Blown away

Arrived at Malaga from Gatwick , picked up rental fiesta car at the airport and drove to Fuengirola , where we have rented an apartment on the promenade  almost overlooking the marina . Unluckyyyyy  so far with the weather as it has been blowing an absolute gale since we arrived ,the sea is so choppy that you could literally  surf on the breakers coming in .Our apartment is on the 11th floor of Palmeras hotel/apartment block and  probably about 3*  standard .The main reasons for being here is to have a break from the uk weather , to chill and to play golf .

The wind is coming from the east  and bringing in the bad weather from the other side of the mountains (which usually protect c.d.sol.)

We played golf at Mijas Lagunas golf course  and just got in 18 holes in about 3hrs 20 mins before it went dark ,its a nice course and long , about 6000 metres , i am not sure how far that is in miles , but dear me my feet do and the soles of my feet were aching when we finished .

It is so windy that we struggled to keep still on some of the hilly tees . We dined at Bogarts on the prom , near our  lodgings , it cost 18 Euros for ´vegetal´pizza  and white coffee  for each of us . The waiter/barman  was very friendly , conversant in english , the only bummer was the fact that smoking indoors is not banned here and by the time we finished nearly everyone in the place had a fag going .

There were a few african guys  selling dvds  and junk  and also an english guy asking for change outside a supermarket , two women of unknown nationality tried to sell us single red flowers , which we didnt want .

 

2nd day¨: Slept well on the couch , my golf buddy snores like a donkey so he has the bedroom for the first 4 days , and i have it for the last 3.

It blew hard alll night  and i could hear things being blown over , plastic chairs and that kind of thing .We drove to Estepona

for golf  and took the wrong exit off the N340  and went thru the town itself , we eventually rejoined the clearway at a more westerly point , but had passed the exit we needed and in trying to turn around had to go thru a toll booth , it was .70 Euro .

Found golf club (we have played here before) and we rented a buggy and got 18 holes for 90 Euros and played well despite nearly being blown over (the buggy too) on some of the higher points .The golf courses  here in Spain are quite royal , with good facilities and  usually with a stylish restruant-bar , about half of the staff are Brits .

Parts of the Estepona  golf course  are still  being developed  and it is overlooked by  golf apartments , many seem empty .

Today we have not seen the sun for even 5 minutes , it is completely overcast and it seems the weather is fine in the uk , definitely better than here .

3rd day . Slept well on the couch , up at 07:30  and had a cereal breakfast bought from the supermarket the day before . The wind has subsided somewhat  and  we even saw a few flickers of sun this morning !!!  Walked along the promenade ,, lots of Brits about , i keep quiet and pretend i´m not one of them . Went to Oasis Internet cafe , which is run by a friendly Swedish guy , 1 hour for 2.4 Euro and he has Usb ports and  a digital card reader to boot .

 

We have decided to play golf at Antequera golf course which is about 80 kilometers away and got into our usual mess trying to find it ,(just cannot follow the logic of the road signs here ,when you can still see signposts for places you left behind 10 miles  ago).The car had no guts and had to change down from 5th gear to 4th whilst trying to get over the mountains , generally the roads are less busy than in the uk and with less commercial vehicles/wagons.

Our 18 holes plus buggy costs only E59 , we got our tickets from a dark eyed quiet senorita . Antequera golf course was so testing that  we played the ladies tee  on about 5 holes and still managed to lose a lot of balls in the horrible lakes and wicked ravines that are part of the course . I have strained a muscle in my forearm , which i will use as an excuse for not playing tomorrow .We did see lots of wildlife around the course as we did yesterday , and there were some tiny bats behaving like swallows around the lakes , we saw and heard a kestrel and several  exotic african bird types which i cant identify. Yesterday there  was a pair of brooding black swans and a pile of waddling ducks  around several of the holes which were near lakes , and at one lake in particular  , where i had heroically chipped onto the green from a distance, the green was virtually an island surrounded by kidney-shaped ponds/lakes .These fat waddling  unknown species ducks  made quite a noisy show of being distrubed  by clucking  and some strange grunting sounds .I thought thier complaints out of order , since we had paid for the privelige and they were just lounging around , and also we left no mess there and they plainly had .

We finished at the 15th hole , it was too dark and we were a bit fed up.The trip back to Fuengirola  was much quicker , through the dark.

There are groups of africans once again hanging out along the promenade , trying to sell dvds and stuff .As i made my way to the Internet cafe ( 1 Euro per hour ..Oasis is closed) i passed more than one bar/cafe which had groups of about 20 (i guess) retired Brits playing bingo !!!

I just cant understand it ,how anyone could spend thier time in such a way, but then maybe they would say the same of us travelling 80 kils to play golf and not even finishing .

There are again people sleeping on the floor in doorways  here.

tbc