Still on the hunt for a tyre we were sent to Garrucha.
So we set out on the bikes along the coast road to Garrucha where we found a garage that does fit tyres but they don’t have a space big enough to work on a camper. There was English guy working there and he advised they have another site at Vera ( not too far away but up a very busy dual carriageway) where they do fit tyres to commercials and suggested going up there.
He gave me a card with both addresses and his name on it.
It seemed he’s the Car Salesman. Strange the car salesman approached a potential customer with a ‘Fag’ dangling from his lips? Took me back to the 60’s.
So we continued our jaunt around Garrucha, past the Harbour where they were unloading fish from Small boat’s. There’s a restaurant there that does the freshest fish so might be worth a visit and the beach here is really nice, much yellower sand.
But last time we were here lots of the Bars and Restaurants didn’t cater for English and they were a bit hostile when we tried to use them. I wonder if that’s changed?
We continued on and found a cycle path that led to ‘Vera Lagoon’, which is a bit of a nature reserve. Though it’s taken a bit of a hit due to it’s tendency to flooding, which has devalued a lot of the homes.
We stayed there ten years ago in a house that was advertised as beach front, through a web site which specialised in advertising and letting places on behalf of the owners.
When we got there it was nothing like the advert, even the photo they used was of a different house and Beach Front, it wasn’t.
The view from the front porch, which offered the only outdoor space, was across the road to the waste bins which were emptied at about 0500 hrs every morning.
The worst part of the holiday was the house next door which was occupied by Armenian migrant workers who kept strange hours, had loud parties and intimidated us by sitting on the front step until the early hours or talking on their mobiles throughout the night. Poor George hated it.
We even got raided by the local Police who, in the early hours of the morning got the wrong address and came knocking on our door. It was a nightmare.
There was though a nice bar just down the road called ‘Laguna Cafe’ which catered for the tourist who stay on the local complex, and it is still here.
By this time the wind had gotten up again we took shelter there for lunch.
We had the menu of the day at €10 and a few drinks and as it was nicely sheltered and in the Sun, we were in no rush to move.
We got chatting to the owner who was obviously very proud of his Restaurant and his food. He told us he had been in business there for 25 years, his wife was Spanish and he had no intentions of going back to the UK.
He went on to tell us he’d gone home recently and hardly recognised the place. “lots of Foreigners and no one spoke English.”
Apparently. “David Cameron was right to remind people England was a Christian Country and in his view civil unrest was imminent”!
I choked on me ‘Sticky Toffee Pudding’.
Did he not see the Irony ( Spain does humour but doesn’t seem to get Irony) that here he was, a Foreigner, in a Foreign country, catering for Foreign Tourist and he is complaining about foreigners coming to England !
So we saddled up and set off back to the camper.
However, the ride wasn’t quite what we’d expected. There was a 54 Kilometres per hour head wind carrying biting sand with it and we had 11 kilometres to go. It was a bit of a challenge at one stage no matter how hard we peddled, we couldn’t make any headway.
But as with all things, we got through it and can laugh about it now. Ha, I hear you say!
Luckily we had treated ourselves to some new camping furniture so at least we can sit in the sun and read our books on something soft.
After the ride we had that’s just as well.
Bill and Jaki go Travelling 