Costa Ballena

Costa Ballena
Wednesday 2nd – Friday 4th December
We have explored all the local area thoroughly between Chipiona and Rota. It is ideal for bikes as lots of new roads have been built, courtesy of the E.U. all with great bike paths on the side. However, in a fairly Spanish way, they suddenly run out with no warning (presumably when the funding dried up) leaving you on the side of busy roads. But the locals are very courteous so it is not too scary. You have to watch out though for dogs appearing from hedges in front of you, on missions to somewhere. The majority of the locals have no intention of getting on a bike so the tourist office has no idea these lanes exist.
Chipiona is lovely, with very attractive old town houses and a Moorish castle and ramparts and quite a buzz to it. There are some very old coral/stone enclosures off the beach, designed in Arab times. They are about 1.5 mtrs high and as the tide comes in, they fill with small fish, crustaceans etc. As it goes out, they get left behind and are easy pickings for mankind, bird and beast.
We had yet another happy day exploring and birding, - most exciting to have finally seen a Bluethroat which had been eluding us all the way down the French Coast, and also finally a Hoopoe. Alec had been expecting to see lots of them from Bordeaux onwards, but hadn’t until now. There are so many little warblers in the reeds and river beds it is impossible to identify them all. The sky is still blue so a bit of time is spent on the beach and we hope it will last until at least Christmas.
The best excitement of the day was Alec coming a cropper off his bike. You may think this is mean, but there is a little rivalry about mileage on our mileometers. When we started, Alec was rather ahead of me as he had been practicing. Then, as I was wondering how I would ever catch up, his battery went flat, so I was ahead. Such excitement, childish I know but that is how we stay entertained. Today we stopped to look at a church and Alec declared he would do an extra wheelie or 2 to stay ahead, and fell flat, much to the mirth from the various other oldies in the town square.
Our hotel in Costa Ballena has been very busy putting up the nativity scene in the hall and lots of baubles all round the stairs but still has a ‘faulty towers’ feel to it. The bathroom has 2 basins which is very smart, but all four taps only seem to run boiling water so we will be happy to move on to Rota tomorrow.