Our four and a half months’ stay from Saturday 25th October 2020 through to Tuesday 9th March 2021 have flown by. We’ve never been away from home so long, been away from the UK through Winter or Christmas missing our family and friends or indeed travelling in our caravan and living in just one room together!
Camping Cabopino (Cabopino meaning cape of palm trees) – https://www.campingcabopino.com/ – is within a short walk of Cabopino Beach, and Cabopino Marina both surrounded by protected dunes and palm trees instead of high rise over developed sea fronts. It’s set on several raised tiered levels and accommodates many permanent static homes which are mostly owned and lived in by Brits. The homes are generally located at the top of the site and intermingled with the touring pitches. It has its own social life, which is usually organised and managed through the site, outside of Covid conditions and restrictions. This site, like many open all year round, is usually packed through the Winter months with retirees regularly taking their annual stays here. As the site is established it has many mature trees which offer much needed shade through the Summer but shade the much sought after sun in the Winter. Regular tourers have their own preferred pitch in the Winter chasing the few pitches in direct sun. We arrived not knowing anyone with an empty social diary, quickly made friends with our nearest neighbours, both tourers and residents, and within weeks were welcomed into the Cabopino community our diary filling up wondering where our time was going. We chose a large pitch in the sun by the open air swimming pool. This meant we were away from the main busy walk areas and didn’t have anyone camping opposite us. Steve would often take out his binoculars and camera to capture the local birds he’d not seen before which he ran by sister in law Vron. We knew from seeing the evidence that wild boars from the adjacent golf club often entered the site from their digging up the flower beds rooting for food. Try as we might we never managed to spot any, probably luckily as they are wild and allegedly quite dangerous. We loved the privacy of our pitch E01 but were told in the Summer this pitch is the worst, as being near the pool, which is closed through Winter, its full of campers queueing for the pool, and of course the noise of excited guests. Spending Winter in the sun has certainly been a wonderful experience, especially as there doesn’t appear to be any flies or nasty biting insects through the Winter months, which made living outside and eating al fresco an uninterrupted pleasure. We understand we left in time as the weekend following our departure the campsite opened the outdoor pool and had many groups of family visitors for the weekend.
LIVING IN A BOX
We’re both quite organised and tidy and quickly designated ‘pink’ and ‘blue’ jobs. Pink jobs are all mostly inside the caravan which are bed making, laundry, cleaning, cooking, food management and general sewing repairs. Blue jobs are mostly outside the caravan being hook ups for electric and water supplies, maintenance, repairs and driving. Living away in a caravan, the daily routines of housework, laundry, shopping, cooking, recycling and Amazon deliveries are much the same as they are at home. Yes, Amazon deliveries, it didn’t take me long to work that one out! We never missed UK terrestrial TV, as our days flew by and after evening dinner if the nights were dark and empty we watched our DVD’s, Netflix, Prime, played the odd game of Scrabble or simply chatted. Somehow we found much to do each day, even if were busy doing nothing. We enjoyed our daily walks exercising Stella among the beach and through the dunes.
We’re each practical which means it took a week or two or sorting and rearranging to have everything stored in just the right place for easy living in our caravan. I’m sure in an earlier life we each were involved in time and motion. With essential shops open and a reasonable sized fridge we’ve enjoyed food shopping and home cooking. Additional to the caravan was our awning, which gave us another room for dining, storing and entertaining. It also gave Stella more room to settle, if she wasn’t on guard, off the lead, outside on our pitch. The only problem with Stella was trying to keep her on our pitch as so many of the residents fell in love with her and called her to visit. It was more a case of training the residents than Stella.
EATING OUT
Soon after we arrived local bars and restaurants had their curfew brought earlier from 10pm to 6pm so they transferred their restaurant service to delivery services. There was a good choice of local restaurants so we sampled Indian, Chinese and Italian but not too often. We never managed to eat at the onsite restaurant Da Brunos as we were never hungry at lunch time, but they had a good deli and offered takeaway pizzas and Italian dishes. Luckily being on a campsite our on site bar Marios was classed as a hotel bar and was allowed to be open until 9pm. Marios was a great social on site meeting place for its residents and often agreeing to just pop in for a drink, we were welcomed into conversations which lead to table nibbles which lead to evening dinner. Social distancing was always observed and strangely although amongst others, we felt quite safe.
QUIZ NIGHTS
The campsite residents, without an official entertainment’s organiser, ran their own weekly Tuesday quiz at Jorge’s Bar located in Cabopino Marina. When we arrived there was a 10pm curfew but after a few weeks when the curfew was brought forward to 6pm the Tuesday evening boozy quizzes turned into Tuesday boozy afternoons. We found out that quiz nights/afternoons were only held through the dark Winter months and volunteers, organised by Rob Whish took turns to host. I volunteered Steve, the experienced quizzer, for a Tuesday in November and he produced, as you can imagine, a superb quiz. Unfortunately, at that time neither of us was aware that the quiz is just for entertainment fun and not intended for serious quizzers. We laughed that he was never asked again, but secretly he was disappointed as he put so much work into the one he did. A week or so before we left I was asked if I would be willing to host one. I thought of all the quizzes I had attended and how my enthusiasm would drop on a subject I didn’t know anything about like Sports or Soaps. On that basis I did more rounds, but only 5 questions each and included audio clips. Having a mobile office in the caravan, I printed enough answer sheets for the anticipated eight to ten teams. Although by this time I knew all of the participants, socially distanced on tables of four, I was surprised to find myself quite nervous and it took a while to get into my stride. I introduced Steve, who took care of the scoring, as my unglamorous but helpful assistant. By pure fluke a team who almost always came last, came first. There were whoops of joy and congratulations and many photos taken and put on the group’s Face Book page. Having a successful quiz package under my belt it is available to share. Jorge, the owner, was delighted with Cabopino customers bringing in revenue in these challenging times and showed his appreciation by offering happy hour drink prices and complimentary tapas. In return we were delighted to have somewhere fun and a bar to hold our quizzes. On our last Thursday afternoon, two days later we were entertained by Wilma on guitar and vocals and Rob on vocals and kazoo. They were brilliant and Rob’s kazoo skills had us all in stiches. It’s amazing what you can do in lock down.
