Good Decision.

Tuesday 27th November 2018 - Cabopino, Near Marbella.

We left Santa Fe on Sunday morning after Janice was approached by a drug dealer with a wrap of something dodgy.  He pulled up in his car to the side of the motorhome and showed Janice his wares through the window.  Janice gave an abrupt shake of the head and he drove off quickly.  I was oblivious to what was going on....I'm not such a great protector am I!  She made a good decision.

We had been trying to decide where to go next.  We had choices of Corboba, Ronda or back to the coast near Nerja.  Nerja won the debate on the basis of a better weather forecast.  We thought that we could do Córdoba (definately worth seeing) on the way north after New Year.

We arrived at Nerja looking for a site so that we could refresh our water supplies and get some clothes washing done but the site we had targeted looked a bit grotty around the entrance.  So, we moved further along the coast to the site that we have pre booked for Christmas and New Year.  It wouldn't do any harm to check it out in advance.  It is near Torres del Mar.

The site was almost empty.  The ACSI camp site book showed that it closed in October but for the first time they had decided to stay open all year round.  As a result of the camping book they weren't very busy and I chatted to the receptionist who said that they weren't very busy at Christmas either.  That suits us fine.  The site was actually as good as any site we have visited in Spain (not a patch on the Caravan Club standards though).  The toilet block was large and clean, the pitches were well spaced and the direct access to the beach was good.....and for the first time, the reception staff were all friendly and smiled!

This is the beach outside the camp site.

It is a short walk to the small town of Almayate and a short cycle ride into Torres del Mar. 

This is the bay at Torres.  The town wasn't a high rise resort and it seemed to have plenty to offer.  As always, a nice promenade.  We reckoned that it was cycleable to Nerja in one direction and to Malaga in the other.  Overall, we were really happy with the site choice to stay here for 11 nights over the Christmas  period.  We stayed two nights and got all our chores done.  Good decision.

This morning we moved on to wild camp again.  We headed for a drive through Torremolinos (we never actually got onto the seafront) on to Mijas, a small Andalusian village in the hills.  We only just a managed the small windy roads up to the village but couldn't find our wild camp destination and couldn't turn round either.  Bad decision.  We eventually gave it a miss on the basis that the roads were too narrow and couldn't find a place to stay overnight.  We continued back to the coast to Cabopino where we have found a nice car park near the beach.  The beach is nice and we wound down with a beer at one of the beachside bars.

This is the bay where we are staying. If it is good tonight we may stay again tomorrow and cycle in to Marbella where the jet set stay!  Whether that is a good decision....we will see?