Day 56 – 29th June – Monday, La Alpujarra.

Boiled eggs with rock solid bread meant that sadly we had to move on, if only to buy fresh bread. Spent a truly wonderful day in the Alpujarra mountains, stopped for lunch in the small town of Orgiva and had an amazing salad followed by fish Paella with an ice cold jug of Sangria. Suitably stuffed, we wound our way through the mountains towards the coast at Motril. We decided to try and find a beach to camp on, but the first couple we came to were either dodgey to park, or in the case of Chachu, made of dirt and grit and surrounded by plastic pepper greenhouses. We took the main road along the coast eastwards and found numerous picnic areas overlooking the sea and stopped at one on the outskirts of Castell de Ferro. Picnic areas seem to be regarded by the Spanish as large open air toilets, so we saw no harm in following the phrase… ‘when in Rome’. After this particular experience, I so wish I hadn’t. Being right on the edge of a cliff overlooking the sea, the area was enclosed by concrete barriers to stop vehicles falling over the top. Knowing it wouldn’t be dark for another 5 hours or so, I was forced to use one of these barriers as cover and ventured behind it facing the sea. Pants round my ankles I leant my bare bum against the barrier to steady myself (it was a dizzy view down!) and slid down the barrier into a squatting position. Unbeknownst to me at the time that the concrete was encased in a moulded fibre glass shell. As I walked back to the van I realised how itchy my bum was and started to scratch it making it ten times worse. Ant realised what had happened and immediately told me to stop scratching else I would be pushing hundreds of microfibers of glass deeper into my skin. He helpfully suggested sticky tape to pull the fibres out, which it did. But I’m not sure what was worse; the itching, or the humiliation of being on all fours in broad daylight, pants round my ankles, whilst Ant ripped strips of Gaffa tape off my arse!