Vuelta del Mondo

Monday 10th December 2018 - Sanlucar de Barraneda.

I am struggling under the amount of stuff to tell you.  We have been particularly enjoying the oranges from the site at Jerez.  There is a particular tree that is our favourite and we have been helping ourselves...

They are of course just out of reach so I have had Janice on my shoulders again.  These are sweet and juicy with no pips, whereas some of the others can be quite bitter so we have used those in Gin and Tonics instead of lemons....it's a rather nice alternative!

We have moved over to the last of our sherry towns...Sanlucar de Barrameda.  We are wild camping on a beach car park and arrived in time to see a couple of microlites taking off just in front of us.

The beach is long and golden and we are blessed with the weather again.

We walked along the 'new' prom and then later cycled into the town.  It still seems to have a bank holiday weekend atmosphere.

The town has a Castillo and many Bodegas for Manzanilla sherry production.  There was also the finish line for an ultra marathon, a 50k cycle and a 50k run.  There were lots of people hobbling around.

The town has some interesting history too.  It was the starting point for Columbus' third voyage to the Americas but more significantly it was where Magellan started his 'Vuelta del Mondo' tour around the world.  He set off in 1519 with five ships.  One of his crew members was Juan Sebastian Elcano who mutinied with others off the coast of Argentina.  Some of the mutineers were hung drawn and quartered but Elcano was spared.  The small flotilla sailed the Magellan Straits at the bottom of South America and eventually stopped in the Phillipines.  They got involved in fighting with natives and Magellan died and the ships were reduced to two.  One of the ships stayed and one remaining ship, the Victoria, completed the journey back to Sanlucar with Elcano as the Captian and 18 crew in 1522. What I want to know is why was Magellan credited with the first circumnavigation rather than Elcano?  Maybe because Magellan was a noble born Portuguese man who sailed on behalf of the Spanish Crown, whereas Elcano was a Basque sailor of common family, who merely had determination and guts when it mattered!  Isn't it always the same!

What a good story.

We had a disturbed night by a large tanker that sailed by around 3am.  It took nearly an hour!  It was also very noisy.....well if you park on a beach at a river mouth that is what you might get.  I have also had a bit of an irritated nose causing me to snuffle.  I know I won't get any sympathy.

Today we wanted to have a cycle ride along the coast.

First stop was Chipiona.  I wanted to stop for Chippy Tea but the place seemed totally closed.  It has this lovely lighthouse....and a new prom!

The cycle route took us on to a town called Rota.  It is on the opposite side of the bay from Cadiz and is a lovely little place.

It has a couple of massive beaches.  I think these resorts are kept for the Spanish....they don't seem to feature in British holiday brochures.

I would recommend it for holidays as the beaches are great, the town seems to have quite a variety of bars and shops and historic buildings...and...you can get a cheap ferry across to Cadiz.

I took the chance to buy a chemist product for my sensitive nose.....

This was it.  Now, I don't know what problem the chemist thought I was telling her about but I have been squirting it up my nose rather than anywhere else and I am happy to accept any side effects that might occur!

Did I mention that Rota had a nice new prom?  We bought two large ham sandwiches for 1 euro each and sat on the new prom to eat them, we can confirm they had EU signage for the funding.  We cycled back and hope that tonight we don't get the tanker sailing back again.