Other end of the scale.

Kenneth

We left Elaine’s with a bag full of muffins and a brand new farm to head to. Was weird how it happened that we ended up in this farm, well not weird more coincidental. Over breakfast we had spoke about going to Portugal, see what all the hype was about and we hadn’t received much luck from the other wwoofing hosts we had emailed. So Portugal was next, I couldn’t wait to get on the road, but as I was about to pack my iPad away I received a email from a guy called Ken, he was keen for us to come work at his farm for a week or so. His house is just below the Sierra Nevada in a tiny little town called Torvizcon, some people may be more familiar with the town Orgiva as its a bit more well known. They are in driving distance. So we arranged a time and place to meet and headed to our meeting point. We had to stay a night in the van and found this Brazilian all you can eat for €10. We had gotten accustom to huge meals at Elaine’s so were all pretty hungry. This all you could eat was a good one. Chips, rice, sauces and salad all were on tap along with lamb, chicken, beef, sausage, pork, and grilled pineapple all served by a man and his sword. We tried our best but meat comas were starting to kick in but we did have a taste of them all. But we left well fed to head onto Kens house the next day.
We arrived at Torvizcon at 1pm and met both Ken and his friend Justin. Ill let you know a little about our new friend Kenneth. He spends his winter in Torvizcon and spends his summers in Ireland busking at festivals and in Gorway. His act is the wonky bike. A wonky bike is a bike where the handlebars go the other way to the wheel. You turn left with the handlebars and the wheel turns right. I can hardly ride a normal bike let alone an expert level bike. This is where he met his friend Justin who is balloon artist. He told me ‘if a person only wants me to make them a sword, then they get a sword and a shield’ which i think is something i’m going to take and use in my personal life.
So onward we went on the 4km dirt track drive to Kens place. Honestly, I didn’t think we were gunna make it back out. Treacherous is a fitting word. We didn’t get stuck until the last little hurdle which was the drive into his farm, fortunately we got Roy up the hill and parked. Ironically our first job was to fix the track coming into his drive as lots of people have struggled getting in. I was surprised with our home for the week. Running water from a stream which gets tripled filtered, a pedal powered washing machine and an outside dunny with a view of the mountains. Being January and 900metres above sea level it was baltic in the evenings. One day it even lightly snowed. There is nothing more liberating than sitting on the roofless dunny with it snowing around you. The house had been built 11years ago by Ken and his two friends mainly out of tyres which they had highly compacted with sand. They had to wheelbarrow all this sand up a huge hill and individually sledgehammer sand into the tyres. Fair play to them, i had to push a few wheelbarrows up that hill and I was blowing at the top. Luckily mine and matts job began at the bottom of the hill and Tim was at the top with Justin. Tim was making a new vegetable patch with Justin, Justin was doing a permaculture study and wanted to do something physical to go into his work. Me and Matt were collecting big flat rocks to make the new drive. We spent a couple of days galavanting up and down a dried up river collecting big rocks to use. We then used the hoe to scrape back the dirt and organic matter. Yes a hoe. It’s hilarious. We then started concreting the stones where we had decided they should live in our road. Mixing up was done in a wheelbarrow and any one who knows what its like to mix up in a wheelbarrow knows that it is a pain in the ass. But after 4days graft we had it finished. Justin had left mid way so Tim was back with us building our road. We all stood back folded our arms and looked at our hard work. By this time it was Saturday and we had our weekend off! Saturday was spent mainly fixing our wifi addiction and mindlessly scrolling through Facebook. Sunday however was a day we had all been waiting for. Ken had told us about a party which was on in Orgiva, so we decided to go. We hadn’t spoke to anyone in nearly a week. Now this party was like nothing I had ever been to before. Basically, it was a plot of land owned by 3 people and if you asked politely enough they let you stay in your van or whatever you have. They had put on a little shindig with a band, which I can’t remember the name of, but there was a violinist, a man playing the double base and a accordion. Was great fun watching them as they weren’t as tight as bands I’ve seen previously and always had 3minute interval between songs, but I did hear the next day they only charge €30 so it was definitely worth it. Yeh it was strange. A load of expats just getting together and having a great time, which doesn’t sound strange but we were out of place completely. We met a guy called Jules who was from Bodmin! The first Cornish man we had met. He was with his daughter and lady friend and were living in a van equipped with sky TV and a Playstation 2. Nice setup, he even had a separate caravan which he kindly offered to us to sleep in which we gracefully accepted. Tim was sick lol.
Matt had mentioned a guy he had met in Pai (Thailand) called Barry who lived in the Granada region. Fate had come into play and as I returned from the loo, there he was talking to Matt. He was exactly how I imagined him. A great guy and really nice to talk to. How strange is that though, just sat in a cafe using the wifi and we meet him. Was a good day. We then headed back to Kens to let our mild hangovers die down. Tuesday we started work again. He had an outside sink which he wanted to level out and lay some marble down. Ken in his middle-age was still a bit hungover so we took the reigns on this one. We didn’t get to finish it unfortunately as we wanted to leave but we got the hard part done. I know he’ll probably never read this but I wanna say thank you to Ken. He taught us lots about sustainable living, permaculture and being free from it all. Thursday was our leaving day and it was also market day in Orgiva so we went in with Ken to have a look round. Orgiva is such a cool place, full of hippies and expats just living in vans and chilling out in a cheap quiet town. We had some cheeky tapas with Ken, said our goodbyes and headed to Tarifa.

Portugal!

We spent a few days in Tarifa with our new friend Barbara who kindly looked after us for a few days with beds, freshly washed clothes and great food. We also had a really good night out in Tarifa and barbs treated us to a yoga session she had designed herself. Tarifa is a wicked place with really cool chilled people. So thanks for that barbs, we had a lovely few days. We are now in Portugal and have been dotting round the algarve which is beautiful. Portimaò, Lagos and Salmena is where we have spent most of our time. It was raining when we first arrived which puts a weird mood on things but we’ve just had a lovely couple of days which we have spent on the beach. I don’t like living in a van skint when it’s raining. Walking around aimlessly does get a bit old sometimes and as much as I love Roy spending a whole day inside him starts to get boring.
Something which I have to say about Portugal which has baffled me a little is the system they use for paying their road taxes. From what I can understand they basically get given a tag to pay e-tolls along the 4main roads in Portugal. We came on in the A22 and being my normal stupid self I chose to drive straight past the big sign saying foreigners and then get overly confused as I drove though the big cameras along the road and the prices of each toll. Thankfully there is another road called the N125 which avoids the big road. I read online that the post office will issue a temporary tag so we spent a good half hour walking round Portimaò looking for the post office only to find out it doesn’t sell them to non-Portuguese cards so I expect a small bill when we get home, but now I know that when we move further north we need to get a ticket otherwise we will just be making a massive account with the Portuguese road officials. Hopefully it won’t be to much. We don’t really give a toss either.
Portugal has much more English speaking people than Spain which is good obviously for the ease of it but isn’t as interesting. I was just getting a very basic grasp on Spanish now I’m going to lose it all. It has its similarities but many words are different. Beer and coffee are the same which is ideal and also hello(ola). Ciao is a universal word for goodbye which is useful. Overall the past few days in Portugal have been really interesting and very relaxed. We are now sat in a coffee shop in Sagres eagerly awaiting the carnival which is on tomorrow. We have just been watching the expert body boarders in the sea and are now debating what we are gunna do. The rain has now passed, hopefully for the rest of the trip so practicing our circus skills on the beach may be our next activity.

