Me and George!

Tuesday 18th December 2018 - Cabopino, near Marbella (again).

The last couple of days we have revisited a couple of places we stayed before.  

Yesterday we travelled from Estepona to San Pedro, near Puerta Banus.  Our wild camp location was exactly the same place as it had been a coupe of weeks ago, on a side road next to the beach/promenade.  We arrived in the morning and quickly took our chairs onto the beach for coffee.

Later we cycled inland to the town centre of San Pedro.  It seems to have an older centre but most of the area seems to be upmarket shops for interior design, estate agencies and leisure activities (a lot of people around here seem to have money and the leisure time to be able to enjoy their money).  

We stopped in the centre and saw the tourist office.  I approached the lady in the office (it usually is a lady in the tourist office), I checked that she could speak English and then jokingly said "Can I have a town map, I am English, You can put a tick in the box and we are all happy"!  I say this because that is exactly how it always works when you go into a tourist information.  They give you a map and they want to know your nationality so they can compile data on who is using their services.  I was just trying to speed up the process.  The lady didn't really understand.....Janice told her I was being embarrasing and then the lady seemed to realise I was making a joke and smiled.

San Pedro had a lovely Xmas Globe, I imagine it will be quite spectacular when it is lit at night.  The town looked like many of the side streets were being dug up and re-layed so we didn't stay long.

We returned to Puerta Banus...the posh people's harbour!  We enjoyed another look around the harbour and the beach area....

Then back to the van.

We felt fairly secure at our current location, probably because it's a fairly affluent area but on some occasions we aren't so sure.  Security is one of the big issues when we are wild camping.  Many motorhomes congregate together but we usually look for somewhere apart.  I am more concerned about someone either breaking in whilst we are away from the van or trying to steal the bikes from the back than our personal security.  There are some horror stories about people in motorhomes being 'gassed' to sleep whilst they get robbed but I'm not convinced they are accurate and certainly must be unlikely in the extreme.  The main problem I feel is when we are in bed with all the blinds closed and we hear a car pull up nearby.  It is difficult to judge which side of the van they are on and it is difficult to assess how close they are.  Usually it is some young person(s) in a car 'hanging about', and it's amazing how many people lack spacial awareness and come unnecessarily close.  I usually ignore the noises unless it is in the early hours but occasionally I will get up and have a look out of the blinds or open the door in my boxer shorts!  Recently I felt a small shift and movement of the van and thought someone might be trying to take a bike off the back...I jumped out of bed and caught the culprit running away....it was a cat that had been climbing on the bike rack!  The bikes are double locked together and to the van so someone would need a bolt cropper or something similar to get them off and one of the cables has a padlock that gives an audible alarm if it is jostled.  Hopefully that will be enough.  The biggest risk is probably when we are away from the van but we can't do anything other than park it in a place where it is visible to the public in a well lit area.

Today we have moved on to a site for one night, to charge our batteries and empty/fill our tanks before our final push to the site we are booked on for Xmas.  Janice has given me my Xmas haircut.....I noticed a lot of grey hair clippings falling to the floor!  Janice consoled me with the thought that my hair is the same colour as George Clooney.  I am now trying to expand the thought to believe that I look like George Clooney, not an unreasonable thought, we could be related??

We are due at Torre del Mar on Friday for 11 nights.....We've never stayed anywhere so long!  Before then we intend to have a couple of nights wild camping near Malaga, we believe the city has some nice buildings and spaces so is worth a look.

You may have noticed that I didn't mention my sister-in-law, Wendy's reply to to my Xmas requests.....there's a very good reason why.....because it wasn't a positive response!