Another Week In Paradise.

Our friends, Kathy and Phil, returned to the UK last Friday.  We had a fun week with them and they enjoyed their break in the sun.

Our next guest arrives just before Christmas, then in January we will be joined by some boating buddies.

Before Kathy and Phil left Elaine treated them to a foot massage and ear candling!

On Sunday we went on a mini road trip inland to the village of Arboleas ...

Quite a few poms live in the surrounding areas as they can buy large villas for the price of a two bedroom unit on the coast ...

You just have to love the Spanish building standards ...

They do build nice churches though ...

We headed back to Mojacar via Huercal-Overa, which is a larger provincial town about 40 minutes drive from Mojacar.

It has a population of 20,000 and has all the up to date amenities including a large very modern hospital.

Being a Sunday lunchtime the streets were deserted ...

Even the church was shut ...

After a nice walkabout it was time to return to the beaches.

The white buildings on the hill are Mojacar pueblo ...

The hilltop village of Mojacar Pueblo (town) dates back thousands of years but due to drought and lack of employment the village population dropped to critical levels.  In the 60s the population of the hilltop pueblo dropped to about 1000 people but at its peak in the mid 1800s it was 10,000.  Local leaders in the 60s decided to give away land to anyone promising to build on it, an offer which was too good to refuse and so Mojacar playa (The Beach) was developed but mainly by 'immigrants' with an artistic bent ...

This resulted in the Mojacar that we love today.  It is just so different from the rest of Spain.  It has a magical edge to it a bit like Byron Bay back in Oz had.

And here is Bombo posing on the Playa with his new haircut ...

There are also a couple of outdoor gyms along the oceanfront, which we have a play on when we are down there ...

Believe it of not there are now even less people here!  Quite a few of the pommie 'immigrants' head off to Thailand to escape the winter!! 

We are loving the low to mid 20 degree weather ...

We walk along the beach most days and most days Elaine picks up rubbish, a lot of which is left by the Spanish fishermen.  They head off to the beach at dusk and stay all night, unfortunately when they leave in the morning they leave a lot of crap behind.

It's nothing like the litter problem in the UK but still annoying, especially when there are so many bins about ...

The van hasn't had a really good clean since June, so as we have plenty of time on our hands we have started to give it a good going over. We have done most of the interior, including polishing all the wood and cleaning all the curtains etc.  Yesterday we started on the outside ... we went up the local servo where they have five car washing bays, including one with a gantry which was perfect for cleaning the roof ...

I ended up climbing up on the roof as it was very dirty and understandably one of the most overlooked areas when cleaning a motorhome ...

That was the easy bit.  Now we are back at the unit we will spend the next few days waxing it, luckily there is a step ladder in the unit so I can get to the high bits.

Other news......they accidentally  cut through a water pipe at the bottom of the road whilst doing some road works yesterday.  Half of Mojacar (playa) lost their water but as we are in Spain, where the work ethic is a bit relaxed, it wasn't classed as an urgent fix!  The water has just come back on after 23 hours!!  We were OK as we used the drinking water from the van plus used the van toilet!

Finally........