Temporary Change Of Daily Routines

As I looked contentedly out of the passenger car window, it was a reminder for me, if one was actually needed, at just how diverse the landscapes are, here in the southern part of Andalusia. The Province of Cadiz stretches from the Mediterranean coast, on the East, with the Strait of Gibraltar to the South, and the Atlantic coast on the West. In between there are a combination of mountain peaks and lush green fields with views that spread out for miles as far as the eye can see, their are Natural Parks with thick forested areas and acre upon acre of Olive groves and orchards containing a wide abundance of different varieties of fruit, with the orange orchards being the easiest to distinguish from a moving car, for quite obvious reasons. We drove past reservoirs that are now full, although they had been as dry as a bone over the last couple of year’s, but now we see cattle and horses in the fields surrounding them and they are now able to wander and graze in the open fields and down to the waters edge where they can now drink their fill. Up along the mountain roads you have to take care as you will often come across herds of goats grazing on roadside bushes and see them up in the branches of trees nibbling on the more succulent leaves, the danger coming more from the stationery cars that have stopped on the road to take photographs of them. But these landscapes, whilst beautiful can also be a source of extreme danger in hot Summer months, when high temperatures, or carelessly discarded cigarettes, can ignite Wildfires which, when fanned by the strong winds can become infernos of heat in a matter of seconds, we have already suffered two of these in our region in the last couple of weeks, even before the temperatures pushed the mercury over the current 30 degree(c) mark, fortunately the authorities had responded quickly and soon had them under control, but it served as a timely reminder for us to check our route beforehand, Google maps now show where such wildfire outbreaks occur, we certainly wouldn’t have wanted to find ourselves heading towards one of these inferno’s.

So, some of you may very well be asking why am I commencing this ramble about being on a journey in the car 🤷‍♂️ Although probably the more logical question would be ‘Where were we travelling to ?’ Well I will get around to that, but first, to give this ramble some sort of context, I should tell you that this story actually started some three mornings earlier………………..

It was Friday the 22nd May, the morning had commenced just like any other, a slow leisurely start before going out on our normal daily walk. As is our normal routine, we had stopped at one of our favourite Cafe/Bars to enjoy our mid-walk refreshments and, because we had done enough chitter chattering during our walk, we sat in silence with our own thoughts and just enjoying the same marvelous views, whilst of course conducting our usual people watching routines, it would be rude to break this now ritual daily pastime. However, things were about to change, for out of the blue, Shazza breaks the silence between us, “We should go on a short mini-break” she announces, “That’s a good idea” I respond, “Where do you fancy going ?”, I enjoy mini-breaks but in truth I was really thinking that this was just going to be another one of those futuristic travel ideas, the ones we discuss but that rarely ever materialise into anything because, although we quite regularly have these conversations where we come up with numerous ideas, and locations, for potential trips they never actually come to fruition. We are both as guilty as each other for that, the simple reason being that neither of us can ever make a decision about where to go, or when 🤷‍♂️ But of course, I played the game and continued to elongate the conversation, well I suppose it did pass some time whilst enjoying the heat of the morning sunshine, and so I of course asked the next logical question, “When are you thinking of wanting to go on this mini-break ?”, but upon hearing her reply I couldn’t help but burst out laughing, “Well, I thought we could perhaps leave first thing on Monday morning”, she just gave me one of her ‘I am being serious’ looks, “Why are you laughing, we don’t have anything urgent that needs doing and how long does it take to pack a suitcase ?”. Now of course, my beloved was right, for a mini-break generally only means, in her mind, anything from a couple of days or, perhaps a whole week, but not anything much longer, not a major holiday, or anywhere outside of our immediate local area, say within just 2-3 hours drive, so we wouldn’t need to pack very much for just a few days. I tried to be gentle with my response, “Well ‘we’ my darling may be ready at such short notice but, as we don’t yet know where we want to go, let alone find accommodation, with vacancies, at such short notice, so I really do think that we may just have to allow a little more planning time”. She glanced me one of her ‘not very impressed’ looks and returned to silent mode. However, I knew better than to think that this would be the end of the matter and I could hear the cogs turning in her brain as we walked back to the car 🙄

