New! The Quick Blog bit

A really quick catch-up, with 20 minutes of laptop battery remaining and just about to get out of range of Spanish 3G internet.

The story so far.  After leaving Horta de Soriano we spent three nights in luxury in Calpe, staying on a very smart camp site and spending time with Richard's parents in a real apartment made of bricks and cement and that sort of thing.  It was great to see them again, to catch up and let them spoil us!  Unfortunately, Richard's Mum was suffering from a severe cold and Dad was getting it by the time we left, so the party was a little bit more muted than normal.

After Calpe we continued down the coast, stopping off at Santa Pola, Murcia and Almeria, then a big push past the Costa del Sol to a small campsite at La Linea de la Conception.



En route we stopped off at Malaga to revisit some of our favourite sights and to lunch on one of the most unusual and delicious tapas dishes in Andalusia – 'berenjenas con miel', deep fried aubergine with dark molasses.



Yesterday we walked across the border into Gibraltar, for a look around that strange hybrid British Spanish place.  We approached town through a forest of dull dusty Spanish style concrete apartments with washing and 'Feliz Navidad' banners hanging outside.  Once through the old town walls we were in a rather picturesque but unusually sunny British seaside town.  We had a pub lunch at an outside table at the Gibraltar Arms in Main Street, surrounded by Spanish speakers.  It felt like somewhere like Penzance on the sunniest day of the summer.  On the way out we popped into Morrison's on our way back out for Marmite, Whole Earth peanut butter and rice pudding. Well, we've been away from Britain for a long time now.

In between the pub and Morrison's, we were heading for the cable car to the top of the rock when a taxi driver persuaded us that his tour was better value than the cable car.  He was right, we saw the top of the rock, the old siege tunnel, a spectacular cave, were mobbed by friendly apes and had beautiful clear views up the Mediterranean coast, up the Atlantic Coast to Tarifa, across Gibraltar and across the straights to Morocco.



Today we're striking off into that view, catching the ferry from Algeciras to Tangier and finally reaching Morocco. We were planning to cross to Cueta, but for some reason it's 70 euros cheaper to cross to Tangier today, so we changed our plans. We've pencilled in a camp site a little way down the coast in Cap Spartel for acclimatisation! We'll update you when we can.