Hope everyone is well at home and I know you all eagerly wait for my updates so I’m sorry this one took a little longer than usual and I will try to keep it updated.

Sorry about the lack of pictures too. I’m working on getting better.

Miss and love you all

Oh and happy valentines day xxxx

Our first week wwoofing

The lovely Elaine

Okay, as this is our first week participating in the wwoofing scheme ill do a whole weeks blog in one edition as it just seems fitting.

We signed up to do some wwoofing in the first week we were here. As young men travelling with very little funds it seemed perfect. You work 6hours a day, 5 days a week for your accommodation and food. Why would you never want to have a go. We emailed a few places when we were in aguadulce but to no success. When we got back into Tarifa I looked into ones in the Seville province which was a great place to look because we found the place are at now. We emailed back and forth with Elaine very easily and even with the problems with Roy we managed to make it here. When you first start something like this you don’t really have any idea what to expect. Will they over-work you? Will the food be shit? Will you have to share a double bed with your friend? All questions we had answered as soon as we made it to the farm. Greeted and shown to our rooms and around the farm. We have two separate beds, en-suite bathroom with power shower and a heater. I’ve never been so excited to see a heater before, or a duvet. Duvets are far far better than a sleeping bag and I’m so happy we get to embrace the softness and warmth of one. We had a vast DVD collection to choose from. We have watched Airplane, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy and The Lord of the Rings trilogy, among many more.
Our standard daily routine is set out as follows. Breakfast at 9am, work from 10-1. We then get our own little mini siesta for an hour whilst we have lunch, back grafting at 2 until 5 then the day is ours to do what we wish, until we are called for dinner which is around 7.30. It’s nice being back in some sort of routine. Now I hope you don’t mind the next part because I want to list the things we have done and I know people hate lists and bla bla bla. But here it goes, we have scraped, filled and painted an exterior wall. Raked the old leaves from under the fig tree, and trimmed the palm trees. Trimming palm trees sounds like a simple chore, but they’re spikey devils and caught us both a few times and left our fingers stinging for the rest of the day. The lawn needed raking and a trench was dug to separate two parts of the garden. This was because the smaller part of the garden i had raked was going to be gravelled so it just made a simple divide. Most of the days were full by us traipsing back and forth like a fiddlers elbow with wheelbarrows full of chino (gravel). The first delivery was about 8-9 tonnes and there were two deliveries. So 16 tonnes in total. Heavyweight!! We’ve also done some painting, grouting and weeding. Another pretty gross day was when the drains clogged due to previous customers flushing baby wipes down a system that is renowned for clogging. So my new friend Jon got his long declogging pipe and with no gloves. Flushed the system, with no gloves. I will repeat it for the 3rd time WITH NO GLOVES. Jon is a rude boy that’s all I know.

So that’s basically been our week wheelbarrowing chino up and down the garden, working through the DVD collection and eating the most delicious home cooked meals wonderfully prepared by our host Elaine. Elaine has been a complete dear to us. Stuffing us with cakes, muffins and biscuits throughout the week as well as our 3 meals a day. Washing our clothes, just to let you mothers know I think we all miss being looked after and Elaine has looked after your boys well. We all have podgy stomachs and big smiles, I feel like I’m going into hibernation for the winter. I have had a brilliant time working and living here. Elaine has welcomed us and gone over and beyond our expectation of what wwoofing was going to be. Don’t really want to leave if I’m honest but I really do want to thank Elaine. You’re a gem.

We are now getting set to leave. We have contacted countless farms hoping for a reply but now is the season for wwoofers and everywhere seems to be full. If not we go back to our lives of scrambled egg salads and vegetable rice. Not that I’m complaining. I feel completely fresh and ready to see what’s next. Fingers crossed we get a new mother for the week if not we will just see.

Love to everyone at home and again a big thank you to Elaine.

Jack xxx

Leroy’s trip to hospital.

We left Tarifa without a plan. The finca up in Seville has told us we can go this weekend and that was our next destination. Being Tuesday we had some time to kill. We drove up to a place called ‘San Jose de Ville’ as it was in the middle of Tarifa and Seville. Very small town with a lot of roadworks and not many places for a van to park overnight. We read a sign which pointed us to a castle (castillo) and we followed the signs there. We ended up on a long dirt track which passed multiple farms. We found said castle and it wasn’t much. Closed for one so couldn’t even get close. We were starving as usual, so we made our favourite lunch time meal, scrambled eggs and salad. It’s really not that bad when you mix it all together, but nutrition trumps taste on this trip. We still wanted to do a little workout and this wasn’t the place. So we used our sat-nav (which is either our saviour or our complete downfall) and headed towards a lake which wasn’t to far away. We tried a few roads and there wasn’t any place we felt okay for us to pull up in. In the end we headed down a little road and found an AMAZING perch. A rocky road that headed right down to this perfectly still and silent lake. It was huge and surrounded by lush bright green fields and big hills. There wasn’t any rocks we could skim, they must have been taken by other skimming enthusiasts which was a little disappointing at first, but that feeling sharply passed and we cracked on with our prison workout. Bench press on a guitar case and tricep dips of the back of Roy. You must make best of what you have. I thought we would of never of been interrupted in this place as nothing was around, but to my disbelief a man and his old golden retriever wandered down. I think they were equally surprised to see shirtless men working out as we were to see them. The dog had a swim in the lake as the man threw rocks for him to try and retrieve. Was humbling to see them both enjoying there time together. Body pumped and testosterone running through our bodies we left this place, not before I saved it as a favourite in our satellite navigational system.
We then headed to find our place to sleep. There are 100’s of places to sleep when you are living on the coast. In land, not so much. You feel a bit more wary of your surroundings when there are roads and other cars flying around. However, our technique of trying every back road we find lead us to a well hidden place to sleep. We made our rice and veg dinner, set up our beds inside Leroy and put our heads down to finish this day.

Sanlucar de Barrameda

Today we were a bit unsure what to do. We hadn’t a foggiest where we were. There was a little town near where we slept called Bornos, and we needed wifi to contact the finca. The name of the woman we are going to work for is Elaine and we had been talking over email. So we headed into Bornos. Matt described this place as the Lostwithiel of Spain and I couldn’t agree more. But it was like any small town. We couldn’t find any wifi in this small town so we decided to swiftly leave. I thought we should head to the coast again so we could chill instead of driving around looking for a place to chill. Our technique of finding a place to go is to click on the sat nav where abouts we would like to go, and when about 15 minutes away choose a specific place to go. We got taken down some back road surrounded by farms. Anyone who has read my most recent post will know what happened on this BASTARD back road. We got a colossal pothole. But at this time we had no idea what had happened to Leroy’s underneath so I’ll continue with the story. Just remember that we took a bump.
We chose a town called Sanlucar de Barrameda and we headed there. Driving through the town and admiring the place as we entered. We then headed to the playa (beach) as normal and found other campervans which is usually a good sign of where to sleep that night. With smiles on our face we pulled up expecting a relaxing afternoon in the sun. I hoped out the car and started to walk over to the beach, I turned round to get retrieve my baseball cap from the van, and what do I see? Oil gushing from the underneath of Leroy, and I mean gushing. We tried to catch it in a empty 5 litre water container but that was it. Day ruined. Luckily, it was only around 3o’clock so we drove him into town looking for a garage.

