Gonna Ride My Bike Until I Get Home

In continuing our trip, we decided it would be best to leave Granada in the morning when it was still dark to avoid traffic in the confusing streets. We drove out of the hotel garage down the tiny one way cobblestone street (that had originally confused us when we first arrived) which led us to two directions - drive through a pedestrian plaza or drive down what seemed to be the wrong way towards a church. We opted for the church (because why would we drive through a plaza?), but that led us to a dead end. It seemed too dangerous to drive in reverse back towards the hotel, so at a standstill we simply couldn't figure out what to do. Luckily there was a cop nearby who confirmed that we DID in fact have to drive through the pedestrian plaza. Whatever, I'll never understand the driving in this country at all.

We made it out of the city much easier and quicker than we had entered and were soon on our way through the mountains towards San Javier watching the sun rise. We stopped at a random roadside cafe for a break, which was cool because it definitely did not seem like a place where non-Spanish speaking people tend to stop at. We continued the journey until we excitedly reached our destination...but of course got lost there too. Luckily, we asked directions in a furniture store that happened to be run by people from England, and they set us in the right direction (we had put the wrong town into the gps...whoops.)

Turned out we weren't staying in San Javier, but nearby in a town called Los Alcazares. The Lanes' family friend Brian was kind enough to let us stay at his apartment there, which was actually how our whole Spain trip idea had started in the first place. It was nice to have a place to settle for a few days where we could partake in some GTL. After arriving, we laid out by the community pool before heading to the town's main street.

Holiday Community in Los Alcazares

Well, I have to say I had quite a shock when we went for dinner. The street was full of English and Indian restaurants, no site of anything Spanish whatsoever! We knew this was a holiday destination for Brits (Brian's brother and friends also have apartments in the same community), but literally everyone and everything was straight out of the UK. It was totally fine, just not what I was expecting (nor was I anticipating that my Spanish vacation would consist of having drinks at a place so authentically named Route 66.)

The next day we walked to the beach and just laid out. Although we had beautiful views, another thing we hadn't realized was that we weren't actually on the Mediterranean. We were in fact on an almost fully enclosed sea called Mar Menor.

Mar Menor

The beach had cute wooden umbrellas for shade. Unfortunately that didn't shade me from the many unnecessary beyond-middle-age-saggy boobs that were exposed to the sun. I'll spare you any photos of that.

That evening we stayed in, cooked spaghetti, and watched The Godfather. So we basically had an Italian-themed night in an English part of Spain.

On Friday we rented bikes and rode along the promenade next to the beach. The map was pretty vague though - originally we thought we could make it around most of Mar Menor, but we probably got about 1/12th of the way there and hit a dirt road which seemed like the ideal place for getting lost in the woods in a foreign country. We couldn't figure out how to continue so we found the closest inhabited area (a Spanish part of town surprisingly) and had paella for lunch.

After turning around we headed as far as we could in the other direction until that path too stopped (this time because of a military sign saying do not enter.) The coolest part of this path was that the promenade turned into a wooden single-file bridge surrounded by 6 foot grass, which allowed for a ride with no other people around.

Good job auto camera settings

That evening we ate in again and then went out for a pint. I found myself fascinated by a cockroach that had climbed about 8 feet up the brick wall (we were seated outside) and was hanging out there for remainder of the evening without falling. I wanted to name him and Dave suggested Gregory. This was weird because I had been talking about The Metamorphosis but couldn't remember the roach's name the whole night. Dave, who had never read the book, randomly nailed it on the first try (of course he is Gregor Samsa.)