Malaga Beach area autocaravanas at first sight has little going for it. It's a fenced square of gravel with about 60 roped-off parking bays, each long enough to accommodate a big motorhome and just wide enough for owners to squeeze a small table and a couple of chairs beside it. Access is off a slip road of the busy dual carriageway that connects nearby Malaga to the coastal town to the east.
So why do we prefer this place to the campsite we were on previously? Firstly it's designed for motorhomes and somewhat counter-intuitively its more utilitarian aspects actually make it more amenable. If you are after a personal space that you can prettify into a home from home in the sun, then point your giant satellite dish towards the Bundersrepublik or Blighty in the sky, then you are going to head for the kind of camp site we have just run away from. The place was weirdly territorial and exuded a fake bonhomie that was hard to bear.
Here is simpler, more laid-back, and on a practical note, because it is designed for motorhomes the service point is easily accessible and well designed. The staff are friendly, it's well looked after, and best of all right next to the beach and a coastal footpath that runs for miles in both directions.
After weeks of mixed weather, as we prepare to fly home it has become more settled, warm days, clear blue sky, spectacular sunsets and dusty pink dawns.
into the town of Ricón de la Vitoria, a promenade connecting them, running alongside a beach dotted with chiringuitos.
Out of season they are closed weekdays, however on Saturday and Sunday they do a brisk trade as local Spanish families crowd into them for their weekly fix of grilled fish and gossip. It's a heartwarming sight and shows that these coastal communities are more than mere resort towns. When we return in January we have promised ourselves a meal out at one of them.
Out of season they are closed weekdays, however on Saturday and Sunday they do a brisk trade as local Spanish families crowd into them for their weekly fix of grilled fish and gossip. It's a heartwarming sight and shows that these coastal communities are more than mere resort towns. When we return in January we have promised ourselves a meal out at one of them.
La Cala del Moral itself is a pleasant place. I like the way even ordinary Spanish towns make an effort to look attractive. The modern water feature outside the town hall reflects a Moorish influence. The public spaces were well maintained and used as a communal meeting place
The grid of streets behind the promenade has a couple of small supermarkets. The Coviran particularly has excellent vegetable and butchery counters. More or less next door is a craft bakery. Because it's coming up Christmas as well fresh bread the counter was piled with home-made Polvorón. These are Andalucian seasonal sweets. They come wrapped individually, about the size of a macaroon, but nothing like them in taste or texture. They are very crumbly, dry on the tongue with a texture Greek halvah. Typical flavours are sesame or almond, but spiced with cinnamon or sweetened by coconut. We bought a selection from Mercadona a few days ago - we enjoyed them. However, the Polvorón we bought from the craft bakery were in another league; they were truly delicious. When we investigated further we discovered the small town of Estapa near Sevilla is where they originated, and as we suspected their origin is Arabic; similar products can be found in Lebanon and Turkey.
To use Gill's term, endishness is setting in. Slowly we are eating the contents of the fridge. As departure looms a kind of gentle melancholia envelopes you knowing that discovering new places and tastes everyday will end in a day or two. Soon we will be enmeshed by the familiar. However after 75 days on the road it is difficult to maintain energy and motivation.
Travel above all else is an act of will, eventually your willpower wanes; we need a break, a blast of the mundane to recharge our enthusiasm. We have met other long term travellers who take a winter let or even do house-sitting in order to take time off the road. It's a good solution, but flying home gives us the opportunity to catch-up with the family and check the house. Absence does make the heart grow fonder; when we lived in Buxton all the time I never saw it as home really, just somewhere we happened to live. Alternating between moho and house has increased my sense belonging, both to the town, our neighbourhood and house.
Travel above all else is an act of will, eventually your willpower wanes; we need a break, a blast of the mundane to recharge our enthusiasm. We have met other long term travellers who take a winter let or even do house-sitting in order to take time off the road. It's a good solution, but flying home gives us the opportunity to catch-up with the family and check the house. Absence does make the heart grow fonder; when we lived in Buxton all the time I never saw it as home really, just somewhere we happened to live. Alternating between moho and house has increased my sense belonging, both to the town, our neighbourhood and house.
Even so, we are busy making plans for our journey in January, researching new places to stay on Campercontacts. If weather permits we might visit central Spain - Toledo, Avila and Segovia - all new territory. We would be close to Madrid too, perhaps visiting it by train from Toledo. These days I am not quite so interested in Art History, but I don't think anyone wholly escapes the clutches of their undergraduate studies. I do have to get to the Prado, I need to see the Goyas and Velasquez, of course Guernica is in Madrid too, the greatest painting of the twentieth century in my view. We shall see, it's not quite a plan, more a nagging aspiration.
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