| Submitted by: Ivan Andrusiak, United Kingdom |
| Submission Date: 23 February 2007 |
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We bravely carry on in single file.
The weather is a stark contrast to what we have become used to it is cloudy and cold, but stays dry.
We visit Torrevieja Hospital for no other reason than to use their toilet.
We enter the suburbs of the town (Urbanization Los Balcones) and enjoy looking at the variety of houses and gardens.
We have to negotiate and cross underneath another motorway, there are no adequate paths around these roads, so you really do feel like you are taking your life in your hands as you cross the slip roads that lead on and off the motorway.
We eventually arrive at the sea front. After first feeling a sense of achievement, this is soon replaced by a sense of disappointment.
The Mediterranean looks calm, blue and inviting, but the narrow strip of beach which runs between the beachfront houses and the sea, is strewn with rubbish. The houses, some of which would not look amiss in an Hollywood, look as though they cost millions, are spoiled by graffiti.
We walk north toward the resort of Torrevieja, we can see 20 or so cranes hovering ‘T’ shaped above the skyline of apartment buildings. From this distance and through the mist the cranes give a surreal impression that they are protecting their newly built brood.
As the ramble continues, the dirt and the graffiti, seems to increase the nearer to the harbour we get. We can see many yachts.
As we enter the harbour area there is a group of elderly people carrying out aerobic exercises on the beach, there’s also a group of men playing petank. Time for a coffee, we sit at a beachside café and order, I reach for the 40 euros (£28), I have in my pocket only to discover that it is not there. Lost some where on the 5 or 6 miles we have just walked. I know it is not a vast amount of geld, but when your as tight and watching the pennies like me, this is tantamount to loosing the contents of the Bank of England.
Anne as always sooths my furrowed brow, we pay with some change that we have and we are on our way again.
We do a little window shopping in the town and then seek out the bus station.
We also have lunch in a Spanish café, where we have the meal of the day, 8 euros. Anne as usual makes a poor choice, spaghetti of the sea starter, followed by stew. I have a salad starter and chicken and chips. The elderly English woman with whom we are sharing the table, clearly has some terrible infection, as her nose is constantly running and swollen. Anne insists on engaging this lady in conversation, so that she spits food particles and snot into my salad.
I politely say to Anne, ‘let her eat her dinner before it gets cold’.
But there is fat chance of that, as the chicken she is eating looks raw.
I ask the waiter ‘My pollo, muchas bomba’.
He seems to understand.
I thought the lunch was OK, Anne didn’t enjoy hers ‘One bit!’
No complaints about the wine.
We now find a bus that goes to San Miguel De Salinas, for 1 euro each, again good value. We ask if there is one that goes to our campsite, but are told that there is not. So we resign ourselves to either getting a taxi from San Miguel, or walking.
The bus sets off and we wind our merry way out of Torrevieja.
We are happy to see that the bus is heading straight for our camp site. We get excited as the bus approaches the road to where our caravan is parked! It then goes past it. I say to the driver, ‘Can you drop us here?’
‘No Possible Senor!’
With that he accelerates and drives up the ‘God awful’ road, which we walked the other day.
He drives the 2 ½ miles to San Miguel, where he drops us off, I was fuming! The ignorant bugger, had the opportunity to safely drop us off and he didn’t take it. Bet he drinks Ovaltine to get to sleep at night.
Sixth Instalment
We end up at the ‘Nut House’ (bar), where we have a drink to console ourselves. We enquire about a taxi, which will cost 8 euros (£5.60) to get us back to the campsite. We decide to walk. We again pay our respects to the cyclist Jean Ivis Leotard and walk nonchalantly past the prostitutes, we eventually get back to the van. We are a bit down and bemused with this area. We feel more than a little trapped, these feelings are not helped by the lack of sunshine.
A solution would be just to move on, but we are tied into the campsite having paid a fixed price for a stay of 30 nights. Should we go, we will be penalised, by having to pay double for each night we have stayed. So after 15 nights, we would be quits, but remember we would then have to find additional funding for the nights that we are away from this site, up until we return to Blighty! We discuss this and decide to make the best of a ‘bad job’ and stay.
Liz and Stu on the other hand, decide to leave and are going the following morning. She has been unhappy since we met them and I was worried that her negativity might rub off on us, which I suppose, to a degree it has. We all get together and watch a film in our caravan until the day finally ends.
Tuesday 16th January 2007.
Liz and Stu pack up their belongings, as they are going on to Benidorm, a place they are both familiar with and are sure they will be much happier staying at. Liz goes to the reception and returns fuming. Not only do they have to pay for the thirty days at the long stay rate, but because there has been some confusion about their leaving a week previously, they have had to pay 100 euros for staying for the past week as well! It’s all rather complicated and hardens my resolve to stay for the duration of our booking.
Well at least the sun has come out, we wave them goodbye and get on with our Day.
We visit San Pedro, which is the northern bit of Le Manga and find a very nice beach and harbour. The sun makes us feel much happier, after a light lunch we head off back, deciding to take a roundabout route over some hills to a reservoir, which isn’t too far from where we are staying.
