Portugal here I come

On Friday, I left Madrid having done none of the touristy things that I wanted to do but looking forward to getting to Monte Gordo in Portugal. It was another long drive and the temperature as I drove down rose to 40 degrees. I had been trying to avoid using the air conditioning in the car as it does affect fuel economy but on this part of the trip, I couldn’t live without it. I arrived in Monte Gordo by late afternoon and checked into my hotel, only to discover that I had again been fooled by the internet description only this time, I actually let them know how angry I was. The hotel is actually very nice but their notion of service is non existent - for example, I have been here for a couple of days now and still no-one has come up to fix the tv which I reported as not receiving a signal shortly after I arrived. And there is no internet. There is an internet in the lobby but it is unreliable at best and expensive. Getting served in the pool bar means waiting for nearly 30 minutes if you have the patience and the hotel food is not great.
On the plus side, and it is actually a big side, the weather is great (still high 30’s), the beach is great - Joe you would love this one - sand and body surfing waves. And they hire out jet skis although I am not sure I am so game to do it on my own, with large breakers making it difficult to take off - I know, I’ve watched several punters come to grief already and I’m not really keen. I think I will wait for a beach like Alicante which is a bit easier to get off.
There isn’t much to Monte Gordo apart from the beach and lots of places to eat. There is a huge camping ground just along the road from my hotel which is very busy and there are visitors from all over the world here. I am really disappointed in myself because although I can sort of keep up in French and Italian, Spanish has entirely eluded me, despite the regular consultation with my phrase book and now that I have hit Portugal, I am completely lost. I have found it impossible to recognise any words. I have understood some things simply because I have checked them out: I can tell the difference between the Gents and the Ladies for instance. I think the only word I have got sorted is ‘obrigado’ - thank you! Fortunately, there are plenty of people here who speak English as well so I haven’t been entirely stuck.
I have another 5 days here before I think I will follow the coast towards Valencia, making stops along the way, so I will update again later.
Monday 9th July
I decided I would just have to try and ignore the heat and do something other than lie idly round a pool or on the beach so I got up relatively early before the sun had got too high and headed off to Faro for a quick look round. Like much of this part of the world, it is dusty and old but I spent a very pleasant few hours strolling round the main streets of the city centre. There is a nice beach here too (where isn’t there round here) I notice that there are a lot of older, very weatherbeaten folk who seem to do nothing but sit in the shade watching the world go by. I can sympathise - it really is too hot for much activity. I had a very light lunch before heading back to Monte Gordo and the pleasures of the pool.
Tuesday 10th July
This morning, I got up really early - 6.30am! I meant to get up a bit earlier actually because I was being collected at 6.40am to go to Gibralter but I set the alarm incorrectly so I only had 10 minutes to get showered and dressed and downstairs for the bus. I made it though with minutes to spare even. I had been given a picnic by the hotel in place of breakfast (as I was leaving too early for that - not that I had partaken of breakfast in the hotel anyway) and I was glad to have something to eat when we made our first stop about 1 hour out of Seville. It took us about 3.5hours to get to Gibralter and I was surprised to discover that here was a border crossing where we actually had to show our papers. We were also told that the ‘export’ of goods out of Gibralter was a very tightly regulated business - each person could take 200 cigarettes, 1 litre of alcohol and 170pounds worth of shopping of any sort on top of the cigs and alcohol (and yes receipts had to be shown). Still, I really liked Gibralter. I did a tour of the rock, where I visited St Michael’s caves, looked across to Africa (or at least to where Africa would have been if the heat haze hadn’t got in the way), and met the monkeys. They made the whole trip even more worthwhile. I was surprised to find how friendly and tame some of the monkeys are - you can see how well I got on with one of them in the photos. After the rock tour, we were free to do what we wanted for 3.5 hours before we had to get back to the border for our bus back to Monte Gordo. Gibralter really is a little piece of England stuck on the edge of Spain. I found Marks and Spencer, Top Shop, and Next among other English gems. I had a lovely late lunch sitting in the town square and was disappointed that 3.5hours could disappear quite so quickly.
The drive back was notable for 3 reasons - it was much quieter than the trip out; the temperature as we passed through Seville was 47degrees; and we passed storks sitting (or rather standing) on nests on the tops of power pylons. The photos I managed to take are a little blurry unfortunately but will remind me of what I saw. The other thing I have noticed is that Oleanders are planted down the middle of all the motorways in Spain that I have travelled and there are vast fields of sunflowers, many past their best, dotting the landscape in amongst the dry, dusty hills. It was a long day, we didn’t get back to Monte Gordo until 9.15pm, but I am thrilled that I did it.
Thursday 12th July
Today I thought I might take in a theme park and what better theme than Aqualand, half way between Albufeira and Portimao. Unfortunately there are no visual records of this trip because I wanted to prove to the unbelievers that I did do the Rapids on a tube, and several slides of varying heights, as well as the wave pool, and the Magic Carpet ride. Never mind, you’ll just have to take my word for it. Suffice to say that although I did actually motivate myself to move from the side of the hotel pool for the day, I still managed to keep cool in other pools.