We keep on forgetting about siesta time so we had to wait til 4 to get him in the garage. So we went to get wifi to let other people know what had happened and to google translate ‘our van is leaking oil’. We brought Roy to garage and reluctantly left him in the hands of the garage. We packed our bags and went looking for our home. We found a cheap place called ‘pension la boheima’ and had a well deserved shower. If I’m honest I was really excited to have a bed. We popped out for some dinner and a lager.

In the morning we started to wonder about Leroy as the only contact we had with the garage was through email. We had got an email from them with an attached video of the damage caused. It was pretty brutal if you ask me. It was a big knock he took the day before and he was paying for it now. We headed down to the garage where the man explained that he can repair the whole but he was unsure whether we had caused any internal engine damage. So we left him to it and waited for the email. We actually had an amazing day here. This place is so much fun. Everyone is very kind and couldn’t help us enough. Had a great time looking through the stalls where they sell live snails, knock off DVDs and Adidas jumpers. We found a perfume called ‘blueberry by prady’ fake if you ask me. We then went and had a lay down on the beach and listened to the Beatles all the time thinking about Leroy and his operation. We went for lunch and waited for an email. Finally we got the email we had been waiting for. He was ready to be collected. We finished our meals and paced to a cashpoint and then straight to the garage where he was waiting for us. €116 euros was the damage. Bit painful but what can you do. We thanked the mechanic, shook hands and finally reclaimed Roy. He’s not going down without a fight!! The feeling of nearly losing Roy wasn’t nice. I even smoked that day, had about 5 chesterfields. It was a day of weakness and I’m back on the non-smoking train again. We went back where we first found his problem and the oil stain is thick and still very much visible. I would just like to send my apologies to Roy and I promise to drive him with more care and try to remember that he isn’t a monster truck.
We had had a hard few days and decided to go out and watch the Real Madrid vs Atletico Madrid game. Which as football fans know is a now big game in Spain. We found a bar and enjoyed the game with a few jarras. We quickly popped back to our favourite bar where we had spent a lot of time moping about Leroy. The tapas are all laid out in front of you in chilled cases, as I’m sure some of you have experienced before. Some of them are amazing looking, some of them I wouldn’t even debate tasting. We got speaking to the barman about these irregular tapas. His English wasn’t to good but from what we gathered they were fish womb and squid testicle.

I’m pretty sure I know which face you just pulled and I did exactly the same. He then offered us to try and you can’t be rude. Fish womb can suck out, not nice. On the other hand the squid testicle with a bit of Mayo was surprisingly good. Matt wasn’t to keen but I liked it. Not sure I’ll order it again but was exciting to try. We are now finally back in Leroy and trying to sleep in what sounds like quite a downpour, but when it’s hitting the roof of a van it always sounds worse then what it is.

The past few days have been a tad bit stressful. Spent half my time wondering what I was going to do without Roy. I wasn’t really sure what i was going to do. Discussing with Matt it seemed that jobs would be the next step. I debated the option of going home, but I just couldn’t see it happening. The trip would have turned on it’s head I know that for sure and this blog would be VERY different. But that’s a different story and I don’t have to think about that right now so I won’t.

Wishing everyone the absolute best and I appreciate everyone’s thoughts for Roy at this time.

Love you all.

BIG UP LEROY.

Jack xxx

Oh shit.

Okay, quick post to everyone. Leroy has taken a hit, not by a person, just by a big old pothole. He’s leaked pretty much all his oil. He is in the hospital now and we expect a quick recovery. Well we hope so as we couldn’t understand the mechanic to well, but he seems like a good guy and google translate always helps. . I just wanted to let everyone know and I hope you can send your good thoughts and prayers to Roy – maybe some grapes or a balloon.

I am pretty gutted if I’m honest, it’s our home. I’ve seen him everyday since we left the trip and it is a bit scary leaving him in the hands of another man. We should know more tomorrow and I’ll keep you posted.

Lots of love

Jack xxxx

We are okay.

Almeria

Kieran

We woke up one morning on the beach we had rightly named ‘purple beach’ due to the moon-set the evening before only to find we were in a pickle. The clutch on Leroy had gone. I can’t really give you anymore information that it simply had gone. Something to do with air in the clutch system. Thank The Lord that Tim was there. Instantly getting his mechanic on and getting under the hood of Roy. Me and Matt had no issue with letting Tim get on. In about an hour of me and Tim pushing the clutch up and down trying to get the air out of the system. The pressure finally came back into the clutch, and again Roy is rolling around Andalucia with ease and grace.
Whilst this was happening we had met a little lad called Kieran. Okay this kid, let me explain a little about him. He was 9 years old and he spoke Spanish, Dutch and English! No joke, and he was fluent. He said ‘come to daddy’. How does a Spanish 9 year old know the saying come to daddy. As Roy was in the nursing chair this lad was running back and forth between his van where he was living with his uncle for a few days, getting us brake fluid, oranges and water. His uncle Ulises was more than helpful and a really inspirational man. He was living out of his van in Gran Canaria and surfing lots. They both were really kind and couldn’t of helped enough. We spent a lot of our day with them and shared food in a car park. But honestly we had a lovely day kicking a ball around and just sharing stories. It really shows your age when all you want to say to a kid is keep doing what your doing. I wouldn’t be surprised if I see this kid on tv. Genius child. When they left we gave hugs and handshakes and with that they had gone. We slept the night and decided that we were to move in the morning. Taken what we had from San Jose and we drove.

Aguadulce

I can’t really remember how we got here if I’m honest. I can’t really remember how we get to any places. I think we went looking for another beach to sleep at and we struggled to find a place.

We like to sleep where we can see other campers. Makes us feel a bit safer. But we found a car park where it felt safe enough. Right on the beach. We had done some washing in a campsite the day before and needed to dry our clothes so we opened all the doors on Roy, set the slackline up in the sun and hung out our clothes. We took up a large part of the carl park using the fence as a station for our freshly clean pants and socks.