So we returned home from our walk and sat, enjoying lunch on the balcony, but without mentioning anything to each other about our earlier ‘mini-break conversation’, but we were both sat, somewhat surreptitiously with our iPads, scrolling through ‘Google Maps’, looking for some sort of mini-break inspiration. I was thinking that we perhaps we should get away from the coast, somewhere up into the mountains where we could stay at one of the many rural B&B type ‘Fincas’, many of which have swimming pools, which would be an absolute necessity in the current temperatures 🥵, many of them will also provide Dinner in the evenings, if requested in advance. That, I thought, would be a much nicer relaxing break from our usual repetitive daily routines or 🤔 Perhaps we could visit one of the numerous inland villages, or towns, that we have not as yet visited, where we could just stay in a local rustic hotel, with a pool of course, but somewhere where we could perhaps venture out during the cooler morning periods if we felt the need, to visit some of the other small whitewashed villages and towns within that immediate local area and then spend the searingly hot afternoons lazing around the pool with a glass or two of something cold 🍺 Mmmmm 🤔 decisions, decisions……….. Shazza gave out a very loud ‘huff’, closed her iPad and picked up her Kindle, I knew that there were far too many options for her, especially with her not knowing exactly what it was that she was seeking, so she gave up looking, we have been here before on numerous occasions.

Whether it was divine intervention, or just plain good old serendipity, I really do not know but, after getting brain fog myself with all of the different opportunities available, and believe me, their were loads, my iPad ‘pinged’, informing me that I had an Email. It was out of sheer coincidence, and I have to say, damned good timing, that an advertising promotion Email, from the RIU Hotel Group, arrived in my ‘Inbox’ informing me of their latest worldwide availability offers. Now I should perhaps clarify for you that I have actually been a ‘loyalty card’ member of this Spanish owned hotel group for very many year’s, so they are quite regularly sending me promotional literature. They have some very nice 4* and 5* hotels, and resorts, all around the world and we have stayed in quite a number of them over the last 20 years, although, these occasions were mainly when we were still living and working in the UK, and those were primarily ‘Winter Sun’ holidays at different ‘Long Haul’ destinations, like Mexico, Jamaica, Tunisia and Egypt and usually for periods of 10-14 days. We do like RIU hotels and resorts, for they provide what are generally considered to be luxury, but without being overly ‘Posh’, we do both enjoy a bit of luxury, but definitely without all of the pomp and pretentiousness. Now it goes without saying really, but being a Spanish owned hotel group, they do also have several hotels and resorts within Spain, including Gran Canaria and the Baliarics, although, strangely enough, only a handful here on the mainland, and many of them are just hotels and not full resorts. We have stayed in one fairly local to us in ‘Nerja’, which is just three hours up the Costa del Sol coastline from us, and of course, very nice it was too. However, they do also have a large Hotel Resort location even closer to us, on the Atlantic Coast, just half an hour or so south of Cadiz, and the resort itself is only an hour and a half coast to coast car journey from us. However, we have considered this particular RIU beachfront resort location previously, but then always very quickly discounted it, as that particular resort is one of those large family fun one’s, the sort that attract scores of excited ‘Little Darlings’ running all over the place morning, noon and night, and of course being a resort, they have all of the associated kids entertainment programmes with the associated noise that comes with them, so obviously this would certainly not be the sort of place for a pair of ‘Old Wrinklies’ just looking for a little bit of peace, tranquility and relaxation 😳

However, I thought to myself that I may as well just look at the current offer at that location, just out of curiosity really, as you do. I was a little surprised, especially as it was the school half term holidays, that price wise it did actually reflect a very good deal for a 4* star resort on an “All-Inclusive’ package and with it being beachfront and seven on-site swimming pools, on-site restaurants, several bars and lounges and very importantly, on tentatively checking the availability dates, it confirmed that it had availability from the Monday through to Friday as we wanted. “Shazza, I may just have found somewhere, and not too far away, for us to go on that mini-break” I said. I verbally provided her with the essential information before passing her the iPad so that she could look at the images on the website. To be totally honest with you, I had expected her to pull a face and discount the suggestion, as she had done many times previously but, to my complete surprise she said, “Why not, it’s only for a few days”. So I logged on to their website, requested a sea-view room with balcony, and secure on-site parking for the car, just for the four night’s and the booking was confirmed almost instantaneously.

