Week of big walks
For no reason whatsoever and without any ulterior motives I suddenly and spontaneously decided to get in shape. I have been avoiding sugar since I left home, and have been able completely cut it out for the 14th day today, so that part is done. I’ve been also eating less and higher quality meals since before. I also take some long walks, along with some other light exercise. One day I’ve been to (and back) the Cabo de Palos lighthouse, next day I’ve been to the lighthouse at Estacio. Overall I’ve walked just about 60km this week. That’s pretty ok, I think.
New places
On these walks I saw more of the strip than before, and I have to say I’m pretty lucky with the location of my AirBnB. The strip is divided up in kilometer long chunks, starting at the south, just after the central part of Cabo de Palos, and ends at km 18, up north in Veneziola. My AirBnB is in the tail end of the km 5, which is pretty much the perfect location over here.
Km 3 is the most densely packed with roads going nowhere, parking lots being used as roads, roads being used as parking lots, private property signs after private property signs and staircases everywhere. There’s just no way to have a view not looking at another house or right into a parking lot. I seriously don’t know how these people get their mail as there are literally no streets to be named, let alone sequential house numbers.
From here to Cabo de Palos there’s not much to speak of. Nice enough near the main road, but not much to look at. Cabo de Palos and the surroundings looks to be the most populated area, as is the most expensive, oldest and most run down. It can be nice if you want to see some authentic, traditional Spanish lifestyle, but that’s not my cup of tea.
Now the other way, from km 5 to km 8 it’s pretty samey, big empty apartment buildings and complexes, some have better views of the Mediterranean Sea, some have better views of the Mar Menor, shops and restaurants every few hundred meters. Generally well suited for tourists with decent beaches on both sides.
At km 8 the main road goes further out towards the Mar Menor and in some parts it goes right along the beachfront with some nice benches on the sidewalk to watch the Sunset from. It all sounds and looks lovely, BUT… the smell of sewage coming from the Mar Menor is appalling. And it stays like that until at least km 14, where I went. It seems like the sewer system is not quite built out over there as it is closer to the center, so it pretty much just all goes into the sea. It’s foamy, smelly, green, disgusting, and most importantly sad.
At km 13 there’s a bascule bridge (or drawbridge) to let sailboats into- and out of the Mar Menor, it’s interesting if you haven’t seen one yet (like me), but that’s pretty much all their claim to fame.
Prices
Even though I arrived at pretty much the most expensive time possible, I can’t help but wonder how much cheaper everything is here. Multinational products, that are available everywhere are at most the same price as they are in Serbia, but mostly cheaper. Stuff that’s not available here has higher quality alternatives for the same or lower price. And that’s not even the cheapest place! If I were to walk to the nearest Mercadona or Campo I could save another 10-15%. I feel like I could reasonably have some savings even with my current salary, if I had a flat here.
I need to make some serious money to move here though…
Sunrises
Partly because I keep waking up early and partly because the Sun rises pretty late here, I’ve been photographing the Sunrises. There were a few calm days too in terms of waves, it’s fun to watch the Sunrise from the calm, crystal clear sea.