This part was just chilling in Aguadulce so haven’t got much to share. I’m sorry but if I explained every small detail the blog would be boring and you would get sick of our daily
routine. But I will explain Saturday night. We went out, even though we are trying to save pennies. Didn’t spend anything really which was a bonus but I didn’t lose €20! We had our spirits we had saved from New Years. Our €5 rum and 30cents beers from the mercadona. We then went to a bar called Excalibur. I’m not entirely sure it was a bar, more like a youth club. There were two table football tables and I can only call them pros around the table. Passing the ball like actual footballers. Me and Tim challenged two young lads to a game. To our amazement we scored the first goal, Then before we knew it we were of the table. Didn’t even touch the ball again, kind of felt like we were playing for Aston Villa. The lower team who don the claret and blue.
Anyway, we thought pool would be more of our game. I must mention in this bar, we asked for 3 ceversas receiving 3 cans of 8.2. Basically the Spanish special brew for €2 a can. We had two each. Think about that, already drunk and having them put inside you. I don’t really remember much from here on. Tim and Matt beat me and my new Spanish friend at pool and we left the bar as we couldn’t really speak to anyone. I wish I could tell you more but I don’t know. We met some more friends. Tried to speak Spanish to them which usually doesn’t work and headed back to Roy where we were to sleep. The morning was probably the worst morning rise I’ve ever had. It turns out Sunday morning everyone in Aguadulce plays football right next to the car park we were sleeping in! Not
Good for a hangover really. I can’t even call it a hangover, it was evil. Completely swashbuckled all day. I didn’t move of the back seats of Roy all day. I couldn’t physically. We ate at Burger King! Something I was trying so hard to avoid but when it’s either Burger King or standing out the back of the van and making a salad, the decision was easy. ‘We’ll start again tomorrow’ is a well used sentence on this trip. We are now back in Tarifa, which seems to be base for us. Kind of head back here and then decide where to head from here. We are in talks with a few different farms which we can go stay at. One being in Seville which I really hope they let us come and stay. Gravel spreading seems to be the job. Don’t really care what we do, but the offer of a individual rooms with en-suites and meals cooked for us is to hard to miss. I’d do almost any job for those luxuries right now.

We are safe and still living the dream. Everyday I wake up more into the trip and excited about what the day has to offer us and where we will be in that evening. Just can’t tell what’s gunna happen from one day to the next!

Hope everyone is well and I did this post very quickly so spelling mistakes or grammar may be in abundance. Just ignore them.

Also I spent a few days thinking i was going to die from the worst hangover so those days aren’t worth talking about.

Lots of Love to everyone.

Jack xxxxxx

A less than dramatic new year.

Let’s follow the coast
The day we left roche we wanted to see some other places and some other sites. We went to a place I believe to be called Zahora. We struggle with place names. We sat at a beach bar. Bar de Dunas. Turns out we love it in the dunes. But it was brilliant there. Pebbled floor and lots of woodwork inside. A gentleman siting in the corner selling his leather work. Just a really cool bar. We spent this day doing exactly what we wanted, drinking cafe con leches and just admiring Spain for what it is. Even though that is what we do everyday! We then drove through Barbate. By this time it was getting dark and we wanted to find a campsite. We searched the closet campsite to our location. It paid off, the top search. Jardin de Dunas. Where we had our first camp. Crazy that it was like 2 weeks before it has felt ages. Was excited to be there and it’s really cheap. One night there then we headed back to El palmar where again we stayed in a before used campsite. This one was the only one so didn’t have much choice. So back in our old perch we set up ready for New Year’s Eve.

New Years

It did pay off returning to El palmar, the surf had picked up so Tim and Dan got to have a surf which I could tell the both really enjoyed. But I’ll just quickly explain our day and night. We ask a gentleman in a bar we found. Swanky place with swings for dinner chairs, green floor lights and sofas round the edges. Lots of inspirational words all in different languages written on glass. A sign above the urinals saying ‘never stop believing in yourself’ and with it hanging right in front whilst you pee it’s hard not to read. The amount of times I’ve read that poster in service stops toilets about erectile dysfunction. You may or may not know it. The guy with the cowboy hat and hands behind his back?
Anyway, very nice bar. The chap we asked told us a big party was planned for New Year’s Eve and it kicked of at 9. Of course we get ready to go out drunk at 9. We made it out by 10.30. Well at least 3 of us did. Tim had a long few days and fell asleep in the back of Roy. I asked multiple times for him to awake but the shots of rum went straight to his sleepy head. So of Me and the Woodgate brothers trot down the long walk to the bar – la torre. Pretty stumbly, we made it at the bar for 11ish. The people in there all suited and booted waiting for ‘celebrity guests’ to walk through the door. The guy actually mentioned celebrity guests too. We rock through the doors with trainers on, black jeans and big jackets expecting a chilled house vibe only to be told that the party starts at 12.30. So, we ask a Spanish guy, donde esta la discotheque? He points to a place along the beach. We had a little scan before, but there was parts which we didn’t see. We sipped from dans warm tequila hip flask and headed on another trek along the long long road. Only to find no party. We guess that the Spanish spend New Years with their family’s and head out after 12. So there we were, shamboozled in the middle of El palmar without a place to go. Disappointed, we head back to the campsite and made a salad. I know, that’s all we had, not the best drunk food. Not like the pizza slices in Malaga. They were bang.
We got into bed all with a pretty fuzzy head, only to find out in the morning that the bar and another venue along the strip had completely booted of. We are complete lemons. Always complete toss pots when it comes to partying. So that was our new year, no dressing up, no interaction with anyone else. We did do our grapes at midnight though. It’s not a nice thing to do.
So with that we stayed in El palmar another night, then thought we could head to Malaga as Dan was leaving and we thought it would be easier to get him to the bus station on time. Which sadly he did make on time.

The wi-fi king

I think Dan should have his own little paragraph here. Dan was actually here for a long time. You kind of forget that he didn’t start the trip with us. Spent Christmas together and our thumping New Years. It was really nice having him here and hearing all his stories. I think by the end we made dan a little bit more laggier than he arrived. But it was great fun having him here. Lots of unforgettable memories and he will be truly missed by all of us… Including Leroy.

Malaga again

Us 3 decided that another night in bed wasn’t a bad idea. We had left Leroy in the same car park as before and had the room right next to where we stayed before. A little treat for our bodies. To my pain it wasn’t the best sleep, I’ve got a bad neck. From the night that was meant to be a treat. However, we spent another day of €2 pizza slices repeatedly looking at the ice cream we never bought and avoiding people who want to rush you into their Italian restaurant. Tim got a tattoo from a studio called Alta Escuela Tattoo. Really cool place.

Tim’s tattoo took a long 2 hours, for him I’m sure and as much as I appreciate metal music, 2 hours would be to much for me. So me and Matt went for a wander into the main stretch, it was heaving. The strip full with buskers. The jugglers, a brass band performing their Michael Jackson covers and those people who don’t move, well they do a little bit. There was one guy who was pretty amazing. He was getting bits of glass. Not big ones and was doing finger paintings on them. Amazing paintings of horizons and sunsets, In under 3 minutes. I do have a video which i have no idea how to do on here, so check the Instagram soon. I really wanted one but the queue was huge. We then went and got our buddy who’s arm is now the bit more inked, grabbed a pad Thai and went back to the hostel.

San Jose

We decided to head to a whole other province today. Almeria, which is the most easterly part of Andulaica. I think that’s right anyway. So we head of out of Malaga and headed to a highly recommended place San Jose. Again I was treated by the roads. They are just incredible. Right along the coast line we drove for 3 hours, Up hill and through big long tunnels. Another inspiring drive again. I’m starting to love it. I lost my love with driving Roy for a little while. I will always love him but I didn’t like it. But it’s my favourite part. I’m most excited when taking him somewhere completely new.
So we got to San Jose. Found a beach called Playa de Los Genoveses, which was off a dirt road and went on the beach to play a bit of football. Only to find the most unbelievable moon-rise/sky-set. The moon was coming up and it made the sky purple!! I have never seen it purple.

