17th March 2017. Journey to El Rocio, Spain.
The morning started reasonably early because we needed to leave before 10.30 a.m. when we’d have had to pay for another night. Again we watched strange goings on on the bridge. A lady walked up opened a bag and threw a plastic milk bottle attached to a long piece of string off the bridge into the water, she tied that to the bridge before throwing another one in. She stood there for ages looking over the edge every so often and writing something in a note book then she wound the string up, put the bottles in her bag and walked off. Who knew so many intriguing things went on on a bridge.
Before we left El Puerto we went in search of the free parking that we’d heard about and found it at the end of the road that ran along the opposite bank of the river. It was a very pretty spot but very windy, we had intended having a walk along the beach before we left but were painfully sandblasted as I stopped to take some photos so we decided enough was enough and hopped back in the van and left but not before noting that two of the motorhomers who’d parked there were in for a surprise when they got out of their vans later in the morning because they were now parked in the middle of large puddles!
We were heading for El Rocio which had been recommended by Terry in Tarifa, he told us it was like a wild west town with sandy roads and hitching posts to tie the horses to, which are the town’s choice of transportation.
Once again we drove past Seville, our van seems to like that road! As we drove past the city we spied the aire that we had been looking for when we visited Seville and we were very pleased that we hadn’t found it because it wasn’t nearly as nice as the place we’d stayed in and it wasn’t as near the old town either.
It’s amazing the things you see while you’re travelling, we passed an extremely swanky church or possibly a mosque with around 14 towers. I wish we’d been able to see it properly it looked beautiful.
We stopped for a quick bite to eat an hour out of El Rocio but the quick bite turned into a full blown menu del dia. After the 3 course meal we waddled over to Lidl’s and back to the van to continue the rest of our journey.
We arrived at El Rocio in the early afternoon by which time the lack of sleep was starting to take its toll, we stayed awake long enough to watch some covered wagons appear and the mules that pulled the wagons as they drank their water then we both had a cat nap with the intention of going out later. That didn’t happen because we didn’t wake up again until the evening by which time we decided to call it a day, sit and watch a film and have an early night.
Sadly for me (Darren can fall asleep at the drop of a hat) Friday night in El Rocio was party night and the festivities and singing went on all night, I remember still being awake around 4 in the morning, it was reminiscent of being back at one of the Swedish music festivals!