MIND YOUR LANGUAGE
I attended twice weekly Spanish lessons in Mario’s held by Manu who lives there and used to be in charge of entertainment and activities on the campsite in better times. He’s Spanish, totally fluent in English and taught us about Spanish culture as well as the language. Wednesday’s were for beginners, mostly the British newbies to the site, and Fridays for intermediates of several nationalities who lived there. He was always interesting and inspiring. We talked about food a lot and as a treat Manu invited Steve and me to his home to enjoy his home made Gambas al Ajillo and Fideua Paella – we’d never had pasta paella before. The food as expected was delicious and of course he succeeded in producing delicious soccarat. Manu and his wife Emma, both so gracious and generous with their hospitality have their home high up on the Cabopino site with spectacular views of the sea, Gibraltar and Morocco, which we understand are illuminated at night. The sunset colours were unbelievable and we never tired of admiring them.
I tried my best through the four months to study Spanish as least an hour a day with a combination of lessons from Manu and Duo Lingo. Mt dedication knew no bounds and I watched as many Spanish series and films as I could on Netflix and Prime. My attempts at conversing in Spanish locally were at times excruciating but enthusiastic.
CAMPSITE COMMUNITY
The people living at Cabopino are mostly British, friendly, welcoming and open to share information and tit bits on site life and how to live in Spain. We didn’t meet anyone whose company we didn’t enjoy. Giving it great throught, I came to the conclusion that any couple living in a motorhome, caravan, or small dwelling really need to be able to get on well with each other. On that basis all the couples we met had solid relationships and were good fun to socialise with. We were never short of laughs. Indeed, we met many interesting characters. Finding out that Mario’s produced amazing Sunday morning breakfasts, it was pointless for me to complete and Sunday mornings soon became my ‘me time’ when Stella took Steve to the bar.
BARTER SYSTEM, LENDING AND BORROWING
The barter system is a highlight on the campsite. The campsite has it’s own Face Book page where opinions are shared and favours are asked. We replaced our Nespresso with a new model and asked who wanted the old one. Quickly collected, meant we met Steve and Adele who expressed their appreciation with a bottle of wine which lead to us hosting dinners for each other. Someone requiring some needle work meant we met Steve and Kathleen who treated us to a round of drinks as Mario’s. Steve learnt guitar lessons from Ken, a professional and experienced musician, original member of Hedgehogs Anonymous who had a one hit wonder with It’s Good News Week, and borrowed a music stand from Jules which all lead to various rounds at Mario’s. Steve fixed bicycles, doors, tables, helped with awnings and generally willing and happy to help anyone out. Our neighbours Jo and Bob generally had anything we need to borrow that we didn’t carry on board. The swapping of Guv Nor (less than 4 euro a bottle) was a regular expression of appreciation. Anything unwanted, usually when people were packing up to travel, is put on a bench for others to browse and takeaway. One person’s rubbish is another person’s treasured possession. Items rarely spent much time on the bench unless they were truly utter rubbish.
CHRISTMAS DAY
The next day, Christmas Day dressed in shorts and t shirts, we took canapes and Champagne to the beach, because we could and spent a fee hours of Christmas Day in the sun. We enjoyed our afternoon sitting in the sun watching families with young children enjoying the beach, walkers and others enjoying the sea activities. In fact, I got the camera out as Steve bravely submerged himself into the sea, because he could, and took photographs for posterity. We toasted each other and appreciated how lucky we were with our friends and families restricted by Covid regulations in the UK.
When we got back to the campsite the temperature was beginning to drop, not drastically but enough that it was too cold to eat our Christmas dinner outside. Steve set up our big table in our awning and we were joined by two neighbours, four of us around the table. We managed to produce a full on traditional Christmas dinner from our limited cooking motorhome and caravan facilities. We were incredibly pleased with ourselves. The ingredients were obtained from shopping at several local supermarkets including the ‘English Tesco and Iceland’ in Calahonda, a very British inhabited area. Steve cooked the turkey on our Cadac BBQ, I produced roast potatoes and parsnips from our caravan oven, and we had carrots, stuffing, brussels sprouts, gravy, the works. We raised our glasses to each other and drank to absent friends.
NEW YEAR’S EVE
Jorge’s Bar advertised a New Year’s evening event including music, novelties and buffet, tables restricted to six within the allowed curfew of 1am. We booked our tickets and joined a table with Dave and Gay who live here. Incidentally, they became good friends of ours and whose company we enjoyed on a regular basis. Unfortunately, Steve got ‘Daved’ a few times but it was all good fun. Jorge’s Bar in Cabopino Marina is within walking reach of the campsite, everyone was socially distanced and by this time, with a maximum of around 40 guests in this small bar, we knew most of the people there – again, all from the Cabopino campsite. It was one of the best NYE celebrations ever. We didn’t have to drive, pay exorbitant taxi, hotel or restaurant prices and, best of all, celebrated with people we knew and liked.