So, here we were, within just a few hours from when Shazza had first made the suggestion at the Cafe/Bar, we had actually made a decision and the booking was made and confirmed, bloody hell that was totally out of character for us 😁 Now all we had to do was relax over the weekend, throw a few items of clothing into our small suitcases, well not true actually, as my OCD Buddy would never let his military discipline do anything less than fold such items nicely and with precision 😂 Shazza on the other hand, who had never been anywhere near a military establishment, just threw her clothes in. But we didn’t really need to pack very much, swimwear for the lazy days around one of the seven on-site pools, a couple of pairs of decent dress shorts, and short-sleeved shirts, for the evening meals in the on-site restaurants, and for taking evening drinks in one of the many bar lounge areas. If we did want a change of scenery, or to get away from the noise of excitable Parents and their ‘Little Darlings’, we could always walk down to the long stretch of white sandy beach, which could be accessed from the back security gate in the garden area, or we could always take the car and visit other places in the area, along the coast, North or South or even drive inland.

Looking at the advance ‘Works of Fiction’ forecasts for our time away, it looked like that particular coast was going to experience 33-36 degrees(c) and a minimum of 22 degrees(c) during the early hours, much the same as the heatwave currently effecting a lot of other locations elsewhere in Europe, so in reality I didn’t anticipate wandering much further than the swimming pools 🥵

We could not officially check-in until 3pm, but we decided to leave at 10am anyway, and make a stop en-route at the small hilltop town of Medina Sidonia, a place that we have often passed along this route, always intending to stop but never doing so. In fact, being only a one hour’s drive away we could have visited this town on just a short half day trip from home, but we had often just forgotten about it, out of sight out of mind, as the saying goes. But depending on how much of interest there was there, we could perhaps kill a couple of hour’s and have lunch before then heading to the hotel which would be only another hour’s drive away.

We pulled into a car park (Free Parking) just outside the entrance to the town, only a couple of minutes uphill walk and almost immediately we came across a side street Cafe/Bar, the type that Shazza refers to as ‘Old Men’s Bars’, meaning a place that is utilised generally only by the locals and not tourists, and not just by ‘Old Men’ I hasten to add. We went inside to the small, but busy, inner sanctum and were greeted by the usual ‘Buenas Dias’ without heads lifting or eyes moving from the newspapers they were reading whilst consuming their coffee’s, beers or second breakfast’s, we of course responded in the usual manner. The bar area was busy but the man behind the counter looked at us and nodded, an acknowledgement that he had seen us and would take our order once he had finished doing whatever it was that he was currently engaged in. He then looked up at me, “Dos Cafe con Leche” I said, he nodded and motioned for me to find a seat, he would bring it to us when he had prepared it, “Cuanta Cuesta” I enquired, “Tres” he responded and I left the money on the counter and we went outside and we sat at a table, a few moments later two piping hot cups of coffee were delivered, “Muchas Gracias” I said, ‘Dinada” came the response. We smile at each other because when you are learning how to speak a language, any language, it is always in complete formal and grammatically correct sentences, but the reality, especially here in Spain, is that they do not waste breath on superfluous unnecessary words and, if you use them, you just stand out as being a tourist 😂

In the height of Summer the central Plaza would be full of tables and chairs belonging to the adjacent Cafe/Bars that sit on the roadside opposite the Plaza, but it was extremely windy on the day of our visit (40mph gusts) and although the sun was shining and it was already in the high twenty something’s, being at the top of a hill, believe me that wind made walking challenging at times. it was a Monday, unfortunately closing day for a lot of the retail establishments but nevertheless, we strolled along the pedestrianised street that naturally followed on from the Plaza. We looked in the windows of the artisan stores, no big corporate branded stores here, but the town had everything you would need on a daily basis if you lived here, two Banks, three Pharmacia’s, Butcher’s, Baker’s ( Although we didn’t see any Candle Stick Makers 🤭), Fishmongers, even a small interior market hall with its own cafe. Medina Sidonia also has castle ruins further up the hill, and although they would certainly have provided superb 360 degree views of the surrounding countryside, they are only ruins, so we decided not to bother and just weaved our way in and out of the narrow cobbled streets.

It didn’t take us long to see everything their was to see here, well, apart from the castle ruins that is, so it was still too early for lunch so we made the decision to make our way to the hotel, we could always leave our suitcases in the car in their car park and hopefully find somewhere to eat nearby, until the official check-in time.

