Spanish Trip Report, part 2

Author Message   E.L.Fink Intermediate Member Username: Yahootie Post Number: 125 Registered: 08-2009 Posted From: 75.247.200.64 Posted on Wednesday, June 09, 2010 - 03:14 am:    Yeah, the CG were working the crown at the Friday market in Malaga as well. elf   E.L.Fink Intermediate Member Username: Yahootie Post Number: 124 Registered: 08-2009 Posted From: 75.247.200.64 Posted on Wednesday, June 09, 2010 - 03:11 am:    Earl, Thanks for the hotel tip at Gibraltar. The CG were stopping people going into Rota one weekend. We had all our papers out and ready to show! They just waved us through. elf   Earl Senior Member Username: Myramstein Post Number: 793 Registered: 11-2007 Posted From: 108.98.104.63 Posted on Tuesday, June 08, 2010 - 01:32 pm:    elf, Glad you enjoyed your trip. Read my trip report from last summer == WP>Seville>Granada July 2009 == Same happened to me on road from Rota to Seville last summer. CG had check point set up and stopped everyone. Searched buses, cars, trucks. I remind people travelling in Spain to be patient, have ID, passport, if wear glasses have extra pair handy (new law in Spain if you are driving a car), know where insurance papers are (under passenger seat for NEX rentals from Rota), and be respectful to CG. As a kid in Spain in the 50s saw many beaten by CG. The CG is not joking around. Even to this day I get a sense of fear when I see them or stopped by them. Was asked for my "papers" on the street in Seville last summer by CG. Normally the city police work the cities in Spain. But CG can work anywhere they wish. For those who do not know: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Guard_(Spain)   Earl Senior Member Username: Myramstein Post Number: 792 Registered: 11-2007 Posted From: 108.98.104.63 Posted on Tuesday, June 08, 2010 - 01:19 pm:    elf, On your next trip recommend that you stay in La Linea and walk to the border crossing. You can walk across runway or ride bus across. It is cheaper to stay overnight in La Linea. You can park car in public parking lot (under ground at city square) in La Linea. Did you receive the slide shows I sent you?   E.L.Fink Intermediate Member Username: Yahootie Post Number: 122 Registered: 08-2009 Posted From: 75.228.179.63 Posted on Tuesday, June 08, 2010 - 03:21 am:    Earl, Gibraltar had a 7.50 EUR per person fee to drive up to the top. We chose not and pulled off onto some type semi-abandoned British base, so we didn't see the Rock apes, nor ride the cable car. We liked western Spain better than the Med side. There was nothing but apartment-condo projects all the way from Malaga to Gibraltar. We were suprised that the civil guard (carried AK-47) had roadblocks up and the folks pulled over had their entire car and stuff looked through. Sort of reminded me one time, when I walked into a Chinese Bank in Singapore to exchange some money and discovered it was mainland China. elf   Earl Senior Member Username: Myramstein Post Number: 790 Registered: 11-2007 Posted From: 173.105.135.197 Posted on Monday, June 07, 2010 - 02:48 pm:    elf, Great trip report. Thanks for sharing. The Rock apes are at the upper level of the rock. Did you ride the cable car to the top when you were there? I will send you a pic of them. Again, great trip reprot.   John R Garrison Senior Member Username: Majorg Post Number: 2710 Registered: 02-2006 Posted From: 208.81.157.86 Posted on Monday, June 07, 2010 - 02:39 pm:    John/Lynne: Great report! Thanks for completing the tale of your adventures. Happy Travels, John   James E. Kale Advanced Member Username: Jimiam Post Number: 175 Registered: 09-2006 Posted From: 96.231.72.54 Posted on Monday, June 07, 2010 - 10:53 am:    Great adventure. We've blundered our way through Jerez a number of times. If there was ever an ad for a GPS, Jerez is it. Thanks for taking the time to post an interesting report.   E.L.Fink Intermediate Member Username: Yahootie Post Number: 118 Registered: 08-2009 Posted From: 75.228.128.31 Posted on Sunday, June 06, 2010 - 07:39 pm:    Rota => McGuire => Charleston => Kings Bay => Houston After the cruise from Galveston to Barcelona, Spain, we disembarked the Voyager of the Sea, Royal Caribbean Cruse Line, caught a cab ~ 25 EUR to the hotel, Alfa - Best Western at the airport, costing ~85 EUR. We rested, had dinner at the hotel and caught the 6 AM shuttle to the airport for a flight back to Malaga, where we had a condo rented through AFVC. No problem through the airport and on the plane. Flight from Barcelona to Malaga cost $46/each one-way, which we bought from Spanair on line three weeks earlier. I might add that Boeing 717 (McDonald-Douglas) was the cleanest aircraft I have ever flown on. Things were worn, but clean! I have never seen seat-tray tracks that were clean. Nothing like aircraft in the US. We arrived in Malaga about 9 AM that morning, rented a car for a week at 255 EUR with a return to Cadiz, Spain, from National/Atesa on line three weeks earlier. We got on the old road through the center of town and ended up driving 20 miles past the condo. After several phone calls, we learned the building addresses are keys into Kilo-markers (mile markers), not building numbers. Horror! The buildings do not have numbers! They have street names, if they haven’t been painted recreantly. There are few traffic lights. There are round-abouts, intersection circles, or circuses if you please. If you miss your turn, circle again! I felt like Chevy Chase in the movie, European Vacation, especially