Day 5 - Cantallops, Spain rest day, well...sort of!

 

Starting with a picture of the amazing campsite we woke up in. There were two other large RV/campers at this site. This was first time we ran into other folks on the road. These travelers had escaped England in time to avoid winter and head to the sun. They had also rushed through France when they heard of the country planning to close its borders. We spoke upon our arrival from a good distance and waved them goodbye as they headed further south. They mentioned having been in this spot for 4 days! We were finally in Spain and it was a gorgeous morning. After four long driving days, we were ready for a break and time to do laundry and take a good walk. 

We had a relaxing day and took a long walk on a trail that ran up, up, up, the hill behind the campsite, through dry groves of cork trees and others laden with olives. Prickly pear cactus were growing here and there. Elizabeth remembered eating the fruit of a prickly pear with here uncle and aunt in California years ago and mentioned it to Herman. Herman, always up for something new, climbed down to grab a few of these fruits (with his bare hands) and tossed them into the back of Elizabeth's backpack. We both paid dearly for this action later on in the day! To properly pick the fruit of the prickly pear cactus, you must either have long sleeves and thick leather gloves or first scorch/burn all the tiny, practically invisible, spines or glochlids. Need I say more?! We both suffered under the attack of the tiny prickly pear glochlids. Despite the setback of a half hour of spine removal with tweezers and duct tape, we were able to eat them in the end. We pierced the fruit with a fork and scorched the outside using the gas burner on the stove. The fruit was definitely not worth the pain and effort. It had a nice flavor, but was somewhat mealy and there were a lot of seeds to deal with. At this time, a full week later, each of us still has one or two pesky spots from this unfortunate incident.

During the day we played Jeux de Boules and tried out our new hand wash laundry system. We used a 20 liter dry bag with the dirty laundry and detergent inside. Then we let it sit in the sun for a while and also carried it around to agitate it. A game of toss and catch made it a good upper body weight workout as well! Three rinses later, our laundry was drying in the sun and light wind hanging in between the olive trees. 

Herman with the laundry wet bag

Panorama view from our walk 

Around 4 pm, enjoying the afternoon sunshine, with our laundry still drying, a car arrived. A lady explained in Spanish that the campsite we were in was private and that we were only supposed to stay one night (we were confused because the previous campers had been there four nights). We thanked her and quickly packed up to leave for a new location before dark. In retrospect, we should have offered to pay for staying a second night, but that had not occurred to either of us until we were on our way. We are using a very cool camping app and found another place to park about 20 minutes drive from Cantallops on a lake. This is the convenience of having a camper, we were able to move quickly and still enjoy our dinner and sleep well in a different quiet place.