January 2018 Estepona

We have moved south by 300kms and are currently parked in a site just outside Estepona, just beyond Marbella. This is an area that we are not familiar with, knowing it only as the playground for the rich and famous and being famous in the 80’s for it’s explosion of timeshare apartments and complexes. Gone are the plastic greenhouses of the Almeria area, replaced with endless white hillside apartment blocks and glossy sea front 5* hotels.

Estepona is a small town, full of white and terracotta apartments that stretch up into the hills, however the “old town” is small and quaint; pedestrianised and cobbled streets of cottages full of blossoming flowers and trees lead up to a hilltop church and the “flower squares” that can be found dotted about.

A typical street.

The seafront is more suited to tourists, even on the 8th January we found sunbeds on the front under parasols on grassy manicured banks.

We can see why Cilla Black loved Estepona, she was in her villa on the outskirts of this pretty town, when she died a few years ago.

Marbella & Puerto Banus

We ventured into rich man’s land in Puerto Banus and after we picked our jaws up off the floor, we felt very much out of place. Our wallets were not loaded with Platinum AMEX cards or our keys did not lead to million euro yachts, but we wandered around looking at what we would purchase if we ever won the lottery and had a few spare millions!! The Marina at Puerto Banus was loaded with designer shops all policed by security guards that probably would not let us in! Dolce & Gabbanna, Dior, Chanel, Bulgari, Bear & Bear and so many French designer names that I cannot remember and probably didn’t remember because they certainly would not have anything in my size!!

However, we loved gawping at the beautiful yachts and top of the range cruisers moored up.

The beach is also a very attractive sandy bay surrounded by mountains, just 10kms from the shopping centre in Marbella.

My personal favourite, only about 50m long. Yes, it was cold and windy that day!

Oh yes, they had hot cars to match the big boats too!

It was cold and grey, about 7c!

Still, we had such fun here.

The only downside was our campsite. We had called ahead and explained that our vehicle is 8.4m long and we needed a 9m pitch, with easy access. Yes, we were told, we have plenty of space for you. On arrival, we had several people moaning about our size, shaking their heads at us, we almost had to agree. However, we gave it a go and wedged ourselves into a corner pitch, under trees, next to a small stream, at the bottom of the site, downhill. You get the idea? When it rained, we were in amongst the torrent that appeared, we were damp and cold all the time!

Yes the beach was 350m away, as the crow flies, but it was the wrong side of the Motorway, we had to cross the A7 (80km dual carriageway) to get to the beach or go underneath it through a water drain! The beach was empty apart from the manicured lawns for the closed hotels; all beachside bars were on holiday and boarded up. We could not cycle anywhere as the only road was the A7 either into Estepona or back to Marbella. The final nail in the coffin was the small expensive washing facilities, no hot water after 9am in the showers (and I certainly don’t get up before 9am!!!!) (plus no water or drainage nearby hence the visits to the showerblock) and to top it all, the onsite bar/restaurant closed for holidays the day after we arrived!!

Onwards and upwards. We spent several days checking out sites further along the coast, but they were all too small, tiny access roads with vehicles parked on each corner, or up steep hills (terraces, perfect views of the beach, perfect for caravans) or full to capacity. We were starting to loose faith so looked further afield to Cadiz and finally found our almost perfect spot! More on Cadiz next time. We left Parque Tropical (full of beautiful plants) to the amusement of several locals, wedged out of our spot and headed further along the coast.

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