Posts Tagged ‘campsites’

We are in no position to laugh at people’s difficulties with a foreign language; we have travelled three months in Spain with little language and in times of stress any one of the six languages we have used over the past ten months may emerge. That said, we do like to have a bit of a giggle over some of the translations into English we have seen.

Campsite toilet facilities are often a good place to find these mis-translations; ‘Please not to place the roles in the WC’, is not correct, but we all know what they mean. ‘The breach will be a lack of serious motive’, is less self-explanatory.

The rules and regulations for campsites are another opportunity for making less sense than you intended; ‘The campsite reserves the right of rectifying the material registered always when detect in-corrections in your registration,’ still has us baffled, we may or may not have breached that one, with or without a serious motive.

In Portugal we bought bread called Pao da Sogra. This seemed to be translated into English on the wrapping with the words ‘bread of the mother in paw’ and went on, ‘stew in oven of firewood’. Was this a cooking instruction, or a description of how it was made? All that is clear to us is that the bread in Portugal is fantastic and we’ve no idea how we will cope with Warburtons White Sliced when we return.

The coast-o-meter we use to judge coast line scenery is the Orkney scale; that is, with Orkney scoring a top ten. Using this scale Blackpool comes in at about two and the rocky Algarve coastline reaches seven.

The narrative on the campsites is that this year is the worst winter weather campers have ever experienced. Certainly, those who have been coming to the Spanish and Portuguese southern coasts for the past seven years or so will have enjoyed the drought of recent years. However, average weather conditions suggest that around eight rainy days can be expected in February and so it may be that this year we are having an average February.

The day we planned to walk along the coast from Benagil towards Albufeira started fairly un-promisingly with a heavy thunderstorm. However, we are English walkers and that gives us an optimistic mind-set; we set off in full waterproofs to walk the coastal path and see the spectacular sea stacks and arches. It was a breezy day, but warm and we enjoyed the exhilaration of fresh sea air; by the end of our walk we were in T-shirts, proving once again that it can be worth just going for it.

When it rains and in the dark evenings you might think we would get bored in our small blue bus. This never seems to be the case, as there is always something to do; we write the blog, mend things, read guide books, use the internet, watch DVDs friends sent for Carol’s birthday, read books, do puzzles, write the journal, play games, cook, eat, learn a language, sort out our photographs, listen to music and still after ten months together, talk.

If the campsite has a bar, it can be nice to have a drink there and be in a bigger space than the van; and if there is someone we are on friendly terms with also there, even better. A lot of campers never make it to the bar, but in Tarifa it was always a cosy and convivial place to go and in El Rocio we sat in the bar with a bottle of red and sorted the world out for hours with our lovely Italian neighbour, Karin. The connections we made with other campers will be very strong memories from our trip.

We wanted to spend a few days walking in the Natural Park of the Sierra de Aracena y Los Picos de Aroche, near the Portuguese border. However, at 700 m above sea level it is still cool and the campsites are shut until later in the year. We decided to treat ourselves to a house for three nights and found the perfect rural retreat near Aracena ( From the Owners Direct website, property number Spain 8263).

From the coast we drove through fields of orange trees and strawberries under plastic, passed copper mines, including the massive and infamous Rio Tinto mine and over rivers that flow orange from the local soil.

With central heating and a log burning stove in the house we were soon snug and cosy. We both had our first colds for ten months; that is what comes of being friendly with people, so the luxury of a warm bathroom (with a bath!) and a large double bed, were even more appreciated. The house is in a tranquil setting on the hillside with a view across the olive trees, see the photograph.

We were comfortable at the campsite in Tarifa and stayed there seven nights; an accolade only bestowed on four other campsites up to now on this trip; generally we like to be travelling, even if it is not very far and from Tarifa we only travelled 60 kms north to Cabo Trafalgar, to see where all the action happened in 1805.

The campsite here is the 100th site we’ve stayed on during the past nine months. We like campsites and the opportunities they give to meet people and observe human behaviour and various posts have described some of our experiences. Recent delightful characters have included a man from the UK who was painting his van with vivid pink emulsion; an amateur naturalist with such a breadth of knowledge we would have had to stay months to hear even a part of it and a story teller from the Netherlands who had learned his craft in Findhorn.

One thing you will always see on any camp site; Crocs, this is the footwear of the camper; everyone wears them, from small children to the retired, Italians to Germans. We have seen pink crocs, decorated Crocs, Crocs with socks, Crocs with dressing gowns, camouflage Crocs and fake Crocs. We own subdued blue and green Crocs; they are very practical for camping, being lightweight, washable, waterproof, comfy and versatile; you can wear your Crocs to the beach, in the shower, even in the rain.

One of the huge advantages of Crocs is that when it is raining you can leave them outside the van, thus avoiding bringing wet and muddy shoes inside. However, this was not possible at the campsite in Tarifa, as Lola, the owners West Highland Terrier would spot an unguarded Croc at 50m and mischievously carry it off to another part of the site. It was not uncommon for campers to ask if you had seen one of their shoes and we were seen hopping out of the van to collect a displaced shoe on a number of occasions.

Sitting in a café in Tarifa on Saturday morning we noticed lots of motorhomes driving up the main street; at first we thought a ferry had just come in and these vans were all returning from Morocco. After around 100 vans we started to wonder, could all these fit on one ferry? The convoy of motorhomes was a demonstration by the Andalucia motorhomers association (ASANDAC) about parking restrictions on the beaches of Andalucia. In an effort to stop wild camping by motorhomes and following pressure from campsite owners, motorhomes are now restricted from even parking by the beaches for the day.

We like campsites, they have showers, even if they are of varying quality, and other useful facilities that make our trip slightly more luxurious. For other motorhomers wild camping is a way of life; many of these motorhomers wild camp for one or two nights at the most, take their rubbish and waste products away, are truly ‘kings of the road’ and give no cause for concern. Other motorhomers will park like sardines in a can at a beach-side beauty spot, wild camp at this same spot for months and some of these will regularly empty their chemical toilets in a nearby ditch. As is often the case, the law does not have the subtlety required to allow travellers the freedom to roam, while preventing environmental degradation of long-term wild camping.

As we cycled back to the campsite the demonstration passed us, tooting horns and waving. The Cheshire Caravanner from our site said he’d counted over 200 motorhomes in the convoy.