As the title hints, we are still here - stuck in the middle but we're not complaining.....how could we when we wake up to mornings like this. There's no real point in getting up too early as it's dark until about 7.30am and we're always trying to conserve power.
We tend to shop in Alcoutim, Portugal not because it's cheaper but the people seem friendlier and the facilities are better (Tim says there are more bars!).
We've tried to balance the pictures, some from Spain and an equal number from Portugal.
Points of interest like the fort on either side of the Guadiana are bleeding obvious but there are a couple photos showing the wildlife we encountered on our 'memorable' river expedition, details will follow: left anchorage going with the tide around midday in search of terrapins that we were told were 5km further up......on the way we saw countless Heron/Egrets, half a dozen Grouse, 3 sightings of Kingfisher, the remains of a quay used many years ago for the transport/storage of metal ore that was being mined nearby but, no blinking terrapins.....on and on we motored until the turn of the tide and had to sit in the dinghy and wait and go back with the motion of the water.....because we'd gone so far up and used too much fuel we had to paddle.....paddle I ask you, it was blistering hot, nowhere to get ashore and only Pomegranites (that we'd picked off the trees) to eat! Another thing we had to look out for was floating debris, not little twigs but logs and rafts of vegetation that were so large that they had plants growing out of them. Thankfully there was a full moon else God knows what would have happened to us...imagine the headlines 'english couple last seen gorging on Pomegranites, lost up the Guadiana'....never a more appreciated scene was had since coming in to Falmouth last July when we rounded a bend and saw the lights of Sanlucar......heaven be praised.
A couple photographs are of painted tiles on the Portuguese side depicting the traditional scene of yester year, we chose the 'girls night out' and 'Saturday night fever'.... they're very good. There are 3 shops on either side and we have learnt that Tuesday is veg day and Saturday is market day so we base our shopping around this.
We were given the tour of the town by the Salty Sea Dog - Graham who is a lovely English chap who has been living on his boat, Halle, for the last 7 years and commutes between Alcoutim and Ilha Cristina which isn't faraway.
Most other pictures are made up of various scenes from the Spanish Fort showing to Lusty Wench and evening shots of reflections and lunar landscapes (Tim need to practise with his new camera). Out of interest, we made the long trek to the Portuguese Fort and only when we reached the top did we discover it was severely fenced off.....whereas the Spanish one was obviously under some sort of improvement and free to enter and look around (good job really as it rained and we had to take shelter).
The 'flower' photo was taken for Jill, it seemed rude not to.
We're still not in any particular hurry to leave but I've a feeling it will be within the next 4/5 days, mind you it is getting chilly - Tim wore socks yesterday!
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