after I drove through a square and down a set of steps. I have no idea how we ended up in the square, though it didn’t seem to bother the local folks. So, we made it a point to catch AP-7 back to Estepona, took the A-7 exit, and started looking for Kilo-marker 236. Our condo, Macdonald Hotel & Resorts - VILLACANA, located at Estepona, 25 miles south of Malaga on AP-7 was a 2-bedroom with a kitchen-dinning-living room on the first floor, sun-roof and washroom at the head of the stairs on the second floor with the bedrooms and bathroom. They were kind enough to store our luggage; we took off the ship three days earlier, so as not to have to pay for additional baggage charges on the airline. We lay out a day, did nothing but siesta and eat. The hotel had about 20 retired couples from Great Britain and Scotland, early arrivals for the summer rush. They wanted to know what part of Canada we were from, and were delighted to know we were from Texas. The topic of all conversations was the oil spill in the Gulf. We only knew what the media reported. Our third day, we drove down and visited Gibraltar. The main highway crosses the runway, so when planes were taking off or landing, the road was closed. We flashed our passport and were waved through. We drove around, got a lot of photos. Saw no monkeys? Gas was $1 cheaper, so we filled up and headed back. We toured the Spanish town of La Linea de la Concepcion, had a late lunch of Tapas and drove back to Estepona. The following day, we were more aggressive and drove along A-7, west to Rota, Spain. We blundered our way through Jerez (turning left on AP-4), toward Puerto Real and turning right on A-491 to Santa Maria. We stopped in Santa Maria for Tapas and directions. Naval Station was another 5-circles. Make a left at the 5th circle. Sure enough, we found our first road sign to Rota. For general information, there are no Rota road signs on AP-4; they are all on A-4. We had no GPS. We went on a hotel sponsored ‘Friday market’ tour at a small town near Malaga. The bus picked up guests of two other Macdonald Resorts. They were all Brits. All the kids had colds, the women coughed on everybody, a real sickly bunch. Got some great photos of the market, street mimes, and people. The market consisted of clothing, produce, trinkets, baby clothes, underwear, flowers, CDs, and spice stalls, to include of all things a stall manned by Mexican Indians playing flute & wind music and selling CDs. I mistook the Indians for American and tried to speak English to them. That didn’t work. There were several stalls with goods from across the channel out of North Africa. That was interesting. On Saturday, we packed up and headed to the Navy Lodge at Rota. We took the southern route past Gibraltar along the sea coast on E-05. It was beautiful. And wind-generators, there were thousands and thousands. It would have driven Don Quixote mad! There was even a field of solar cells or two along the way. We left the mountains and picked up A-45 at Trafalgar and entered the rolling hills on to A-4. Back through the circle hell of Puerto Real and Santa Maria. The roads were under construction, making matters worse, but on to A-491 and Rota. There are basically three types of roads in Spain, the old towns, the modern of the 1970-1990s, and the super highways of the 2000s. The larger traffic circles, the more modern the highway. They are all in good condition! Understanding them was my problem. Want to know how to save your marriage, get a GPS! We later rented a GPS from the Navy Lodge for $4/day. Monday was a holiday in Cadiz, so we returned the car to the Jerez airport. We re-rented it for 235 EUR a week. We returned by driving across to Sanlucar, down to Chipiona and over to Rota. The rest of the week, we fooled around going to Cadiz, Jerez, up the coast to Chipiona, and Sanlucar. The airlines were grounded for volcanic ash and soon our reservations ran out at the Navy Lodge. We moved into the Hotel Duque in Rota for four days. In Jerez, we took one day and toured Tio Pepe Bodega, and had Tapas and Sherry. Our second reservation opened at the Navy Lodge and back we went. Our second car reservation ran out, so we rented a car from the Navy Exchange, returning the original to the Jerez airport. In about two days, a C-5 flight became available to McGuire, we took it! At McGuire, we stayed at Fort Dix Doughboy Inn. We discovered all the old Navy enlisted barracks at Lakehurst had been turned into a minimum federal prison. Well, it didn’t look too minimum to me, but! We then caught a C-17 to Charleston AFB. The C-17 had 11-hours on the clock. We were the first Space – A to fly aboard. At Charleston, there was no lodging available for two weeks. We caught a cab to an airport hotel. The following morning we rented a Jeep Patriot and drove down I-95, stopping at King’s Bay Sub Base, Navy Lodge. We had dinner at Lang’s in St. Mary. Mr. Lang has his own fishing fleet and uses the restraint to sell his ‘fish of the day.’ The following morning, we headed south, turned right on I-10 at Jacksonville. Renting a vehicle one-way cost about the same as two one-way flights to Houston from Charleston. We spent another evening in Hammond, a small quant little Louisianan town on I-12 and had dinner at Don’s Seafood Restraint. The seafood was excellent with no hint of slick. We pulled out the next morning and arrived in Houston at about noon. I grew a goatee for the trip. It seems it made a difference while in Spain. Shaved it off for church this morning. elf