It's the people you meet who make up a big part of this motorhoming life. For me there is genuine value in meeting a diverse range of fellow travellers, sharing stories and then moving on. Sometimes a contact is kept but for most a cheery wave with "I'll see you sometime then", suffices.
This evening it was 'Scotty' a keen cyclist & Kite surfer and former mechanic who has kept his well used/loved 25yr old modified Swift Kontiki moho ticking along nicely.
Earlier I bumped into Polish born UK citizen plus wife in their superbly converted 7.5ton Daf truck complete with hydraulic fold down tailgate/veranda, accessed no less, by double glazed sliding door. Very swish. He had done all the work himself and was now heading back to the UK to earn some more money as an HGV driver. They are parked just across from me, hidden as I am among bamboo groves on a rare bit of un-developed beach just west of 'Almerimar'.
This evening it was 'Scotty' a keen cyclist & Kite surfer and former mechanic who has kept his well used/loved 25yr old modified Swift Kontiki moho ticking along nicely.
Earlier I bumped into Polish born UK citizen plus wife in their superbly converted 7.5ton Daf truck complete with hydraulic fold down tailgate/veranda, accessed no less, by double glazed sliding door. Very swish. He had done all the work himself and was now heading back to the UK to earn some more money as an HGV driver. They are parked just across from me, hidden as I am among bamboo groves on a rare bit of un-developed beach just west of 'Almerimar'.
This, apart from the tourist developed coastal strip, is plastic land; where a large proportion of your fresh veggies come from. Mile upon square mile of plastic greenhouses/growing sheds full of every green, red, orange & purple vegetable you can think of. It is plastic plastic everywhere. And this is what it is all grown in. The plastic wrapping you buy it in is just the tail end of your veggies birth to death relationship with plastic. As I top a rise and see the extent of the glistening plastic ocean in every direction my mind boggles and has difficulty processing the image. The sensation is I'm driving my moho in the middle of a vast undulating ocean but here I actually am, on a narrow gorge like road flanked either side by tall colourlessly beige plastic growing sheds which incidentally, are full of workers, mostly African, who also haphazardly walk or cycle along the road in and out of the various smaller narrower roads equally straight, equally long and equally flanked by huge plastic growing sheds. Then you meet a large lorry! I draw so close in to the side my wing mirror is pushed hard up against the flexible plastic side of a growing shed. Lorry thunders by, hardly slowing, with only millimetres clearance. Phew!
I've travelled through these 'plastic plains' twice now purely for the gobsmackingly other world experience. Suffice to say I encountered no other moho'er until I emerged onto the manicured touristy coastal strip. The sad bit is, well; lets just say that as well as the usual plastic litter detritus surrounding my little spot here among the bamboo groves there is also a large fly tip load of old/used growing shed plastic netting and sheeting. Dumped, illegally and 25metres from waves breaking upon the beach. If you go inland a bit its even worse, its unavoidable and everywhere. Steve has a sad face.
Recently I was at 'Colladus beach'. A favourite place of mine right at the tip of the narrow, 19k 'La Manga' strip. This year a difference though. I was there with company. My good friends Win & Lenny in their Rapido Moho. The weather was superb, so was Wins cooking, such a treat. I think 'Colladus beach' is now firmly on their favourite list too. A really relaxing few days. While there I also caught up with my Irish friends Mark & Naomi who were telling me of their relief at, fingers crossed & touch wood, finally being able within the next couple of weeks to move into their swanky new (and very very big) house/Riverside villa, c/w boat.
Earlier, and while travelling with Win & Lenny we met Manny, a determined 29yr old female German student who was travelling solo in her hastily converted X theatre production make up van. I think there was a mixture of relationship end and recent loss of well loved grandmother behind her brave adventure. As she proudly showed us her self modified van she poignantly explained how she had adapted and incorporated various pieces of her grandmothers furniture. We concluded she was also a little low on funds and food as our invite for her to join us for a meal was very quickly and eagerly accepted. She ate an awful lot that evening did Manny.
