Blah blah de Santa is now finally finished, I hope, and we’re on the road 🛣️ to see some new locations for both of us and perhaps to revisit some old locations for me.
Tippi’s decided that she’d like to see a bit more of the interior. The seaside is lovely too, but she’s heard about the rivers, lakes and mountains from us humans for a while now. Our current location is the lake in the above picture and it rained an absolute storm last night, which has led to our not leaving today (not that we mind at all) due to the mud getting in and out of the campervan parking area we’re in. (One van nearly had to just park where they were in the mud)
We were probably going to stay today anyway. This just made up our minds early.
So we set off for a morning walk around the lake to a very cool little island that would be lovely to camp on overnight if I had a tent and wet gear to swim over etc. I might have to seriously think about getting a hammock though. The perfect hammock positions kept on presenting themselves to me 🤔
‘We’ did however make the decision not to walk the whole 25km around the lake. And I’m going to use the excuse that Tippi’s too old for such a long walk 🤐, I’m still a spring chicken 🐔🍗🍗 of course.
Only an hour and a half later, we returned to the van for a well earned lunch/dinner but Tippi’s irresponsible TeePee driver and food wrangler has reached the limit of his culinary expertise with the ingredients at hand. Must remember to stop for fresh veg and maybe some meat 🍖 (sorry vegetarians) (no, not really).
The rest of the day involved looking for the bottle opener I apparently didn’t bring 😕 for the (almost) cheapest bottle of palatable wine from Lidl. It might have been nice to have that with ‘second lunch‘. Qué Sera Sera.
Moving on, we went to the Thermal baths at Baño Aguas Termales and Tippi was VERY disappointed that she wasn’t allowed in. On the plus side of that equation though, she didn’t actually know what she was missing. AND… the baths left her human a bit smelly, to be honest. While it was great to have a warm bath (of sorts) it did make me think I smelled way worse than when I got into the thermal baths. Some people might think otherwise. You know who you are…
After we left, Tippi’s human bathed again at the next lake (Veñeula). Where we met Läkie.
Two days later and we’re still waiting for the sanctuary people to come pick her up. I’m seriously not all that confident they know what they’re even doing. Or maybe it’s that they’re too busy with all of the dogs they have to deal with. At least she’s been fed these last days, and we’ve all enjoyed the lake.
I did have to leave Läkie behind, but watching her for these few days, I’m pretty confident she knows how to train the humans around her. As skinny as she is, she’s getting at least a third of the people who come here to feed her something. We will definitely visit again soon.
Moving on means… civilization. Ugh! Quick stop at Lidl to top up on the basics and on to try find somewhere nice for the next night. Not going into detail, we tried three different spots in Marbella and they were all SHIT! Sooo many people, so much rubbish, dirty humans, police moving us on before the van was even parked etc etc. We decided to drive inland a bit.
Istán is a wee gem.
We got here a bit late so didn’t get to recce the place too well, apart from taking a five metre van where only small cars should go. I could tell by the local girl’s face as she had to get out of my way I’d made a boo-boo. But we parked up close to the football stadium (with a climbing wall!) and just below the 4* hotel 🏨 Same views, great food, better company and MUCH better prices.
We were thinking of moving on in the morning, but on our morning walk (away from the town) we stumbled on the gem part of this little adventure.
So needless to say, then moved the van a little closer and filled up on all the fresh water the TeePee can carry. Then we went back and did a basic wash of clothes too. Obviously not using any soaps etc.
///bandstand.orchestra.psyching
Now the van is parked up but hiding the washing from view of passing 4* guests, getting it dry in the already very hot sun.
This post is long enough…