Me and Matt also walked up a big mound just to get some hight and what we say was perfect. The moon was so bright and it was lighting up the whole sea. It’s frustrating that iPhones don’t take nice pictures of the moon, and that I had forgot my camera.

Salty always thinking of you mate. Can’t wait to have you back.

Dan we love and miss you.

Lots of love to everyone else.

Jack xxxxx

Feliz Navidad

Christmas Eve

Matts dad steve had told us about a place he went to when he was 10 called Alhambra gardens. We didn’t have anything to do this day and it seemed fitting as it was only a half hours drive away from our campsite, we set Sean our Irish navigator to the gardens and of we set. We paid our fee of €14 and entered the gardens. We had a entry time into the palace to catch so we set of with speed to make it in. We made our curfew and were let into the palace and our rightful place as kings. This place was full of precision. Every little nook and cranny of the palace was engraved and symmetrical. The time and effort it must have taken to build this palace is unimaginable to me as i work in construction and take no time with anything i build. I cant see speed as an issue when constructing a building like this. It had two balconies which showed you the whole of Alhambra. There was a wall running all around the town and you could see a big part of said wall. We entered a coliseum where Dan tried his best to get a panoramic shot. It just doesn’t work like that to our disappointment.
We then went through a museum where it showed us all the old Arabic coins and some renovated pots and a HUGE set of doors, the Spanish love big doors, not sure if that’s just a Spanish thing but here they love them. It was all in spanish so couldn’t really do much apart from enjoy what we were seeing. ‘no pictures, no video’ was the rules so i cant even share it with you. This lead on to an exhibition called ‘variations on a Japanese gardens’. What I could gather from the exhibition was that it was to make you create your own landscape garden (kare-sansui) which can only be entered by the eye…. I have no idea either. It also didn’t help that I picked up the leaflet explaining the exhibition at the end, but in my opinion it was really interesting. We went into a room where there was a video shown on the wall. it was a woman called Yoko Ono and her performance/piece was called ‘cut piece’ filmed in 1965. It was of her sat there, still faced whilst two men cut of her clothing bit by bit. It’s hard for us to understand what this was or meant, but that’s art I guess. We left the Japanese part and decided to head to the gardens, by this time it was around 5pm and the sun was setting. We couldn’t have been in a better place for it, high above Alhambra and watching it slowly go behind the hills.

We got many many pictures and I can’t wait to show you, we nearly filled the camera so ill have to buy another sd card. We then headed to the mercadona picking up our Xmas dinner for the next day. Ill explain what we got in the next chapter of our journey.

Christmas Day

I woke up to a warming coffee which was very necessary as its still very cold. We had picked up a bottle of caramel vodka the day before so we all had a shot in our coffee and that was really what our Christmas Day was about. We then donned our christmas hats, got out our bonsai tree decorated with golden tinsel and got out our presents which had been kindly given to us by Janine(my step-nan) and Louise (matts mum). Thankyou both very much for those. We facetimed our families at different parts of the day which was really nice. Made me miss home a little bit, but being a bit morning drunk didn’t really help those feelings.
The day started to pass with us just enjoying the christmas Sun. I’m not entirely sure how Tim did what he did but somehow he made a delicious Christmas dinner on a 2 hob burner. I made a simple yet delicious prawn cocktail which I might say is my signature dish, never get that Mary-rose sauce wrong. I’ll list what he had just so you can see how well Tim did. Steaks, mixed veg, carrots, homemade sausage and chestnut stuffing balls, sautéed potatoes with bacon bits and of course pigs in blankets followed by a white chocolate cream cake. Tim is a culinary genius if you ask me. What a feast! I want steak every Christmas dinner.

After that we got our evening fire ready, which was a necessity for our survival. We started to realise that the liqueur was running dry and there wasn’t any shops open, was our Christmas going to be sober? I can hear your gasps. However, we didn’t let this happen as Tim went to the site keepers house and asked if we could have any alcohol returning with a crate of lagers and a bottle and a half of wine. Again, Tim pulled through. The rizla game started with us writing celebrities on a rizla and sticking it to an opponents head and trying to guess, just in case you didn’t know what the game is. We ended up sharing two bottles of sangria in this game. The rest of the evening was full of charades and other drinking games. I know for a fact our Christmas Day was very different but one of the best. Feliz Navidad to you all.

Boxing Day

Boxing Day was a simple day, no hangovers allowed. We decided to move to a different part of Spain today, it was either Sevilla or Cadiz. Cadiz is closer to the beaches so we decided as a group this was our next home. A 3 hour drive was given to me and I jumped in the drivers seat of our metal home. These are my favourite parts, especially when I’m in control of our beast. It’s just so relaxing driving down the autovia not knowing what we are going to see next. I’m now extremely comfortable driving on the right side of the road, there’s ways that they set out there roads which if I’m honest makes much more sense then ours. I always seem to get the most picturesque drives, this one we spent about an hour on the autovia then onto a back road which took us through the hills and mountains of southern Spain. I couldn’t of been luckier to be driving this part of the trip, the scenery was just beautiful. I feel like I’m running out of adjectives and just using beautiful over again but it’s the only way of describing it. We didn’t leave the campsite until about 3pm so wasn’t due to arrive at our destination until about 7. This wasn’t a problem because as we started to come down the other side of the hill the sun was setting. It was stunning. A real strong red, I had never seen it like they before. This is why driving from place to place is my favourite part of our adventure. We arrived at the campsite which was the biggest we had been to. So we found our corner away from everyone else and set up camp.

Cadiz

Today we made Dan wake us up, we haven’t been getting up til 11 most days and by the time we were up and ready to go we had spent half the day doing nothing. So we got up, had our yoghurt, muesli and plantanos and set of. We were out by half 10 walking down the beach picking up shells and having a cafe con leche on the seafront. As you can see my Spanish is improving daily and pretty fast if you ask me.
We then decided to go see Cadiz. We took a little while to find a parking space, as in any city a Saturday afternoon in the middle of a holiday is going to be hard to find a space, especially for a van that’s about 2.4 metres high. Nevertheless, we found one and started our mooch. It was a roasting day so we decided to keep in the sun and walk down the promenade. I think we must have walked about 2 miles just in one direction. We were pretty hungry and decided on a little place. A meal, a beer and some bread for €7. Sounds good. It was shit. Pardon my French but my undercooked hamburger wass terrible, reluctantly I got it in me all the time hoping that I don’t spend my next day on the toilet. Well fed, kind of, we went looking for the town centre. We just kept walking and finally found it. I heard drums, singing and clapping around a corner and we hurried to see what the commotion was about, only to find a small cafe with a little party outside. Some awesome little Spanish lady was dancing flamenco and singing. We had no idea what she was saying but she honestly has all our hearts, she was playing to crowd brilliantly and her band played her music brilliantly. We all had big smiles on our faces and they wasn’t leaving anytime soon. Us and the crowd she had gathered watched her for about 20 minutes before she finished and we all applauded and cheered. We left to see what more Cadiz had to offer us.

