Spain but no rain

Last updated on February 5, 2020

Madrid, hot sunny and we are chasing around for welders. The guys at Desierto 4×4 montana were unable to reinforce the chassis and took us to some welder who did a fine job – while we sat in the local bar and drank far too much coffee. So now we are able to jack the car up without it breaking in two.

Started our Malaria tabs and both feeling lousy, much grumping done and then I managed to loose the map. Early to bed being a good solution.

Tuesday and we have our Maritania visas so time to move on, met Martin and Melanie from Luton. They are touring Europe in a camper van which seems like a much more sensible idea.

To end the day I broke the bread knife trying to cut a 2 day old baguette and accidentally drank Simon’s can of diet coke he was saving (none to be had in Europe.)

Wednesday and we find ourselves in Granada and the best campsite so far, we can only stay the night which is unfortunate. We tried to see the Alhambra but no such luck, they have a set amount of tickets and you have to queue at 7am to get in, so that was that. Granada is hippy central and there was a religious festival going on, finding a quiet resturant and eating tappas was a much better idea.

Early start to Gibraltar, easy to get to but a 2 hour que at the border to get in. Then begins a whole story of its own: Who thought of moving Easter forward? And how are two distracted travelers supposed to remember that everything shuts down for Easter weekend?

We reached Gib in plenty of time even with the queuing and decided to have a easy afternoon and tend to business the next day, after some fantastic fish and chips at the Clipper in Irish Town we went in search of accommodation. It was around this time we discovered that it was easter weekend and so we were stuck there until Tuesday morning: Oh, did I mention that it started drizzling the minute we set foot on British soil and did not stop for the entire weekend? We felt quite at home in Gib which is like being in the east end of London. So we booked into the palace hotel and hunkered down ( no camping in Gib but enough fish and chips to compensate.)