Blowhole at the waterfront of Xcaret Park near Playa del Carmen, Mexico.
Where are Kevin and Ruth now? Playa del Carmen, Mexico.

Where are Kevin and Ruth going next? Toluca on December 24th!

Friday, February 3, 2017

Our own private band concert...

It rained on and off most of the day yesterday, but that didn't stop us from doing more exploring. Besides, the things we wanted to see were mostly indoors anyhow. And Ruth has a raincoat with her and there's a couple of little travel umbrellas in the motorhome.

So a little bit of water didn't bother us too much.

First, we walked to the big central market. Not bad, but we've been to better. Lots of different seafood though.

The building itself was interesting.

Fruits and veggies. 

Seafood.

Cured ham.

This is a very expensive type of cured ham. It's called jamon iberico. We're going to try some while we're here. It's a special type of pig, and they're fed a diet of some kind of acorn. You can read more about it here... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jam%C3%B3n_ib%C3%A9rico

From there, we walked over to the cathedral, planning on spending the €5 entrance fee. I still have a big problem with that. We've seen an awfully lot of magnificent churches for free. We walked by the side door and it was open...so we went inside. There was some kind of service going on, so we just wandered around. A huge expansive church...but nothing special really. The only thing I would have liked to see was the view from the clock tower, but it wasn't worth the €5 to me.

We carried on to the Roman Amphitheater. As I said yesterday, this amphitheater was only discovered in 1980 when some warehouses burned down and the excavation work uncovered the ruins. Interesting stuff, dating back to the first century BC. We spent a good hour in there, and it was totally free.


Besides what you see outside, they have an interesting museum exhibit explaining things in both Spanish and English.

What they think it looked like.

The tunnels underneath were largely intact.

They think the amphitheater was in use until the 4th century. There is a lot more they could excavate, but the rest of the ruins remain hidden underneath other buildings in the neighborhood.

From there, we walked back to Louis for a late lunch. It was raining again, so I had a nap and Ruth did some reading. We went out again just before sunset for a walk out the pier. We are parked in a lot at the shipping port. It's not that scenic, and it's a bit noisy, but it's only €3 per night for motorhomes and it's walking distance to the town.

Louis, parked up with the other motorhomes.

This bridge only opened last year. We hope to cross it later this morning.

A ferry that goes to Canary Islands.

Looking back at Cadiz.

Some of you wonder what we eat while we're traveling in such a small motorhome. Well, last night Ruth made a chile con carne with a salad..

The chef at work!

Dinner is served!

Around about 8:00pm, we heard people start to play trumpets. Hmm. Strange. The numbers grew, and it was really noisy with people playing various brass instruments. By 9:00pm there were drums going too. 

But then, they actually started playing music together rather than just practicing their own instruments. They were pretty good too. But what a strange area to be practicing in! And outdoors.

Eventually, our curiosity got the better of us and we went to check it out. Sure enough, they were just across the street from us. I took a short video for you....turn your volume up!


They were pretty good. They were obviously practicing for something, maybe a parade during the upcoming carnival? Who knows. This went on until 11:00pm as we enjoyed our own concert.

Moving on this morning! We're headed up to Chipiona and Sanlucar area. Time to find some decent showers and somewhere to dump the tanks. There's a new aire at Chipiona that only opened a couple of months ago so we're going to check that out first, and there's also a nearby campground that's only €12 per night.

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A good basic first aid kit is on sale at Amazon.com. Good idea to toss one in the RV and one in the car...for the price, you can't go wrong...


And in Canada...






24 comments:

  1. Anxious to see how you like the ham. The saltier the better for our taste. B's fav meal is when I brown small pieces of ham in a skillet. Turn down the heat. Add milk which turns into ham flavored milk gravy. Lay one piece of bread at a time to soak up the gravy. Go back for seconds! Tastes good especially on chilly winter days!!! Leftover pieces of ham are a great snack!

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    1. It is going to cost us an arm and a leg just to get 100g of it. Guaranteed when we do try it we will be eating it very slowly and enjoying every morsel of it. They say to expect to pay about €15-20/100g! There are some other types of ham as well that are also very flavourful but also cheaper, we'll see.

