Sun Shinning - Soaring Temperatures

Our intention was to leave the hostal early on Tuesday morning the 22nd February, we had no desire to breakfast in Algeciras and we hadn’t had the best of nights sleep. We loaded our trusty steed which was still outside the hostal (thank goodness), and took off heading around the coast to Gibraltar (about 22kms), to spend a couple of hours before heading off to Puerto Banus (a further 50 kms), where my sister Barbara has a holiday apartment which she lets out and fortunately for us it was available.

We arrived in Puerto Banus just after 15.00 hrs, in blazing sunshine with temperatures reaching an amazing 26 degrees – a new record, I’m startin to melt and Ann is just about considering the possibility of shedding one of her 5 layers. We decided to stay in Puerto Banus for a week or so and use it as a base from which to tour and explore the area. It is a lovely resort with sandy beaches, a large marina full of luxurious boats and yachts, which in turn is surrounded with many chic and fashionable boutiques and restaurants. It is situated some 5km from its perhaps more infamous neighbour Marbella, (where some years ago the playboys and the dell boys assembled to show off their ill-gotten gains), and some 57km from Malaga.

We’ve spent our time chilling and relaxing, just enjoying the glorious weather with occasional trips to outlying places of interest. We did go to a town called Antequera around 130 km away from Puerto Banus, which was full of interesting and historic buildings, unfortunately due to the time of year they were not all Alberto (Spanish for open, si, my command of Spanish is increasing daily lol) We even managed somehow to order two pork baps to take away from a travel agency, I don’t know how we done it but as you can see from the photos we certainly enjoyed them, even though they cost us 400 euros each which we think included a time share in Antequera with a lovely balcony looking out over the castle!!!

 

  

Just outside Antequera there was an area of great geological interest (take note Jim Nallen, another destination for for some field study), called El Torcal. It was an amazing place full of extraordinary rock formations (a geologists dream), it was like being on another planet, you almost expected to see a pre-historic animal stroll by (we’ve used the expression pre-historic animal cos we can’t spell tyrannasorarssex). Hopefully the pictures will give you a good idea of what it was like. In addition, the roads were wicked, I mean serious ‘hairpin’ bends, at one point I thought I was valentino Rossi – hey Georgio Salvatorre Attardo you would’ve loved it.

We celebrated Anns birthday on the 2nd of March and would like to say a big thank you to all of you for your birthday wishes. We really pushed the boat out, I bought Ann some expensive nail varnish (after I talked her out of the Jimmy Choo shoes she had her eye on -see Picture), she removed four of her 5 layers of clothing, donned some mascara, lipstick and freshly painted her nails (toes as well) and we tripped the light fantastic at an Italian restaurant in Puerto Banus. It was an exquisite meal, washed down with a bottle of Moet (Joke –it was wine really), and the waiter even brought Ann a piece of cake with a candle in it. However, most of you will know, Ann does not do cake, so greedy guts Tony had a bonus and managed to force down another course; I can’t begin to tell you how uncomfortably full I felt afterwards, but it tasted delicious at the time!! The celebration culminated with a birthday conversation with our orphaned children back home in freezing cold Blighty, at least thats what they told us (I’m dreading the gas bill – joke kids).

Before we close this blog, we’d like to send our congratulations and very best wishes to our niece Jo Nicholls and Jay her fiancée, who have just announced their engagement – great news. Also congratulations to Carol and Barry her parents (Barry it looks like you wont be able to retire just yet!)

That’s all for now folks, we’re still in Puerto Banus and likely to be here a little while longer, so watch this space.



Lots of love

The Easy Riders xxx