Up at 9ish to go out on the Atlantic Ocean for a kayaking session. Stunning clear sky... and a burning sun. Got a tad bit sunburnt, actually more like lobster red, but we don't really need to go there.
Lunch at Rockefellers was very tasty, but huge. Simon enjoyed the "Chiwawa" hotdog and I had the hugest chicken salad in the world. The leftovers feed us for dinner as well.
We had a relaxing afternoon with a nap and a wander to find some fruit and Aloe Vera gel for my burn. So worth the walk to find that!
Early night for us, but the tour mates went out, really enjoyed the bars, and woke me at 4am, as they didn't think to take their keys with them.
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| Part of an old fortress in Lagos, as seen from the kayak |
Day 6
Up pretty early from Lagos to get to Tarifa, a bit of a decent drive. We quickly dropped off our luggage at the hostel, then we were walked down to the port so we knew where we need to be for our evening trip to Morocco. We then had a little free time, enough to find a restaurant and eat. I ended up with a prawn salad... it took all that time to deshell them.
The ferry there was a little delayed, but not as bad as it was the week before, apparently it was over 1.5hours late. The ride was fairly smooth, and took about an hour.
Once in Tangier we were given a bus tour of the suburbs, and had a little camel ride each for a couple of Euros (we'll ignore that we weren't in a desert or anything fancy like that, maybe next time we ride camels we will be in a desert).
We then had a guided, rather fast, walk through the Medina, didn't get many photos as we were being rushed along with no time to stop. We then had a little experience in a Berber (traditional Moroccan) pharmacy. The pharmacist tried to sell us all sorts of lotions and potions. I bought a couple. We were then guided to a traditional restaurant for a 3 course meal, it was tasty, but not everybody seemed to enjoy it. There were also musicians playing for us while we ate.
Then we had a late ferry ride back to Tarifa, and into bed.
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| On the ferry to Morocco (yes that's Morocco in the background) |
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| Morocco by night |
We left Tarifa, where we could see the the tip of Gibraltar and we headed to Grenada. We stopped off in Ronda, a cute little mountain town, with a magnificent view. It was rather hot there, with not much of a breeze. Simon went for a decent walk for a good view of the "new bridge" ( 18th century) from the bottom of the gorge, and got some great photos. I sat and had sorbet with Mel (another NZ girl from the tour group), I was a bit sore still from the sunburn.
After our stop there we were back on the bus, next stop: Grenada. I really quite like Grenada.
We had an orientation walk, then out for a Tapas bar crawl. We had the world's tastiest cheese platter, and several more prawns (they are everywhere!), and more Sangria.
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| Ronda "New bridge" from the gorge |
Up early-ish (actually a little bit of a sleep in, in comparison to some mornings) to go and explore Alhambra!! That is one amazing creation. So big, so much detail, so much beauty, and an amazing view. Rather, a stunning, incredible view of all of Grenada. If you have never heard of Alhambra, you have a little reading to do. It's really something worth travelling to see. We had a fantastic guide who seemed genuinely passionate about everything he spoke about. He was quite the wealth of knowledge. Our tour there lasted about 2.5 hours, but if you didn't have timed entry between the different areas you could really spend a whole day and not even see everything.
After that we had a small window of time to go back to the hostel, get food and get ready for going to a Turkish bathhouse, or Hammam. It was fantastic, 3 different temperature pools, a steam room, endless mint tea, and a 15 minute massage. 15 minutes was not long enough!! It was a lovely way to relax for a bit as the last few days have been non-stop.
We were then lucky to have time up our sleeves before going to a Flamenco show. Some of the others on the tour went in earlier to get Flamenco lessons. I spent the time backing up all the photos I have taken so far.
The Flamenco show was great, it was in a cave, a little room literally carved out of the hillside. The ride there and back though was another experience altogether. I think we all thought we were going to crash and die well more than once along the way. I am surprise there wasn't any collisions and very thankful too.
Day 9
We left Grenada on the tour bus and stopped off at a little town called Consuegra to see probable site of the Don Quixote novel. A pretty little town, not much there really aside from the pretty windmills, and a Visigoth castle on the hills looking over the town. Apparently it is a scene described exactly like that in the book.
After that super windy stop we went on to Toledo, to see a Holy Toledo Cathedral, really beautiful, worth the stop even though it was so hot we could barely be bothered with the walk to and from the Cathedral. Glad we did it though. It does surprise me though that through so much of Europe they have decided that building so close to these beautiful, picture perfect churches and banks and government buildings. It is so hard to get a photo that shows even a glimpse of how beautiful they are.
Around this cathedral there were lots of tourist shops, cafes, restaurants and weaponry shops. Yes, hundreds of knives and swords. I think they think they invented the blade or something.
Then we were back on the bus again for the last time with that group, back "home" to Madrid. That night we went out for some farewell tapas, then we went then back to see our favourite Spaniard, to have another jug of Sangria and a tasty salad, more free shots of who-knows-what when we paid.
Day 10
Today we had a walk about Madrid to the gardens, then in the other directions to the Royal Palace. The Palace is beautiful, and situated to have the most amazing view. In trying to find the entrance to the Royal Cathedral we stumbled upon the crypt. It was just a small donation to enter and well worth it. Bigger than most churches I know and constructed in the style the cathedral itself would have been in, but the crypt is new.
After that was directions disaster number one. We trusted google maps to guide us. It did, we got there, but there wasn't a walkway the whole way from where we got off the bus. Actually there was only about 50m of footpath before we ventured off-road to get to the hotel. But we got there.
It was at "The Biggest Hotel in Europe" that we had the most expensive dinner of our lives. Tasty, but I'm still very certain that it wasn't worth that much. We did however hear a bit of Bic Runga in the restaurant, made us feel at home!
Next post will be of our Italian adventure!
<3 Anita and Simon
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