We pulled up outside the large hotel reception area a little before 12:30 and was greeted by a very friendly and smiley female concierge (Or should that be Conciergess 🤔), she told us that we could off load our suitcases and leave them in the large internal lobby area whilst we parked in the secure official car park across the road. After parking the car we went inside, to see if we could leave our suitcases in a store room until check-in time, again, we were greeted by another friendly female member of the RIU staff, she was a pre-check in representative and provided us with lots of information on the resort facilities, before directing us to the main reception desk, where we expected to be told that we were too early. However, another very friendly and smiley female took our TIE Cards (Spanish Resideny Identity Document), checked her computer and informed us that our room was ready 😲 After a very swift check-in procedure we were handed our Electronic Room Key Cards, two Pool Towel Cards and a Resort Map which contained one of those ‘QR Code’ things which would provide us with all the information that we may require during our stay. She said we could leave our suitcases and they would be delivered to our room for us, we declined the kind offer, after all they were only small ‘Cabin Bag’ size and were not heavy, plus they were on wheels. It felt a longish hot walk to find the accommodation block that we were in, although in reality, once we had familiarised ourself with the resort facilities it wasn’t as large as it first appeared. Fortunately, we were accommodated in a two-storey block of only twenty rooms, away from the noise of the pools and entertainment facilities, whether this was by design when they saw that we were just a couple with no kids, and being of a certain ‘senior’ age group, I don’t know, but it could not have been more perfect. The room was on the second floor and was immaculately clean, and large, and when I stepped onto the large balcony, complete with two chairs and a small table, it looked over a side garden out to sea, this was the RIU standards that we had previously become accustomed to, we both looked at each other with big beaming grins on our faces, we immediately felt that we were on holiday and that we could have been at a resort anywhere in the world, it brought back very many happy memories, RIU had not disappointed once again. But even better than that was the fact that we could go and take lunch in the buffet restaurant 😋😋😋

Anyway, you will be pleased to know at this point of the ramble, that I am not going into a day by day account of what we did, which wasn’t that much to be completely honest, each day we ate, we drank, we lazed around the pool and we enjoyed the evening entertainment, rinse and repeat, the perfect mini-break and one which, once again, just goes to prove, especially to us, that we should not judge a book by its cover 🙄

So, all in all, okay we had only really changed one set of regular daily routines for another ‘Temporary Change Of Daily Routines’, but they do say after all, that a change is as good as a rest, and we can concur with that wholeheartedly. Whilst we initially intended to keep somewhere close to our healthy diet regimes, and to be honest, with the wide variety of food available, to suit all dietary requirements, so it would have been easily possible to have kept to them, but in truth, the temptations away from them proved just too great to resist, even for Shazza 😂 We do not usually like being where there are large groups of people in a confined area, but we had no worries about contracting any rogue bacterial infections, as we both well and truly overdosed on the wide variety of Anti-Virus Medications that were freely available 🫣🤪

Even though this had only been somewhat of a short mini-break, the days had just flown by so quickly, a sure sign that we had both actually truly enjoyed ourselves but to be honest, we were both ready for home now, if only to detox 😂 It had been a bit like a busman’s holiday in one respect, exchanging one beachfront location for another, but at least for Shazza, much more than myself, she had had a well deserved break from planning menu’s and then preparing and cooking meals, here that was all taken care of for her. But it did confirm something that, in reality, we already knew, and that is that we are no longer the sort that can be away from home for long periods of time, these shorter mini-breaks are much more enjoyable, for we have become home birds and, as Miguel and Katya, our Spanish neighbours keep telling us, whenever they return from their Camper-Van trips, “You go on a holiday, and then you come back to your own permanent holiday location”, and they are so right.

Even whilst we were on this current mini-break holiday we started to discuss doing a similar thing elsewhere in Spain, even if that did mean considering the RIU establishments on the other Spanish Islands. However, it would not stop us from trying other similar hotel groups either, we have already stayed at a couple of the Spanish ‘Parador’ group of hotels, although they are extremely expensive just for the accommodations, without any meals included, and they also tend to be in isolated locations so you do need a car. But I still have a yearning to do the ‘Finca’ experience so who knows 🤷‍♂️

We had breakfast at the hotel on our final morning and were still back at home before lunchtime. The temperatures here on the East Coast during the day are a little cooler, climbing to just 28 degrees(c), and a humid 22 degrees(c) at night, but we can certainly feel that 6-7 degree difference, but June is just around the corner and so those daytime temperatures will just keep climbing day by day, to anywhere between 35-40 degrees(c) by the time we reach July and August 🥵 Time I think to get ourselves down to our own on-site Pool and to also enjoy some sandy Beach day’s 🏖️ For now though, my OCD Buddy is pleased to be back to the more usual daily routines 🤗

Until the next ramble…………………

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, La Vida Es Buena 😉