We pass some vast developments that look to be in the middle of no where, a whole mountain side covered in white buildings looking like that sort of fungi you get growing out of rotten tree trunks. I get the same feeling I got when seeing the centre of Leeds and all the new apartments and flats there which are mostly unoccupied and built with investment in mind. You think to yourself, where’s it all going to end? Are there really that many people wanting to live or holiday here? I suppose there are! Otherwise they wouldn’t be building them?
We arrive at this spectacular place (the reservoir) Embassament de la Pedrera, which is a cycle ride away from where we are staying; it is just a dreamy place with crystal clear waters, that reflect the rocks and small islands. You could imagine some one like Salvador Dali being inspired here. The only clue to it being a reservoir is the two towers that must house the pumps and mechanisms for the sluice gates. Even they look like the arms of a great throne. We stood about with mouths open for a while, and then headed off back to base.
When home we were invited to a whist drive at the social club, we declined the kind invitation. Instead Anne played ‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire’, whilst I read a little.
A better day was had by us both. Well the sun HAS got its hat on.
Wednesday 17th January 2007.
Today is Dobey Day! For what happens on Dobey day please see 8th January.
My first job is to get two tokens for the washing machines. Simple enough task you would think. I attend the reception, where I am told that the tokens have not been emptied from the machines. So there are no tokens available. I ask when they will be available, Jason the receptionist says he will get hold of a cleaner and have them bring the tokens to reception, Could be an hour or two. Oh bugger!
I have to return to Anne who I know is ‘chomping at the bit’, wanting to get on, and who can blame her, the sun is shining and there is a slight breeze, ideal washing conditions.
I decide to seek out a cleaner, this may speed the process along. I cycle to the top of the site and ask a lady coming out of the toilets there, if she has seen any cleaners? ‘No’, she says but she points to a caravan where they live. I knock on the caravan door and a nice bloke called Del appears. I explain the situation. He says that he doesn’t have the keys, but if I want to pick them up from reception he will get the tokens from the machine.
I return to Jason, who gets annoyed with me! ‘You should not have knocked on Del’s door!’
‘He was alright about it’
‘He was being polite’
‘Well he says to give me the keys for the machines and he will give me the tokens to bring to you!’
‘I can’t do that, we have loads of tokens go missing!’
I have no idea how I managed to keep my temper, it may be that I was making allowances for the fact that Jason only has one leg!
I say with more than a little terseness, ‘Give me the keys! You can trust me!’
He gives me the keys, but he insists that Del, bring the tokens to reception.
I cycle back up the hill to the lavadores, (laundry) and again knock on Del’s door.
He is very helpful, he is about to give me all the tokens when I say that Jason says, he should take them to the reception. He then gives me the two tokens I wanted and says go pay Jason.
This I do, but what a palaver?
We manage our dobey day without anymore conflict.
The rest of the day involves me getting in Anne’s way, going to Lidl and me reading the paper. We have a Lidl lasagne for dinner.
The day ends.
Thursday 18th January 2007.
Today we are going out on our bicycles to Los Montesinos, it is a village about five miles away on a quiet road. The weather forecast is good 22 C, the sun is shining it is another lovely day.
The weather forecast is good for the weekend, but is set to change to cooler on Sunday, with snow in the north and on hills above 900 metres
Since Liz and Stu have left, a few people have approached us with tips and directions on how to get to places without walking alongside the main roads, which is really nice. We are given a hand drawn map by a couple with walking routes to San Miguel and a place called Villamartin. We have been told that there are a couple of internet cafés at Montesinos. We have been there before on our way back from the beach at Guardamar and stopped for a drink.
So we get togged up, Anne looks a picture, bless her, I have made her wear a fluorescent top and she puts on the cycle helmet I don’t particularly like wearing. She looks like one of those poor people who have a problem staying up right and have to wear protective clothing because they are always falling over. I take enough stuff in my rucksack to cover almost every eventuality, including heart surgery. We set off.
I must say Anne who has been practicing around the camp site since our arrival, does look proficient on her cycle. She cycles ahead of me and gets up to a fair old speed. She looks steady and keeps a good line to the right of the white line that delineates the main road from the side road. That is until she decides to change gear, then Anne seems to veer into the centre of the carriageway. ‘Anne just keep to the right of the white line!’
‘ I’m changing gear!’
‘The car that will be using you as a trophy on it’s bonnet, won’t be interested in whether you are changing gear!’
We make good progress and stop a couple of times along the way, I am really proud of Anne as I know it is not a natural pursuit for her.
Los Montesinos, isn’t really a place you would write home about and I suppose if it hadn’t have been the most accessible place to get to by cycle we would not have been visiting it, but hey, the sun is shining and we are having a nice time. We find the internet place, where we manage to upload the story so far, but are unable to view all of the messages we have received. So we haven’t seen the photos sent by my sister or the pictures of our friend’s new born baby in Athens. |
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