Manolo Hotel Cartagena

... this for charity man, stop judging us. Unfortunately, the bus route map didnt help. so, we just followed our compass south until we accidently took a back road to a near by village. Then after seeing non motor way signs to a town we needed to get to we celebrated by sleeping on the grass. After a short sleep we followed the signs, which eventually led us on to a motor way, AGAIN. Nightmare. right, so we just gave up and set up camp in a near by national park ...

... i did feel guilty, but i genuinly thought it was all you can eatand i have to say nothing could stop me from laughing. I managed to eat all my food in their but the cook stole the sandwiches the Belgians had made. The situation was then made worse when Vince accidently smashed a glass during our hasty get away. It was almost like a scene from curb your enthusiasm. Truly genius.

We met in a near by park with ...

... and order Churrioes which they found hard to understand what we were ordering cuz its pronounced differnt than how it is spelt.

Later that evening we cooked some we wedges on the BBQ then we had those which sausage and curry sauce!

Then we went to a spanish bar which was quite exspensive but it was all locals except for 2 other english people.

... go to the puerto de mazzron for a few drinks. There was a land train which went from down by the beach by Bolnuevo beach! We waited for the train and waved it down however the driver shook his head and carried on driving we were waiting at the wrong spot :-(.

We decided to call a taxi and went in Monroes a english run bar by the beach. Our taxi driver picked us up and drove us ...

I woke up at 6am and i could see the light in the distance over the mountain. I could also hear crickets really loud which didnt really bother me and in the distance on a saturday night there was an all night rave which i could hear the music booming and quite clear but it didnt seem to wake me up in the night that went on till 8am.

Sunday was the day they have the market so we set of at 8am towards the port to go to the market when we got there most of it was set up but some stores ...

... of Puerto De Mazzron the temperture of the sea was perfect although it worried me a bit seeing a jelly fish in the sea.

We arrived at a bar on the beach right on a the corner where an island was sticking out and decided to sit there and have a drink. I ordered a Cevasa which is spanish for beer he had bit trouble understanding because i didnt pronounce it properly but i got what i wanted eventually.

It was a nice spanish ...

One may think that with the trouble we had in getting here, we weren't meant to be here. There was a fire on another train aheadd of us, and we were delayed by 2 hours. Then our train was having problems and we had to transfer to another train. All in all we arrived in Murcia at 12:45am, 4 hours late, but very excited to see Javier, Carmen and still waiting to see the girls who got up and went to school while we still slept.

... understand they have bureau de change's all over the UK so I went down and was really impressed with the service. Furthermore the exchange rate was fantastic and they were really friendly, offering a personal service which I liked.

Whilst I was there I noticed they helped with large individual money transfers for people emigrating abroad. Approaching late 50s this is something me and my wife have considered at some length.

Not knowing ...

... night for us after a wonderful family day together. Cartagena was the perfect start to our shore activities and set the mood for an enjoyable cruise. Tomorrow we would visit the Pillars of Hercules, indulge in some monkey business and experience a serious case of vertigo all while straddling the continents of Africa and Europe... yes, Gibraltar was our next destination.

... discovered that playing volleyball with a soccer ball is incredibly painful. Not to mention two people holding towels strung together, isn't exactly the best net. Nonetheless we had a wonderful time. My madre had packed me simple chorizo sandwiches (three just in case I got really hungry), and the warm mediterranean water was lovely. I didn't even mind that I had to change into my bathing suit in the woods near the road... although it was extremely awkward. The trip was well worth it.