KAREN AND RAYS TRAVELS: 126 Conil De La Frontera and Cadiz

Wednesday 24th Oct
Rain and storms were forecast all day today. The forecast was correct. The overnight rain was not too bad but the day was horrible. Our pitch had turned into a bog. It was nothing like as bad as it was going to get. It rained hard on and off all day and we just stayed in the tent and hid from it. We discovered that the all singing and dancing replaced tent was leaking badly. I fired off an e-mail to the manufacturers in Australia telling them of my problems with the two tents and inviting them to comment. (at the time of writing no reply had been received)
We had about 30mm of rain in all that day.

Thursday 25th Oct
Todays forecast was for even worse rain. Again it was correct. It started heavy and by 12 O'clock we had to abandon our pitch and find another made up of gravel. We moved during a lessening of the rain (it did not stop) and with the tent now on gravel all we needed to worry about was the rivers under the groundsheets. The tent was covered in mud. We washed the groundsheets by laying them in the road and letting the rain/river do the cleaning - it worked.
We discovered another leak in the tent. Nice - not. Not as bad as the first though. We decided that we needed to get out so we drove into Conil De La Frontera, about 2 km South and decided to do some shopping first. We got to the Mercadona as the rain was very very heavy. We parked almost outside and still got soaked running to the door. About 10 minutes later whislt we were aimlessly towing an unwilling trolley around the store we heard a suddden 'WHOOOSH !', all the shoppers and staff looked up and the shop windows looked as though we were stood outside a glass carwash. Then suddenly the roof drainage was overcome and water just flooded into the shop through the tiles and down the light fittings. In all about 4 places in the store were flooded. We helped where possibe to move stock out of the way but it stopped as quickly as it started. The tannoys started to go off, obviously calling for the mobile squeegy things which the staff came out on singing Weeeeeee! as they rounded up the flooded water. It was surreal but funny at the same time. There was no panic whatsoever and business did not stop at all. I couldn't see that happening in the UK.
Anyway, then we drove to the old town and after parking up Gromit, went to the same beach as we were at 2 days ago.

I can only imagine the Spaniards were a lot lot shorter then !

The whole place was flooded to about 6". Fortunately the restaurant was not but the waiter made us laugh when he came up to our table mimicking swimming to get to us.

The beach road during a lull in the rain

After dinner, with it still raining unbelievably hard, we went back to see if we were flooded. Fortunately not. I had strategically placed a large cereal bowl in the tent and it was just to the brim.

My fiendishly clever anti flood mechanism

Then the rain stopped. As though someone had thrown a switch and the moon came out !
According to the reports, we had about 90mm (yes ninety) of rain in all that day.

Friday 26th Oct
With the weather finally broken we set about trying to dry everything out. It was not wet but with 2 days of 100% humidity it was all very damp.
We set up our Chinese laundry on the fence surrounding the campsite. Nobody seemed to bothered about it. It they were I would have advised them where to go,

Saturday 27th Oct
With the Sun shining and hardly a cloud in the sky we decided to spend the day in Cadiz. On the way there we needed to do some shopping. I wanted 2 new tyres for the trailer. "no Sir, not till Monday" was the best translation for that. We had decided to leave for the direction of La Manga on Monday so that was no use. I also wanted some seam glue for our new and expensive tent so we drove to the Decathlon. Again, no way Jose. I settled for some Aquaseal that is used to repair divers suits.
After that it was a short drive into Cadiz.
We spent the next hour trying to find somewhere to park without luck and just as we had given up and headed for home we saw someone pullout in front of us directly outside the cathedral which was also next to the town square. Nice.

The cathedral also known as Gromit's parking place

We went a roundabout route to the dock area where we saw the fountains dancing to music. Not quite as good as Caesars Palace (in fact, the only connection was the water and the music) but it was pretty never the less. There were many cruise ships in and the one next to us was a Fred Olsen one, Black Watch. Makes you proud doesn't it. We even had a beer to celebrate - we needed an excuse - not.

Ceasars palace it isn't, Black Watch in the background

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After that we meandered back toward Gromit and came across the main Square. There was some sort of show in the setup phase with many large animated models being tested.

Er.. a bird

Sleeping giant. Female kind. Best not wake her up.

And the biggest rocking horse since Troy

We asked what time the show was on and decided to wait the 3 hours till 8:30. We killed time with a long walk along the sea wall overlooking the Atlantic and at about 7:30, after watching the Sun disappear, we went back to the square and sat outside a bar to watch the show.

Bloody kids. Whats wrong with graffiti and smashing car windows. Actually a Spanish version of our 'free runners'.

Karen's sunset.

By the time the show started there was no room for anyone to move. The place was packed and our bar seats were as good as useless except for ordering beer. The show obviously had some theme and the dialogue was incomprehensible (even for the Spaniards I would imagine) but it was very good despite.