Jane, Dave & Ruby’s Portugal & Spain adventure

Having briefly called in at Shamwari for a couple of days in early December, during the torrential rains and flooding, we were keen to return to experience the place in (hopefully) better weather 🤞So we headed back over the border into Portugal for a few days. Fortunately the weather was much improved, mainly lovely sunshine, but with a few showers, dark clouds and strong winds - but certainly not flooding as before 🤣 Shamwari Shamwari, meaning “Friend” in African, is a rustic retreat for campers in the less discovered north eastern hills of the Algarve - the dream of Helena, born and raised in Southern Africa. Having a vision, Helena gave up her career in London, moved from England to Portugal @6-7 years ago, and developed shamwari from scratch. The philosophy  at shamwari is very much about friendship, inclusion and the appreciation of the natural world - think it was our instant feeling of welcome and connection at our earlier brief visit in December that drew us back  he...

Keen for a bit of down time, we arrived on the coast just outside of Tarifa, together with the sun ☀️ - where the Atlantic Ocean meets the Mediterranean Sea at the Straits of Gibraltar. Fascinating to see the different shades of blue and the crashing waves of the Atlantic versus the calmness of the Mediterranean 😃 The winds are often strong here, so very popular for windsurfing and kite surfing. Again, fascinating to see the number of people parked up here, settled in for the winter - mainly Swiss, Germans and Dutch, obviously not needing to count 90 days! 😟 Took this opportunity to catch up on a few chores (mainly washing), explore a bit, and generally taking it easy. The beaches are beautiful and stretch for miles - but water just a little too cold for swimming. Rubes loved the sand, but too frightened of the surf 🤣  Ruby's ideal holiday! Campsite was right on the beach, with lovely bar for sundowners, looking over to Africa and watching the amazing sunsets. Beach bar at the c...

So, as we had come to expect, it was raining when we arrived in Seville - totally unusual for the city at this time of the year, but par for the course for us 😃 We didn’t let that get in the way, got out there, and fortunately the sun came out 🌞 Stayed at a motorhome park down by the port, about 1.5k from centre. Not the most salubrious of places, but secure, so safe to leave rubes - a bit of a trek backwards and forwards - Uber was very helpful 😃 Spent a few hours when first arrived finding out feet and getting oriented. Headed to the beautiful Maria Luisa park, but got chased out by the police  as they were closing it due to high winds (apparently someone was killed, speared by a fallen branch a few years ago, so cation prevails 😃)  Anyway, still managed to enter the famous Plaza de Espana at the far end - totally stunning 🤩 Built for the Iberian-American Exposition of 1929. Detail highlighting different regions across Spain Plaza de Espana Pleased we had made it to Sev...