We were woken by the ship’s announcement system gently playing us a lovely tune at 5:45 am. We got up, packed everything and then there was an announcement for breakfast being served in the cafeteria so we wandered along and checked it out but couldn’t be bothered so came back as we didn’t think it was worth €12.
Having been last to board we ended up waiting In line for an hour and a quarter and were also last to exit the queue. Santander was grey and rainy but a very friendly customs man waved us on our way.
We had decided to do the five-hour trip down to Cáceres and Dave started the driving. Luckily as we progressed the rain eased off and there was some beautiful scenery. Dave needed to get on a work meeting at 12 o’clock and this coincided with a notable absence of service stations!! We eventually found a grotty looking RepsolGarage with a muddy yard and that was the base for him to test out his MiFi. I popped into the shop to get some coffees and despite it being the tiniest of shops, It’s offering included a whole leg of Jamon Serrano, freshly baked tuna empanada and a bottle of Faustino on the counter. I did a bit of my embroidery whilst listening in to Dave’s meeting.
We drove on a bit further and found a nice spot for lunch. We had some sourdough and cheese and then I took over the driving for the last two hours. Dave had a bit of a kip and then we came to some stunning snowcapped mountains. I was tempted to wake him but luckily he woke of his own accord just in time to get his proper camera out and take some shots of the scenery.
We got to Camping Bungalows Ciudad de Caceres just after five. It was very conveniently located just off the main route. When we arrived they couldn’t find our booking. It turns out we had lost all track of time on the ferry and booked it for the day before. No pasa nada!!!
We made a new booking and also bought a camping Discount card ACSI which has a network of campsites through Spain France and Portugal, as well as other parts of Europe. We then went to our pitch, which had its own little shower room and table and chairs. We got settled in and then ate in the campsite restaurant which was very quintessentially Spanish and excellent value.
Dinner was a 15€ menu: primer plato of paella for Dave and asparagus with bacon and Parmesan for me, followed by a Segundo Plato of hake in a prawn leek and cream sauce with chips for me and chips and chicken in a Canarian style red pepper sauce for Dave. Dessert was a Magnum.
We had a fairly early night and things were pretty cramped in the van as we had a fair bit of extra food and equipment that we were bringing over for Marco. This included a full 36 pack box of Walker’s crisps for the boat. 😃 We managed to stash it all fairly efficiently and used the collapsible bucket to put all our charging tech in to keep it out of the way. Having avoided the red wine tonight, we both had a good nights sleep