The cakes! It took every part of me not to buy a box of churros, but I resisted. We didn’t really know where we left Leroy so we just kept walking until we met the sea, luckily we wasn’t that far and found him quite easily. We bundled into the van and left the city of Cadiz all smiling from having such an awesome day. Headed back to camp and got down to cooking dinner and to sleep, sounds like an anti-climax but there isn’t much going on. Bring on New Years Eve!
Entering a city with no idea where to go or what to do is really exciting for me, you never know what is going to happen. Usually stumbling across something which you really don’t expect to see. I know it seems small, something like this but it really teaches you to live in the moment and to not look into the past or you’ll spend your life wondering what could have been instead of concentrating on actually living. There are things that will hurt or confuse you at the time, but it’s all life and its amazing, I know some people won’t see eye to eye with me on this topic but being out here I don’t know what I’m doing tomorrow, let alone a month or a year away, and this is how I plan to live my life. Obviously coming back to the UK and having this outlook will be tickey, but I know I will always have a different outlook on life and we have only been here 3 weeks. It’s a great feeling and I encourage anyone and everyone who hasn’t already to see the world.

It keeps saying that some media hasn’t been published. I’ll publish it anyway and hope you can all see it.

I hope everyone has a brilliant new year and has had the best Christmas.

All the best in 2015

Lots of love

Jack xxxx

Dan is here!

Leroy in Malaga

Malaga needs to do something with it’s bus station. They don’t seem to have a pick up station and I don’t think they understand what stress that causes. This is where Dan was arriving. We had got there on time 7/7.30, which isn’t like us, but couldn’t find a place to stop. So Me and Matt hopped out and Leroy whilst Salt and Tim circled the building. Me and Matt were expecting to see a big gleaming Woodgate smile as soon as we entered, in reality what we did was walk around the station for about 45minutes trying to conjure up a plan to find him. We had lost faith and decided that it may be the other bus station a short drive away. We waited for Leroy and crew to come round and was going to explain how we felt about the situation. It turned out dan had been in there for half the time we had been looking. What a relief We finally had our new member on board and we set of to find some parking and our hostel for the night. Parking in Spanish cities seems to all be underground and doesn’t really cater for a big black van with 4 surfboards on the roof. We ended up driving right through the town centre about 3 times. Everyone had so much time for Leroy, giving him shouts and tapping him as we drove through. People ended up sticking their heads through the windows giving us some drunken conversation. It was 9o’clock on a Friday night, what could we expect. It was great fun, we even had the police help us in a reversing challenge down a packed road. Salt drove like a champion and deserves a pat on the back. We arrived at our hostel after a short walk. Now the rest of the night turned into a bit of a mess, so this is where this day ends. People reading this from home, we ended up in a Spanish boscarn, it was a bit weird and ended up with tickets for drinks instead of money. That’s all I can say about this night and all I will say.

The first day without Salt

In the morning we had to say a very hungover goodbye to Salt. We miss you Salt. I don’t know how you got that plane my man, and we all know what you’re really like in a sober mind. In a sleepy state we could all hear him downstairs trying to sort out transport to the airport. I still don’t know what was truly said but it sounded like he asked a Spanish taxi driver to take him to the plane station, he may have said train station. But that isn’t as half as hilarious as plane station. With that he was gone.
Okay, on with the day. The four of us woke up mildly hungover and couldn’t wait to get into the city. We all jumped out of bed with speed and exited the hostel. It had seemed like a eternity since we last slept in a bed. Was a nice change to the rocky floor of our chosen Spanish campsites. We decided that food was first on the agenda, we walked around for a fairly long time before we decided on a little cafe. A full English and burgers were our chosen hangover cures, and another cruzcampo of course. Malaga is a buzzing city, lots of well dressed people and beautiful Spanish women. Not that we were perving constantly or anything. We had to go back to Leroy just to add more parking and get a few things. Unfortunately, he stank. The combination of semi-rotting food, multiple spices and wet clothes which just wouldn’t dry made our home stink of… I don’t actually know. I can’t explain it. It was offensive to the senses to say the least. However we didn’t let it affect us, we can sort that at a later date. A Italian guy in the hostel told us about a bar where it’s happy hour from 4-8 with €1 beers. We headed there expecting us to be at a massive party. We were the only guys there. So we moved on to get food and found a lovely little Italian restaurant called il colosseo. We left probably the 4 happiest men. The food was amazing. Just go onto tripadvisor, have a look at the reviews for this restaurant and look for Tim’s. That will give you an idea of our true feelings we had for this place. Cannelloni, calzones and Tim’s faggitini, yes Tim had a pasta called faggitini, very fitting. But if you are ever in Malaga, please go here. You won’t regret it.
We then went for some tapas and beers and just sat there watching Malaga go by. The same Italian guy from the hostel was running a pub crawl which we decided we was going to attend. Met them at the previous bar we were at and started the crawl. It was us, and about 5 other attendees. It was a bit lame If I’m honest but we just wanted all the shots. We ended up in a massive irish bar which was the biggest club in Malaga and it was heaving. It was filled way over capacity and a bit expensive but we didn’t care at this point so we made our way into the middle of the dance floor and did what the English do. Made a circle just for us and threw the biggest shapes. At one point ‘in da club’ by 50 cent came on and we were the only people who knew the famous rap song. So we rapped at the top of our voices. Spanish men don’t dance, they stand at the edge looking in which thinking about it was weird at the time, but every club I’ve been to there are these cool guys. Each to their own though. We was then asked to leave because they didn’t like Tim’s bandana, they did tell him a few times he wasn’t allowed to wear it but what a bullshit rule. The night turns a bit hazy after that. All I really remember is running round asking for a rizla and eating pollo roll ups. Chicken wraps simply but pollo roll ups was what we decided to call them. Me Matt and Tim were on the balcony looking down at the street and we came to a serious realisation of where we were and what we were doing. It was a real rush of emotions. Salt came up in our drunken conversation and we all really missed him in that moment. It had only been a day. But we did miss him and still do. I think Malaga would have been a bit of a struggle without Dan, turns out we aren’t very good with directions or remembering where anything is. So our new tour guide was essential in the city and we have to thank him a little bit.

A coin flip

We woke up to a rude awakening of a woman asking us to leave as we had stayed past our checkout time of 11.30 and with this our €5 deposits were lost. It was worth it for an extra hour in bed. We had seen an organic restaurant right near the car park where Leroy was living so we went there for brunch. We had our omelettes, bagels and fruit juices and then the conversation lead onto our next destination. We had spoke about either Portugal or granada. It’s impossible to make a decision like that on this trip so we left it in the hands of a €1 coin. We flipped the coin and it told us that granada was where we should head next. We had a look at some campsites near the Sierra Navada so we typed them in on the sat nav and of we drove. This was one of the most enjoyable parts of the trip so far, driving through amazing landscapes in the sun with complete wonder and anticipation of what our next destination has in store for us. We decided on a campsite which was very high up. We determined we were about 1300 metres which is feet is 4000 feet and you could feel it. It was hard to breathe. We had a bowl of soup for warmth and decided to come back down, all the way down. After a few more sat nav issues and non-exsisting campsites we found one. We started to look at the stars and discuss how we all felt about them when Tim explained about the exposure time of my camera, that was a plan hatched and we drove out to a dark bit of the hills where we spent two hours experimenting with torches and my new camera which was lovingly giving to me by my mother as a early Christmas present which is easily my best present ever. I’ll post some on Instagram after I’m done writing this. This was the coldest nights sleep we have had. It was actually unbearable. I was in the van, sleeping bag, socks and 3 layers and still it was freezing cold. I wanted out of this place quickly so we had a little walk round and took in the views of the lake. Not many better ways to start the day than to look over a still lake, surrounded by grassy hills and a big snowy mountain in the background. You may of had to have been here for this part of the story. Tim broke a child’s playground toy, you know those ones on the big springs. I never thought I would see one of those break in this life. I’ve rocked those back and forth with maximum effort and still haven’t seen on break. But this one snapped easily much to our enjoyment. We then packed up the van in the morning quickly to avoid any confrontation about the play area, payed the lady and left. We drove down the road we entered on and in the day it’s magnificent. We saw it in a completely new light. It was breathtaking.

