Playalinda Roquetas de Mar

... fancy schmancy hotel. I'm sure they think I'm a charity case. Oh, which reminds me of a quick tangent. This morning at breakfast I wore my yoga pants and a tank top with my flip flops. I was stared down like nobody's business. All the other fancy folks had Polo sweaters and YSL wraps. Wh-at-evs!

Okay, so that was my beach experience. Determined to find food, since I had found only a plate of roasted vegetables at the hotel tapas restaurant (though yummy, I was having carb ...

I am on my way to Cabo de Gata from Granada. I, as usual, didn't do diligent enough research and so ended up in Almeria with a 4 hour layover. Normally I would be ecstatic about this as that is plenty of time to drop my bags at the station, roam around on a city bus and get a feel for one more Spanish city. However. Almeria doesn't believe in baggage drops at the station. In an "I am Josie. I am American." moment, I walked to a hotel to leave my bags there. No. Neither being ...

... with plastic td greenhouses that grow fruits and vegetables. You can not find a single area that doesn't have a plastic greenhouse. The mountains are very dry and rocky. We stopped in a town called Almerimar for lunch - a fishing village and big windsurfing and water sport area. The town has a marina and yacht club. There were tons of boats in the marina, but the town was pretty well shutdown for the winter. Only a handful of cafes were open. It was pretty quiet. We ...

... the day from Olly: "We came down here to see what it would be like to sleep here Chris. We the discovered its the kind of place that goats get brutally masacred. Therefore, Its not a good place to sleep, is it." Despite Ollys compelling arguement the thing that changed my mind was the sketchy guy the kept cycling near us. When he returned with more friends to look at us I thought F**k this, lets do some night riding. The decision was further reinforced when we left because we ...

Returned to San Jose. Next day drove around to the town of Cabo de Gata, saw the salt-pans, went up the the "Cape", saw the incredible beach of Cabo de Gata, had great lunch there, then went around to the beach at Monsul. Eventually decided I HAD to leave!! 

... The terrain became more and more barren. This is the area where all the "spaghetti westerns" (Good Bad & Ugly, etc) were filmed in the 60's and 70's. Allegedly because it looks just like Arizona, but I wouldn't know because I've never been there. Reputedly, it's the driest part of Europe.  I headed off the motorway towards Tavernas, spotting a couple of "Wild West" towns along the way, and went to "Mini-Hollywood" which is basically a theme park. Having ...

... 20 bornes en rebroussant chemin vers cabo de gata....magnifiaue endroit, on arrive en 4x4 carrement sur la plage, on trouve une petite epicerie qu on a devalisem pates, saucisson, courgettes, lard au bord e l eau, etla, surprise, une bande de chats loubards nous barre la route et essqient de nous manger notre repas...il faisait un peu frais et beaucoup de vent SAMEDI 02 ...

... met een forse baard aan zijn onderwaterschip heeft wel een duwtje in de goede richting nodig. Nu de wind is toegenomen komen we er achter dat onze windmeter niet meer draait, iets voor onze doelijst die inmiddels aardig is geslonken. Na vier uur varen we de haven van Roquetas de Mar binnen, een authentiek visserplaatje. We hebben meteen beet, er staat een prachtige 50 ton rijdende hijskraan op de werf en de werfbaas wil ons vrijdag uit het water halen. Vandaag ...

The Dirty Dozen We arrived in Alicante at around half past seven in the morning. It was already warm. We walked around for a while and then we found the sea. Despite being tired, unwashed, and it still being before 8 o'clock, we went for a swim. We locked our bags to a lifeguard flagpole and stripped to shorts. And the sea was warm. It was fantastic. There was this floating plastic thing a hundred metres out with a diving board ...

... dans un super endroit sous un grand arbre. On manger super bien avec apéro (et la salade de riz de Christine !) Arrivée à Almería à 16h15. Il n'y a pas trop de monde et on prend les billets sans problème. On attend une heure sur le quai avant de partir. A 19h00, le bateau démarre, et papa filme. Je ressens son excitation de loin, de très loin ! Sur le bateau, on commence à se sentir ailleurs. On entend du raï partout avec un m ...