warm and genuine. We ourselves began to wonder why we were going. Where were we going anyway? We had no agenda, really, but the site did harbour a sinister threat and it was the deciding factor for our departure.

High up in the pine trees we were all camped beneath were some gossamer covered balls of something that we learned are the nests of a killer caterpillar. They are becoming a pest all over Europe, we were told. They are quite large with poisonous hairs that cause toxic reactions and swelling and respiratory problems on contact. We heard some gruesome tales of rare but nevertheless scary mishaps; dogs being particularly vulnerable. The trees in the area had apparently been treated but the creatures remain toxic even when dead so if they are lying around on the woodland floor they can still be lethal. When they hatch from the ‘nest’ they are ‘processional’ - numbers of them walking along nose to tail, and news had gone out that they are hatching earlier than usual. The settled snow birds weren’t especially concerned, but we weren’t sad to leave the threat of poisonous infestations behind, that’s for sure!

Next blog to follow very shortly, folks, but I could go on and on here, so that’s it for now.

A report of our new wanderings

December 16th

This morning I woke to a Mediterranean dawn, red along the African horizon. Standing on the gravelly shore, west along the coast the big Rock of Gibraltar looms out of the sea. Eastwards the resort towns of Estepona and Marbella glisten like wedding cakes. We are parked up on a large sandy beach with a few other ‘wild’ campers (i.e., camping fee avoiders). This spot at San Diego is surprisingly undeveloped; a pocket in an otherwise thoroughly developed coastline. This is Costa del Sol. Today we will rest a bit, drifters that we currently are. Today we are Flotsam and Jetsam with our two dogs Piddle and Poo (aka Bess and Pwdin). It looks to be another beautiful December day in southern Spain.

December 18th

Yesterday afternoon we left the Costa del Sol and headed up into the Sierra Bermeja and parked up for the night in a little aire above a Pueblo Blanco town called Caseres. On the recommendation of another Brit with a camera we scrambled along the top of a ravine so as to see the curious and well populated vulture eyrie on the cliff opposite. Gareth was able to take some photos of them and of the vertical town as it started to glow in the early evening sun and I sat to catch my breath after the headiness of the drops on either side of us. We hadn’t dared let the dogs walk off the lead, and surprisingly, they seemed to recognise the dangers to us of pulling. We could have broken several limbs if they had towed us across those rocks.

Today we continue our journey towards Seville, a Christmas see-treat we are informed. I had suggested last night that this morning we first hike down into the ravine and up into Casares, the town. The suggestion was met with nil enthusiasm, understandably, I guess, from a man with a still-healing hip and another one plaguing him for a replacement. Looking at the place from our lofty viewpoint in the aire, realistically I would also struggle to get to the remains of the Moorish castle that has pride of position atop the cliff opposite, tempted as I am to poke about in the little streets and alley ways of this picturesque white town.

We arrived in Spain two weeks ago after a couple of long driving days through France to meet Owen in Biarritz. Gilet Jaune protesters had slowed us up at a number of large intersections but we got through, parked up at a very nice beach-front aire that Owen had found us and had a great evening with him, dining out on his expense account. I think he quite enjoyed being able to indulge his mum and show us where he conducts his sales meetings. And I was impressed. He had his work head on, for sure, and our being there was a bit of a distraction, but I now have a clearer picture in my mind of what that part of his working life is like.

The highlights of our trip to the south thereafter were Olite in Northern Spain, where we parked up first, and Medinaceli. Olite is an impressive walled town that was once the stronghold of the king of Navarre. The town boasts Roman remains too.

From there we drove doggedly across the generally rather uninteresting high plateaus until we came across Medinaceli, another walled town, high on a plateau of its own, and surviving, it seems on tourists stopping at the little artisan food shops, and again boasting a few Roman remains.

The entry to Andalucía was breath taking, with the snowy peaks of the Sierra Nevada ahead and olive plantations covering the land as far as the eye could see. Immediately the quality of the light caught my attention and I could almost feel my skin drinking in the vitamin D.

Arriving in Granada, I thought we might visit the Alhambra. However, we’d arrived in the middle of a Spanish public holiday and campsites were making the most of it price-wise, so we headed east instead. The Sierra Nevada gazed down on us as we traversed its northern slopes on another of Spain’s really good roads and next day, after a lay over in a shabby, neglected looking, but quiet little town, Abla, we drove into the Alpujarras on the Sierra’s southern slopes. The scenery is spectacular, the roads, even the winding and narrow, are well paved and make for smooth driving; apart from the swinging around all the hairpins, that is. The geography east-side is arid and used apparently as the location for many of those Spaghetti Westerns. I could easily imagine John Wayne and Clint Eastwood sitting horseback there and looking as rugged as that scenery.

It took us two days to get through the Alpujarras before we dropped down to the coast and holed up at a little seaside town, Castello Ferro. Being used to the golden sands of Gower we were a bit disappointed to find that the shoreline along the Costa del Sol is grey gravel, but the light is a real tonic and it’s easy to see why so many Brits, Germans and other Northern European folk settle in the south-facing white and red-tiled villas that scramble above one another on the hillsides. They are fed handsomely by local fishing and Mediterranean deliciousness (including cheap Spanish wine!) and have given the area a thoroughly cosmopolitan air.

December 20th

After a beautiful drive from Casares through the mountains we came to Ronda. Now Ronda......well! A large white town with a beautiful mountain backdrop, scrambling right up to the edge of a deep, deep gorge. The views from the balconies provided for tourists to absorb the awesomeness are knee-trembling. We gazed anyway, soaking it all in as a young harpist from the town’s conservatoire added to the blue-aired ambience of our visit. The town has its horror stories, though, like any other. Ernest Hemingway reported that in Franco’s day prisoners from the civil war were thrown into the gorge. What a horrific way to go!

After Ronda we arrived yesterday in Seville. It isn’t at all what I pictured, having been encouraged to visit by one of our BnB guests a couple of years ago. He had shown me a hill top town looking out over a vast plain. Seville centre (old Seville), however, is on the banks of the ambling Rio Guadalivir and perfectly flat to walk around. We took a walk around the old town yesterday and I have resolved to come back one day and stay in one of the hotels there. It is a labyrinth of picturesque alley-ways that are presumably in Summer cooler than being out in the open. Seville is reportedly one of the hottest places in Spain, and I do remember having a family from Seville staying with us at Bay View, escaping 50 degrees and lapping up the Welsh drizzle. 

The Alcazar and the cathedral (the biggest in the world apparently) are among sights worth seeing here, and we planned to do just that today. However, Sevillers don’t apparently sleep; certainly not in the area we were parked up in for the night, so our enthusiasm for another long walk and another stay over is rather dimmed. Gareth read a British Seviller’s account of how to fit in here: you breakfast at 11.00, lunch at 3.00 dine at 10.00, and go for drinks well before dinner. I don’t know where they fit in their work hours, unless it’s during those hours last night when we were trying to sleep. 

We were a bit disappointed not to have found in Seville the Christmas markets we were expecting. Nativity scenes, the more extravagant the better, are the main attraction it seems, and the big day for celebrations is around January 6th.

So today we left for Cadiz and I don’t have any photos of Seville. None of my photos do justice to what we’re seeing here in Spain, though. Gareth’s work is obviously far superior but his phone has given up the ghost and all of the apps he had for transferring files from his camera have been lost. My meagre offering of sub-standard shots is all you’ll get then, folks. Sorry.