The last couple of days have flown by, the weather has been quite changeable. The sea has one day been like a mill pond and then a boiling cauldron the next. Some mornings have been black and overcast and others with bright sunshine, one constant has been monsoon like rain storms in the evenings, apparently this is a bit of a rarity and has caused great excitement for the locals. One such downpour occurred last night and it was like the rain storms we used to see in Hong Kong. The streets were like rivers and no one was going anywhere. Punk Rock fashion made a comeback for a while & we joined the others wearing bin bags in the rain.

We've taken a couple of walks locally but it isn't the easiest place to do this, the place is very hilly and the thing that does you in is the pain in your calf muscles which is caused by walking downhill. The locals call this place Cardiac Hill & no doubt there's a reason for it. We took a stroll to Puerto De San Diego, this is more where the locals live and doesn't have the sheen of the purpose built Tourist Area. Life was going on there though as was death & we watched a local funeral taking place. The hearses were covered in garlands of flowers and lots of people were outside the house of the dearly departed paying their last respects.

So, what's the grub like then? Well there's plenty on offer but we've been a bit disappointed with the local scran. We'd both had a hankering for some authentic tapas and were told to head down to the harbour. The place seemed authentic enough but we had the feeling that the food had been commodified. The meatballs were the same ones you get in a tin in any good supermercados. Shame really, but one dish I wanted to try was Pimmento Du Padron, basically it's a chilli cooked in olive oil and sprinkled with rock salt. I wanted to see how it was done as I've got a pile of these chillies growing in the greenhouse. So that's one ticked off the list. We didn't really search out foodie places but I'm sure there's some decent stuff out there. I also tried barbecued Rabbit, purely because it's not something I usually see on a menu.

We walked through the monsoon and had a beer in the Bamboo Bar which is a bit of an expat hangout. There was a quiz going on and the winning team was ably assisted by Jayne & myself. They won hands down but didn't give us any credit for it or any of the Champagne that they won. Lesson learnt, knowledge is something best kept to yourself. We finished the night off with a couple of glasses of vino collapso on the balcony as the deluge had finally stopped. Tomorrow we were going to try and get out for some jolly japes on the high seas.