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  2. Thanks for sharing your meal photos.Ruth you must be a savvy cook. Looked delish. Keep you ears open incase you come across someone who would like to travel to Tasmania and let have their motorhome in exchange for our farm please..cheers

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    1. I like to think that I am! :-)

      We will keep our ears open for you. We would love to do it ourselves but we want to do swap motorhome for motorhome. We want to be able to travel not just stay in one place.

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  3. That amphitheatre was an amazing find, hard to believe that it was filled in. Wonder why?
    Nothing quite like some homemade chilly and a salad, looks yummy.

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    1. Yes, it was definitely an amazing find. As for filling in, I am not sure, it just may have happened over time or it may have been filled in by a concurring party who would have wanted to build their own thing and over the years the same thing would happen and then it just gets lost in time.

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  4. I can admit to not liking jamon iberico, a crime I know. I guess what turned me off is when you order it in a restaurant they have the leg sitting out on the bar uncovered and then shave a piece off as it is ordered. That means anyone walking by/dust/bugs can get on it. I know the markets in Mexico are interesting at times but that has never put me off like that. If you eat out make sure to try the albondigas somewhere (spicy meatballs) they are soooooo good with all sorts of spices - totally different ones than Mexican Albondigas

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    1. We don't normally think about things like that. I guess that we feel it it wasn't safe to eat they wouldn't allow them to serve it like that but I do get what you are saying.

      Unfortunately we won't be able to try these albondigas! I looked up to see how they are made because most meatballs have some form of gluten in them and these are no different, they use dried bread crumbs in them. :-(

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  5. Are you going to go to the Canary Islands?

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  6. Nice picture of Ruth in the galley, I too cook with wine... The amphitheatre must have been amazing in its day.

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    1. Isn't that the way everyone cooks?! ;-)

      We think seeing the amphitheatre was pretty cool too! It ranks right up there with the ruins in Mexico as being some of the oldest structures that we have seen. It always boggles our mind, how these things were made back then.

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  7. Great times for you, just wondering what nationality are most of the other travelers that you are bumping into, who are also caravanning it? thanks.

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    1. We have seen many different ones but Great Britain is probably the most common one. We have seen quite a few from Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Switzerland, Denmark along with others as well.

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  8. Hey do you happen to know more about the ferry to Canary Island? Cost? Schedule? And distance. May be worth a drive for us.

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    1. Nope, we know nothing more about it, because we know we aren't going there, there really isn't any reason to look it up. I am sure there is a website on the internet for it though.

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  9. Love the photos. Will definely try the Hm in March.can you give me the Co ord for aire in Chipiona please. Thanks in advance.

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    1. The new aire in Chipiona is not worth it. I'll explain tomorrow...

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  10. You two don't seem bothered much by the way Spain's population keeps their working hours, meal hours, or opening/closing business hours during the day and evening. I'm guessing that with the motorhome you are able to consume your meals on your schedule and usual time. But Spanish hours of shopping for groceries and Spanish hours of visiting museums and other attractions must be a little inconvenient. When Beach and I were visiting Spain years ago, businesses opened only for two or three hours in the morning, did not open again until about 2:00 pm, and sometimes we were eating dinner at 9:00 or 10:00 pm at night, in other words, a lot of siestas in the middle of the day. Just wondered if you have noticed a difference in the way the Spanish population goes about their day. It took awhile for us to adjust.

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    1. Nope, it really hasn't bothered us too much. We have missed the odd attraction because we have shown up on a Monday when most museums and attractions are closed and also a few times in the afternoon when they are closed for siesta but other than that we really haven't had any issues. We do try to remind ourselves about the time and then plan around that if there is something that we really want to see.

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  11. Sounds like an interesting day and night! Hope the weather clears up. Enjoy your drive today!

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    1. The weather should start to clear up in another day or two but we aren't letting it stop us from doing things.

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  12. Like the photo of Ruth cooking with a glass of wine in hand -- my favorite way to cook too! ;-) We had a similar experience with a band practicing when we were in Campeche in Mexico. They were on the street RIGHT outside our hotel, and dang...it was loud. They finally finished up about 9:30 at night. We had had a long and tiring travel day so were awfully glad as we were afraid we might not get any sleep that night!

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    1. Personally, I thought that was how everyone cooked! ;-)

      You got let off lightly if they stopped practicing at 9:30pm! I think our band started up around 9pm and then finished around 11:00pm. It was loud as well and right across the street from us but we weren't trying to sleep at the time so we didn't mind too much. They were pretty good as well.

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