A Month of Rest

We were nearly out of food by the second day and with the campsite grocery store costing a bit more we took the bus to the centre of Marbella to find the tourist office, take in the sights and locate cheaper groceries stores. It turned out to be three groceries stores, one of which had an international section that contained Maple Syrup. We would have liked some but 11 euros for 350 ml was a bit excessive. We were also hoping to find information on busses to Gibraltar. Despite our best intentions, we never made it to Gibraltar. In fact we didn’t make it out much at all. This happened for a few reasons. First, we had internet and we were able to catch up on blogs, movies, tv shows and most importantly with friends and family (this brought us to the mall one day to pick up a webcam and microphone). Second, once we got all our laundry done, the van cleaned up and the blog posts typed up and posted it started to rain on us. And not just a little bit. Almost every time we went to get out of our van we had a huge puddle of water to greet us (about 2 inches deep, surrounding the van). This type of weather doesn’t encourage you to go exploring. When it finally did clear up, it was after Christmas and New Years was on the way. Despite much of an argument, we decided to spend New Years the same way we spent Christmas, in the van. However, the nearby hotels had fireworks and they went off for an hour and a half, Julie and I shared a bottle of Champagne provided by the campsite and enjoyed watching the fireworks and all the stray cats running through the campsite as a result. Funds are very tight and we couldn’t warrant the expense of a night out, which totally sucks. But this is what happens when you go traveling for a year without any income coming in. Third, because we had the internet we stayed up late pretty much every night talking to people which resulted in us sleeping in till noon. Much too late to head out, the busses stop running at 9pm. But I guess the main reason for us not heading out too much was quite simple, we were both traveled out.

Even though we didn’t leave the campsite too often, we did manage to do some things, like:

Met Nicholas and Dorthy, Nick was born in NZ but grew up in England. Brought over Glenfidich and we proceeded to get drunk, more so for Nick, we had to help walk him home. Unfortunately Julie told me Nick was being a pervert and that night was the last night we hung out with them, a shame really because most people don’t care to speak to us. We think it’s because of the van, every time we pull in somewhere people move, if they don’t move they have at times asked us to move. Most of the people that do this type of traveling are usually in flash campers and retired, oh well their loss.

The remainder of the time spent in Marbella was used to wash the van, inside and out, walk along the beach (Julie collected some shells), and just hang out reading or watching movies and TV shows. The campsite gave us a bottle of champagne for Christmas which we drank on New Years eve. Having more money for this trip would definitely change how we used this time, but that’s how it goes. We left the campsite on January 7th staying an extra day because we weren’t ready to check out in time.