Almeria

I went from Spanish hell to heaven in a few short minutes. We arrived in Almeria, Spain, August 3 with having actually reserved a hostel ahead of time, but our journey to get to the city was nothing short of exhausting. First we left Valencia at 7:04 in the morning and took a train to Murica, then to Aguilas where we tried to find a place to stay. Unfortunately there are all but 3 hotels in the city, so after much walking and sweating we resigned ourselves to having to wait for the remaining 3.5 hours till the next bus to Almeria arrived. Once we got to the city there was no cab who was will to take the 5 of us so we walked the 30 min. to our hostel with our packs. The hostel turned out to be mucho expensive and ultra creepy...kind of an abandoned catholic monestary (not the beautiful romatic kind)/grandma's moth covered basement feel. We searched for 2 hours that night trying to find someplace better and were just too beat to go any further as everything was either full or just as bad. What we really wanted was a place with a kitchen so we could cook our own food but have learned this is hard to come by in Spain . Drained and weary we stopped at a place for dinner that had 5 euro pasta...what we found out after we'd ordered is that the same pasta was available at the supermarket down the road and we were just as capable of heating it up in the microwave as the resturant was. Needless to stay we had a long crappy day. The next morning we started our search again but to no avail. Just when we had all given up and were about to write Spain off enti, Dean came running into our room exclaiming that we had just secured us 3 nights in a hotel apartment complete with 5 beds and a kitchen!!! We all jumped and yelled so loud I'm sure the other guests thought that we were on fire. We packed up as fast as we could and literally ran to what is now our haven.

We spent the rest of the day at the beach and to celebrate the fact that we finally found something that was affordable and that we could cook in, as well as Dean's birthday we went to a Argentinian Grill had gorged out on stake, chicken, ribs, and wonderful wine!! It was amazing and totally saved our outlook on Spain!

Today we had a relaxing morning, made crepes for breakfast, did my laundry in the bidette (not sure if that's how you spell it) and toured La Alcazaba which was a Morish Castle that now lies in ruins. It was stunning and held wonderful gardens. We made ourselves some more fresh salsa and guacamaoli for lunch, and are now planning on cooking some fajita's for supper....feels so good to be able to make our own food once again!