Wild camping

Ruth says: After the Picos De Europa ( another one of our 1001 things to see), we drove to the Potuguese border near a little town called Miranda on the Duero river. (Ribero Del Duero Country). Bob had spent the previous couple of days convincing me that it was a good idea to camp out in the wild while we were in Spain because it is perfectly legal and it would be good practice for when we are in the wilderness of Kazakhstan, plus it´s free. I was really reluctant. It is one thing camping on a campsite where you have toilets and showers and mown grass so there are fewer insects, but something else completely when you have to dig a hole to go to the loo. Anyway, i finally agreed and we found a spot that i deemed suitably isolated. We set up the tent and were about to start cooking dinner when a car drove past on a road that we had completely missed, about 100 metres away! I wasn´t happy. My answer to this was to get drunk, as you can see in the picture. It worked.

The next morning we used our solar shower for the first time , aided by a kettle due to the lack of sun after a night of thunderstorms. A lovely site for any passing motorists. Bob particularly enjoyed his wilderness camping experience. By the time we left there were four holes in the ground with his name on!

Bob says: The top two pictures show our day trip to Portugal in the rain. We went on a river cruise up the Duero on a boat with a glass ceiling that you couldn´t see out of because of the rain. The commentary was in Portuguese and Spanish, all in all a bit of a failure, although very amusing to see how excited yer Portuguese and Spanish get when empty nests are pointed out to them. We also got some free Portuguese sherry whilst watching the bird show at the end. So all was not lost.

Ruth says: After our boat trip we drove to our next destination, but forgetting it was sunday we managed to miss the supermarket opening hours. We drove into one of the biggest villages we passed, which was tiny, and went into the only bar to ask about food. The guy behind the bar told us (in Spanish) that he didn´t do food and the only place in the village that did was Casa Carmen. He gave us directions (in Spanish) so off we went. We weren´t exactly sure what he had said and when we found ourselves wandering up a tiny narrow street where there couldn´t possibly be any restaurants we were sure that we had misunderstood. However, one house we walked passed had Casa Carmen in ceramic tiles outside. We kind of hung around outside not really sure what to do. It certainly wasn´t a restaurant. Anyway, some bloke came outside and looked at our little lost faces and asked us (in Spanish )if we wanted to eat. He led us into the house right into the kitchen where his whole family were assembled for sunday lunch. The old woman at the table, jumped up and cleared a table for us, put out a table cloth and proceeded to bring us a three course meal, all while the famnily carried on eating their lunch and with the tv blaring out dubbed spanish westerns in the corner. This was our little taste of real spain.