Hopefully that worked and you’ll be able to see the picture.
I really wanted to get into granada. Matt had told me stories about this place and I couldn’t wait to see it. We parked up and walked into granada. It’s such a wonderful city with big tall buildings that differ from one to another almost completely. Big hotels and coffee shops with no empty seats outside and loud conversation. We had heard granada is a student city so it was pretty cheap and had a real young and I hate to say the word but hip feeling about it. We bought a load of touristy stuff, Tim got some herbal tea and smoked paprika and I bought some orange blossom honey from a little stall just outside a well looked after and historic church.
We did some research in a wifi spot and had some lunch. I think Dan and Tim are addicted to tapas now but it did look amazing. We spent an hour or so in this bar and found a campsite which allows fire to be built. This is what we wanted all along, fires but without the civil guard telling us we had to leave. So here we are, in our campsite with music playing, diablos being thrown around and happiness running through the camp. I think we are gunna stay here over Christmas and maybe head back to El Palmar for new year, we haven’t decided that far yet. All we know is whatever we do there will be love and smiles. Sounds super cheesy but it’s true. Until you’ve been here you may not understand the vibes and I may sound a bit over the top but we truly feel like that.

Merry Christmas to you all from camp. I hope you all have an amazing few days and I’ll post again probably after Christmas.

Lots of love

Jack xxx

El Palmar

Just let us be

In my most recent post I spoke about the civil guards and there interference in our trip. Later that day we had another run in with the law. This time we hadn’t actually done anything wrong. Not like we had done anything in the first place, how can camping on a beach be illegal? It’s pathetic but that’s the law and we must follow the law, but then again rules are made to broken. My views on law are not for here.
We had just popped into Tarifa to get our dinner and a gas bottle. I know what your thinking, yes, we finally got a gas bottle!! The receptionist at El Jardin had mentioned a few camping shops and finally we found one. We can finally eat like kings and teas are non stop. Everything we needed was now with us and we couldn’t be happier. Our homemade chilli and risotto are much tastier and wholesome than a ham sandwich. Anyway, back to what I’m sure your all intrigued by. The po-po giving us another hard time. We had just pulled into a space for 5 minutes whilst me and Tim used a cashpoint. Harmlessly, the policia asked us to move the van. What we didn’t know was that the policeman didn’t know about the United Kingdoms money grabbing scheme of putting car tax online and abolishing tax discs. Which believe me is extremely difficult to explain to a non English speaking gentleman. He even said at one point and I quote “we must take the van”. There wasn’t a chance in hell that man was getting anywhere near the driving seat of Leroy. He is our home and he isn’t having it. We tried to explain but to no success. So he asked us to follow him to the police station. We followed and arrived at the police station not really sure what to think. He was searching the internet to try and see if we were in fact, in a legally taxed vehicle. We spent 10minutes watching him struggle to find the website. We then asked if we could assist him in finding the proof. Finally we found the tax checker and the big green tick confirming our in date MOT and our year of tax. It was extremely exciting. We all knew that there was nothing wrong and we wasn’t in any trouble. We have done everything by the book. The men were just doing their job and when the proof was there, they shook our hands and sent us on our merry way. They even printed the internet page so we could instantly prove it next time it happens. Which I don’t doubt will be soon. Two run ins with the boys in blue in a day. Except the civil guards are in green and assholes compared to the police. No offence. They stole our axe and I hate them. When we got back to El Jardin there was a staggeringly big Mercedes camper van with a Dutch couple traveling with there two children inside. We spoke to them in the morning and they enthusiastically told us about El Palmar. A place 60km away where the waves are always double what you get in Tarifa. Again Tim’s smile grew and we decided that was our next mornings destination. That’s the beauty of this trip and traveling by van. We aren’t held to any place or anything really. We think it looks cool, we go there. Simple.

El Palmar

I’m just going to speak about the two days together as it was spent mostly enjoying the Christmas sun. The surf unfortunately was not as good as expected, so we didn’t see much point of trying. I’m not a spoil sport but surfing isn’t really on my list of enjoyable activities. Getting thrown about by the unruly mistress that is the ocean with a buoyant piece of plastic attached to my ankle isn’t my idea of fun. Tim got in it for 20minutes or so, but without any success.
The campsite had electricity which meant band practice!! We plugged the personal announcement system in and got the guitars and microphones linked up. It was really nice to hear all the songs the boys had written and been practicing finally played to their full potential. I started reading my book. ‘Serpent of the light, beyond 2012’ by Drunvalo Melchizedek. We had all had a chat about spiritualism and I had to many questions. So I’ve decided to go find some answers. We have a few books between us and I plan to read them all even though I probably read at a 9 year old reading level. It’s a main topic of conversation between the four of us and we bounce facts and ideas of eachother which is a great way to learn. But I will go deeper into this when I know more. Get ready for that addition to the blog. People may think we are loopy but it’s a strong interest of us all.
We were driving away from El Palmar when we saw a surf shop called ‘Homies’ which had a half pipe built next to it and a group of dudes skating in it. Tim had decided that he wanted to sell his guitar as it wasn’t playing how he wanted. I don’t understand why it wasn’t, it sounded good to my untrained ears. So Tim hopped out and offered them probably the trade of the year in there eyes. A skateboard for Tim’s guitar, which they quickly accepted. We now have a skateboard. The amount of bruised knees and scraped elbows will be unfathomable I’m sure. He told us that New year in El Palmar will be pumping and that if we want to party we should go see them, and this is a serious option for the group. Just got to make some decisions.

Substitution day

Today there is an array of emotions running through the group. At this moment in time we are driving down to Malaga to pick up a friend and brother. This day has been in our diary before we even embarked on this journey and it’s come round so quick. Dan is coming!!!! The poor boy has been on a bus since yesterday morning travelling down here but I know he is excited. How can he not be. We are all extremely excited to be picking him up and sharing this experience with him even if it is for a small period of time. Me and Tim are spending Christmas with the Woodgate brothers and we couldn’t be more privileged to be doing so. The feelings are slightly dampened by the fact one of my best friends and a co-pilot of Leroy is leaving tomorrow. Salt has a early morning flight back to the UK where he will then be flying to Australia for Christmas with his family. I like to pretend I’m not jealous of him but what a great trip and opportunity and I wish him and his family both a happy Christmas and a fantastic new year. What a great experience and knowing how hard his father Chris worked to provide this trip
makes salt leaving that bit easier. But I say this from all of us on the trip that he will be missed and we can’t wait to pick him up in the new year. But we are all very happy to be welcoming Dan onto Leroy Merlin.

