KAREN AND RAYS TRAVELS: 308 Fuengirola and Benidorm, Spain.

8th to the 14th September 2018 Miles Today 229 Total miles 2,059
We awoke early to lots of car hooting in the street outside. This was around 6:30 am. We decided to make a quick break for it and packed up ion record time. We loaded Wallace up and went to the restaurand for coffee and to check out. It turned out that there was a wedding about to take place and the bride and groom were ready along with all the guests. It was still 7am. It did explain the hooting though. It is one of the things they do here.

7am and all ready to go.

Having made up ground yesterday, and with our early start, we were able to get to the port and sail a day earlier than we originally planned.

It's been a while since we have seen the Sun this low in the morning.

A 155 mile dash to the port found the area almost empty. We were worried that the queue would be 2 miles long like it was when we arrived in Morocco. Customs and passport control were a breeze, even if we did have to show our passports 3 times.
We were soon on the boat and decided to get some light refreshments for the trip only to be told that the boat did not take Morrocan Dirhams and all our spare Euro's were in the bike, locked up on the boat deck.
We got the map out and awaited for the nightmare of Morocco to leave us behind. The boat sailed at 1pm and we looked for a place to spend the night and saw Fuengirola. A holiday resort that Karen had been to previously but not me.

Civilisation finally. The lower end of Gibraltar. I worked here as a young Sapper many years ago.

We got off the boat and just drove straight onto the dual carriageway out of Algiceries. After a short ride, we stopped for coffee and using our now live data from our phones, we booked a hotel called Villa Laredo. After 74 miles in a sane country we arrived at Fuengirola. The hotel was tacky but adequate.

After booking in we had a couple of beers and hit the deck. We are such party animals and I think there was a large measure of relief from escaping Morocco. All in all Morocco had been disappointing for us. It was not all the fault of the country, the electronics failing did not help and now we were back in Spain the sat nav had no map, having been lost during the reset. All our navigation was now going to be by map.

9th September 2018. Miles Today 0 Total miles 2,059
We awoke late and went down to reception to see if we could keep the room for another night. They agreed so we slowed down and in the afternoon went for a walk along the sea front. We ended up in a bar that was fairly crowded. Then it rained - very hard. We were just under the canopy that was marginally better than a sieve but the table in front of us was in the open and the people on it started to get drenched. We invited them to sit with us and we made friends with a delightful couple by the names of Wayne and Nia Jones from near Colwyn Bay in North Wales. We sat out the storm and we made two very nice friends. We exchanged details and I am sure we will be seeing each other again.

When it rains here, it is biblical.

After the rain, the sun came out again and the Costa del Golf 's usual sunshine was restored.

View from the hotel steps about an hour after the rain.

10th September 2018 Miles Today 226 Total miles 2,285.
A long boring motorway ride today. We had decided to head to Benidorm so we had some ground to make up. Our intention was to spend 6 nights there and have a long rest. This was possible as we had cut short the Moroccan part of the trip by the same amount. We ended up at a place called Lorca and booked into a hotel. It was a difficult journey as I had decided it would be a good idea to leave the map in the pub the night before and we were guessing our way there.

11th September 2018 Miles today 123 Total miles 2,408.
A bit of a groundhog day today. Well this morning at least. A mad dash to this place, Benidorm. A place I had never been but Karen had about 34 years ago. She claims it has got a bit bigger since !!!