For Tanya it is the same, meeting other dogs I mean, which we are always doing. It was quite special while travelling with Win & Lenny and their Shitzu, Buster, to see the pair of them following each other in and out of our two vans with, I have to add, Tanya at times doing her usual and taking over Busters travelling bed.
Well. Congratulations Steve: you got that curried chicken and veg Paella spot on. And what about that big square of Mercradona's (Spanish s/mkt) special choc chip cake with cream on top.
"Am I eating OK?" Richard asked when I phoned him earlier.
Let's put it this way. I've got a job to move just now what with the Paella and cake but I'm going to have to shortly as there is a pile of washing up to do. Incidentally; I hav'nt weighed myself since I left Salisbury but I think not much has changed as the new trousers and new belt holes are still quite happily accommodating my new post cancer body shape.
Two retired brothers (Twins I think) plus their Jaguar and caravan parked up behind me tonight. Nice guys who've been travelling all over Europe for many years both in Moho's and now caravans. Unusual though to get a caravan wild camping. Tuggers, as they are called, normally inhabit campsites only. It's nice though to have their company, even though we all very much keep ourselves to ourselves, here at this lovely spot just off the fantastic N340 coastal road to Malaga.
Where we are parked is one of the loops of old N340 that have been left when they re-did the road. There are lots of them, many giving lovely scenic wild camping spots. Especially now the A7 'Route Mediterranian' takes most of the traffic. On this mornings doggy walk we stood on one of the the original narrow bridges across a deep gorge. As I looked up there was the next generation of road and bridge, slightly wider but more modern in that it could accommodate two narrow lanes of traffic. Then to my right and a little further down the gorge was steeply curving bridge number 3 on its concrete stilts and consisting of two wide traffic lanes. That's todays N340.
But towering above all and rumbling away as traffic rolls across it is Bridge number 4. The concrete stilts are enormous and take traffic straight from one mountainside tunnel to another. No following the contours for the ultra modern dual carriageway A7 'Route Mediterranian' it is just tunnel, viaduct, tunnel, viaduct all the way. I prefer the slower, stunningly scenic cliff hugging, N340 but having also travelled on the A7 I give it five stars too as an engineering wonder with also, when not in a tunnel, fantastic views. Four generations of road three of which are still in regular use. That's the EU.
"Am I eating OK?" Richard asked when I phoned him earlier.
Let's put it this way. I've got a job to move just now what with the Paella and cake but I'm going to have to shortly as there is a pile of washing up to do. Incidentally; I hav'nt weighed myself since I left Salisbury but I think not much has changed as the new trousers and new belt holes are still quite happily accommodating my new post cancer body shape.
Two retired brothers (Twins I think) plus their Jaguar and caravan parked up behind me tonight. Nice guys who've been travelling all over Europe for many years both in Moho's and now caravans. Unusual though to get a caravan wild camping. Tuggers, as they are called, normally inhabit campsites only. It's nice though to have their company, even though we all very much keep ourselves to ourselves, here at this lovely spot just off the fantastic N340 coastal road to Malaga.
Where we are parked is one of the loops of old N340 that have been left when they re-did the road. There are lots of them, many giving lovely scenic wild camping spots. Especially now the A7 'Route Mediterranian' takes most of the traffic. On this mornings doggy walk we stood on one of the the original narrow bridges across a deep gorge. As I looked up there was the next generation of road and bridge, slightly wider but more modern in that it could accommodate two narrow lanes of traffic. Then to my right and a little further down the gorge was steeply curving bridge number 3 on its concrete stilts and consisting of two wide traffic lanes. That's todays N340.
But towering above all and rumbling away as traffic rolls across it is Bridge number 4. The concrete stilts are enormous and take traffic straight from one mountainside tunnel to another. No following the contours for the ultra modern dual carriageway A7 'Route Mediterranian' it is just tunnel, viaduct, tunnel, viaduct all the way. I prefer the slower, stunningly scenic cliff hugging, N340 but having also travelled on the A7 I give it five stars too as an engineering wonder with also, when not in a tunnel, fantastic views. Four generations of road three of which are still in regular use. That's the EU.
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