If any of you want a week away please don’t hesitate contact us. We have 2 seats and it would be an honour to share them with you.

We have a heavy night in Malaga planned tonight so you may not hear much about tonight’s antics. What happens on tour stays on tour and all that.

Love you all

Jack xxx

Rodrigo Mi Amigo

I’m writing this blog of the back of probably the two best nights of my life and I really can’t wait to share them with you. I hope my written words express how good these nights were but I doubt my vocabulary will allow me to. But I’ll give it my best shot. Whatever I write, just double the feelings and you may be close.

Sunday

Again, Tarifa didn’t bless us with sunshine. I don’t really know what I expected with the weather. It is mid December after all, but I never thought that downpours of rain would be the case. Nevertheless, it is raining a lot and I will not let it dampen my spirits. We wasn’t really sure what to do. We spent a little time on the old internet looking for things to do and see. We decided to get out the campsite and go into Tarifa. Amazing town, tiny streets and well decorated. If you have seen our Instagram then you may have seen the pictures of the buildings with the painted gable ends. If not, pause reading this and go there now. We didn’t get out of Leroy, just seemed pretty empty and it was a Sunday, Spain doesn’t seem to open on a Sunday. We went into a Lidl, got our dinner for the evening and went back to the camp.
The weather didn’t change so we chose to sit in the van, Salt on his guitar, me and Matt discussing the beautiful Spanish language which I cannot seem to learn and Tim writing in his diary. It sounds boring but when us four are together doing nothing, is doing something. As we waited for our planned evening entertainment we all decided to have a band practice. I even got a singing lesson from Salt and with a kick up the backside and a lot more practice, I feel that I may be able to be part of the band. One day. Maybe.
We had planned to go see a band up at pannhamma. We got there a little late, and only heard a few songs but it was great fun and the music was top notch. We then all went outside and ended up chatting to a group of Spanish people. With only one English speaking person in the group, it started of as a bit of a challenge. By this time the Jack Daniels and beers had been flowing, so the other lads were feeling a bit fruity to say the least. So out came the guitars and the cajon – a drum if you don’t know what a cajon is. I was designated driver so that’s why I remember it so well. But the boys started to play and Rodrigo and his pals really enjoyed it. We sung wonderwall, even played some Metallica. Everyone was having a ball. Music, pizza and laughter. The language barrier wasn’t even a issue. We even got a performance, turns out Jeremy was great at flamenco singing which was a complete delight. Now I will explain the title of this post. ‘Rodrigo mi Amigo’. James sang this to Rodrigo a lot. He wasn’t a fan, I’m joy sure why but he really wasn’t feeling it. For people that know us and our lives, we could only compare Rodrigo to one of our closet friends, Jordan Powell. After a few drinks he was loud and just wanted to box. Even our new Spanish friends couldn’t understand what he was saying, let alone us. But he was a great laugh and was very complimentary to us all. Just like Jordan. No offence Jord if you’re reading this. Brothers for life was our departing words. This was an amazing night, laughter and music was the theme of the night, oh and more pizza! It always seems that when you don’t plan a night you seem to have the best fun and meet the greatest people. After hugs, we departed and headed back to our garden in the dunes.

Monday

IT WAS SUNNY!!!!!!! We wasn’t soaked. So we decided tonight, we camp it rough. Tim and Salt had already half built a shack on the beach which I hadn’t seen and was very intrigued to go and see. So we went on our sat nav and headed to the Leroy Merlin (Homebase) to get some supplies. An axe, shovel and a waterproof cover were on the shopping list. We also got a generator so Tim and Salt can do some recording whilst we are here. We headed back and with complete suspense and excitement we trekked to the shack. I couldn’t believe what they had done in just a small amount of time. The beaches are covered in wooden wind breakers which was a perfect material for our new home. Me and Matt got involved and before we knew it Shack le Dunes was erected. I cannot wait to show you all what we created. It was perfect. Seriously perfect.
We went back to the van. Prepared the chicken and veg in boxes, gathered our things and walked down to our brilliantly crafted home. Collected a tonne of firewood and built a fire even Ray Mears would applaud at. Cooked our corn and chicken wraps over the fire, they were incredible. Everything we cook here is so delicious. Even with the extra texture of sand. We spent the rest of the night looking at the stars, caring for the fire and trying to avoid the smoke cloud. There is nothing more peaceful than the combination of rolling waves and a crackling fire. I wish you all could take a trip to shack le dunes. You’ll leave more refreshed than if you had a day in a 5star hotel. Maybe not physically but mentally.
Safe to say we all stink of bonfire. Honestly though, who cares. We are men on the land. We spent four days not even showering so smokey clothes isn’t an issue. The sleep was probably the deepest I had but sleeping on a beach puts me into a state of permanent awareness. Every noise startled me and woke me from my slumber. This wasn’t helped by the fact that 50 meters behind us in the forest, there was a mattress and pillows, which gave me the creeps.
Anyway, the combination of both the evening before and this evening just left me with the biggest grin. I just couldn’t stop running of the positive vibes and I know the boys all felt the same. I’m proud to be sharing this experience with these boys. Very proud.

This morning

This morning was the day of my 2nd run. I’m not as unfit as I thought. However, I am not as fit as I would like to be, but that’s easily fixed. We ran all the way down the beach doing press ups and burpees along the way. The sea was surprisingly warm and I throughly enjoyed it. Starting the day feeling energised and ready to go. I’m rushing this bit a little because something happened only about two hours ago I want to share with you.
We were sitting in our shack minding our own business, when two civil guards walked around the corner. I just knew that our shack was no more. He spoke some Spanish to us and we knew that we were packing up. He searched our bags and gave me and Tim a rub down. Maybe a bit to much as he poked around our coin purses. After everything was packed away and we were ready to leave he pointed at our beloved shack and that’s when we knew that we had to dismantle it. Strangely he just asked us to leave it in a pile which to us was strange. It was a massive eye sore to the beach but they didn’t seem to care. So we went back to the van and handed them our passports and driving details. Spent about 10 minutes watching them take our details and looking through our insurance details. They seemed surprised that we had it all, I bet they were expecting us to not have it. But this is why we spent all that money on our insurance. They seemed okay when they realised we wasn’t out to hurt anyone and we didn’t have any drugs. I think the were probably even impressed with Leroy if you ask me. They did confiscate our tools though. Already miss that axe. He was a beaut. To make the whole situation that bit more frustrating. It started to rain, and is still raining now. Most of our belongings are wet but it’s all part of it. Well that’s what I keep saying to myself.

Now, we are back home in our favourite plot of our favourite campsite. But we won’t be here much longer. The guard told us that in Tarifa you can camp. So we may head there when the rain settles. The forecast is looking promising and gives us sunshine for the next 5 days. Hopefully they get it right.

Be in touch soon.

Jack xxxx