Saturday 29 January - Motril

Where's Bertie? His wheels have not turned, so he is still in the car park at Motril.
Weather: Wall-to-wall sunshine and warm (20 degrees this afternoon), but with the wind picking up to 25mph by lunchtime.

The wind dropped completely overnight, which was a bonus for my run this morning.

I was out not long after sunrise

Looking away from the sun about 45 minutes later

Whereas Mick had run repetitions of the 2km-long beachside promenade yesterday, I investigated slightly further afield. I didn't find anything overly interesting, although I couldn't help but notice that all of the other runners I passed (presumably all locals) were wearing jackets, hats and gloves, whereas I was out with bare arms and semi-bare legs. It was a bit chilly on the arms first thing, but was warm an hour later.

Back at Bertie, Mick had heated a tank of water so, after removing goodness knows how many weeks worth of grit and dirt from beneath the duck boards on Bertie's washroom floor, we had our first showers in a week. Eeeh, that felt cleaner! It put us in suitable states to go out for lunch too.

The cafe/bar we'd espied yesterday was to where we headed, seeing with relief that they do offer a Menu del Dia on a Saturday, and that they don't charge a premium for it being the weekend.

Today's menu. I understood all of it!

Service was prompt, to the extent that we hadn't quite lowered ourselves into our seats when a waitress asked if we intended to eat. A second later she read the menu out to us and took our choices, and within five minutes our first course was in front of us.

First course. In all honesty, this was all the food I needed for lunch. It was huge, and packed full of chicken and seafood.

A small pause was given before second course came:

I won. Mick's 'pollo con patatas' was a breaded chicken burger thing with chips and he wasn't impressed by it. My fish and veg was good.

We had enough time after the second course to hypothesise over pudding. In the past I've almost always chosen flan, because it's always an option (and I do like it!) and it solves the problem of not understanding any of the options given. Today I wasn't sure I could manage a pudding on top of everything I'd just eaten. Then the waitress gave us the options (and I understood them all!) and I suddenly found that perhaps I could manage a little something else.

Mine was clearly a bought-in-frozen job (because it was too perfectly formed, and was still a bit icy in the middle) but it was very much to my taste. Mick was happy with his baked cheesecake too.

All of that (including drinks) for €21. I can't tell you how many times since March 2020 we've lusted after a Menu del Dia in the sunshine in Spain, and today we waddled away happy (albeit I'll be happier when we happen across one offering a fish or mountain stew).

Another quick trip to the mini-market next door (tomorrow's Sunday so we needed to buy tomorrow's bread today), and back to Bertie we came.

I've spent a sizeable chunk of the rest of the afternoon researching potential stopping places along the coast between here and Cadiz. We have about 17 days available (before we want to be in Seville), and thus far I've got 20 options, but only covering about half of the relevant section of coast. Given our past history for travelling very slowly, and considering that there are some places I positively want to visit on our way, we're going to have to be quite focussed on progressing along the coast and not getting bogged down in a small area.

As for the parking situation here, there was (as would be expected with a max 48 hour stay) a mass exodus this morning, and we lost our windbreak. The windbreak that replaced it wasn't very effective, but fortunately they didn't like being our neighbours and moved. Our new neighbour is perfectly big enough for the task, except that the wind has shifted around slightly. 

At 1700 the police came around noting number plates, but stayed in their vehicle until they got to the little enclave not far away from us. There they went and had words, and a short while later a convoy of six vans left. So, it seems that the reports of enforcement are true.

Taken at around 0930 at which point every van in that back row, except for Bertie, was French.


^{(Nipping back a couple of days to Guardia de Jaén, I forgot to mention that after being by ourselves on our first night there, there were 10 vans on the second night. Isn't it odd how that can happen?)}

Bonus snap: