Playa Playa Playa

Ahhhh… Paradise. That’s where I’ve been for the last few weeks. Angel, Gusana and I loaded up the van and headed down to the coast- Cabo de Gata. We spent two weeks beach-hopping, sleeping next to the Mediterranean Sea (and on occasion under the stars), building sand animals, exploring coves and hills in the giant national park as well as ruins of castles and towers. The water was warm and crystal clear and the sand was fine and white- pretty much perfection. We even ventured out for one midnight swim when there was a full moon (but I quickly remembered every shark movie I’d ever seen and how the really bad stuff usually happens at night- let’s just say I hightailed it out of there reeeeaaaaalll fast.) We didn’t see any tiberonitos (sharklets), but plenty of other less harmful animals (with the exception of a few medusas (jelly fish) on the first two days— I was the only one who got stung. Twice.) We spent a day snorkeling around a rocky bay and saw a ton of interesting and colorful fish, sponges, prickly things, squishy things, slippery things, and bony things.
For most of our meals we cooked in the van, but occasionally we would venture out into a town to try interesting plates and fancy fruity cocktails. Cuisine highlight for me: Buey de Planca (Grilled Ox). One Friday Angel and I found a discoteca called La Rocca in San Jose and spent the night dancing to a mix that heavily favored a latino flare. Another night we found a Tex Mex restaurant in a tiny hippy town called Las Negras, and after some delightful fajitas and margartas we were heading back to the van when we walked right past Christopher Lloyd, (the older actor in Back to the Future, we’re 95% sure it was him) and ended up having a drink at the table next to him, giggling and playing with his dog.

The first few days we joined his cousins, Pablito and Angelito, and Angelito’s girlfriend Ester to try out a few different beaches as well. One of those days we hiked about an hour to reach a secluded beach called San Pedro, with the ruins of a castle shaped like a kabob (no one else agrees with me on this, but it’s true).

It was a wonderful wonderful wonderful vacation, completely Spanish (except for a few occasions when Angel wanted to practice English, resulting in a few very funny mixups such as “Ladies and Germans”).

And now back to Granada and reality. Kind of. What a wonderful life.

SABES QUE…
Christopher Lloyd is supposedly best friends with Jack Nicholson.