Oñati - 3 November 2018
Kay drove for about 3 hours from the plains up into the hills of the Basque region to Oñati. Sat and read our books in the sunshine watching the paragliders landing close by. Had a walk around the closed town and played a game of smile at the locals, nobody responded!
3 November
Last night after tea I popped out to the Alcampo supermarket for emergency rum and chocolate supplies (easier to visit on foot!). The supermarket is absolutely huge, even has an escalator inside for different sections! It also seems like the Spanish all come out at night, old and young - and just gather and chat like it’s some social outing! Strange! Anyway, a bottle of Captain Morgan’s for under €10!
We also watched last weeks Strictly Come Dancing, as we now have enough data to do so. It must mean Christmas is coming if it was already week six! Also, Herc and Sarah won’t let us forget - they send little Xmas jingles via WhatsApp - thanks for that!
My turn to drive - nearly three hours including the fuel stop at Eroski. Mixture today, free motorway with good road surface for over half the distance, then into the windy roads again. We are back in Basque Country in:
Oñati - free
It’s a beautiful view from here, can see snow on the mountain tops, the sun was out, rolling green fields, trees - and a little bird on our clear overhead hatch looking in!
Put our chairs out and read for a while in the sun. Right behind us, a paraglider snook in and landed! Managed to see a couple of others, but they didn’t land right by us!
Went out walking for about an hour, down into the town. Lovely open plaza, huge church, monastery etc - all looked clean too. Was after 4pm, but we were probably still an hour early for the shops to be open!
I started a game of smiling at people (because generally they reciprocate), even got Tintin to join in. Nothing! How can they all be so unfriendly? The only reaction was from an old lady being pushed in a wheelchair. We had a couple of ‘olas’ - but people don’t seem to look at you. Have we grown two heads?!
Anyway, the plan is to whizz through the rest of Spain and into France tomorrow. Near the border either side, you have to pay at most Aires, and even then they don’t sound appealing.
Somehow, I’ve still got data on my Spanish Digi sim - can’t use it up! It should have expired at the beginning of November. My minutes and SMS are no longer available. Can anyone tell me how this is possible? As my son says, there’s no such thing as free data, but we only handed over €20, and no card details. I suspect I’ll lose it in France - but has been a brilliant deal!
As we’re heading North, all we seem to see are lots of mohos heading South, presumably for the winter down in the Algarve. Do I envy them? Not really, having a lovely time away, but looking forward to being home with family and friends. We’ve just seen Indi via FaceTime (clever cat!) and miss him and Bailey.
Indi may affectionately bite Herc (!) but Tintin got bitten by a little dog today, the dog went to roll over submissively, then really quickly bit! No broken skin, but Tintin was quite surprised - never been bitten by a dog before!
Comments ()