When we went for the dinner buffet at the Elba in Motril, it was fabulously good. The flavours of everything were so agreeable, and subtly different from what we are used to, or have encountered before. But we were so stuffed, we said we were done with anything like that for at least another month. That was a week ago. But last night, after our ordeals on the road and given that we are at the fabulous Hotel Turia, we went for the buffet again. It was not as flamboyant as at the Elba, but it was so good. The food here in Spain is proving super, and economical as well. 

We had barely slept off this buffet orgy when it was 10 jammer breakfast time, and again with dishes having unique flavour or ingredients.  At least we don't really need to eat anything until tomorrow's 10 jammer!

The Turia's bike storage area in the parking garage is clean, and importantly, very well lit. This allowed me to swap out my still brand new but skinny front tire and tube for an equally brand new 622-47 Schwalbe Touring tire and tube, to carefully fine tune the Magura brake pad contact with the rims, to lube the (rusting) pedal threads, and to tweak as much else as possible, to have us ready for the next 1/3 of this tour.

Meanwhile Dodie strolled over to nearby Decathlon, and bought a small pile of stuff. It was small, but enough for both Dodie and the checkout girl to miss seeing that a pair of shorts for me had not been run through. At the exit door, a security man then went berserk, flooding Dodie with a wall of accusatory Spanish for her 6 euro attempted theft. The checkout girl was very apologetic as she then rang the thing through, and Dodie reserved her own flood of disparaging English for the security man - something about his upbringing and how his mother had (not) trained him in politeness.

The shorts, by the way, were too small (too many buffets!), so we will shortly be back through the door, with the receipt clutched firmly in hand.

We did walk back to Decathlon, and found some more very lightweight tee shirts and shorts. But one other thing: For some time we have been using collapsible silicon cups and bowls. They really help make space in places like the handlebar bag. But they also fail in time - developing rips, and in the case of one, by being left on a bench. It's not a big deal, except that the 250 ml size has disappeared from all normal sources. This caused me to literally scour the world online to find replacements, but with no luck.  One time I did find some at a French outdoors company, but for a fabulously high price and costly shipping. So I was pleased to see on the Decathlon site that they had some, and that while generally not in stock, there were four at the store two blocks from here.

These were then on Dodie's list for her trip to Decathlon, but she could not find them there. So I went on the Decathlon site and ordered them for pickup in one hour. But Decathlon somehow rejected my credit card, and therefore there was no deal. A call to the card company showed that unusually the bank was innocent this time. Don't know what Decathlon's beef was.

Eventually we both walked again to Decathlon. I showed the web entry for the cup to a sales person. He looked at it, but denied they had such a thing. I persisted, and eventually he found them. They were under lock and key, with other hyper valuable camping gear, like camping stoves. Now someone had to be found who had the key. It took about ten minutes. And after the cups had been freed from jail, I was told they would be brought to the checkout. They were apparently too valuable to be waltzing around the store with me unsupervised. On this I had to agree. To us, these cups are gold!

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Karen PoretBuying in Decathlon is an event in itself! I had the same issue with trying to find pants which were ripped apart at the knee when I slid on the overpass in Belgium a few years ago. Of course they had none. I was told by several EU locals that shopping where Vaude is sold is a better deal. BUT, as you know, we don’t LIVE there and time constraints keep us from “shopping around”..
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2 weeks ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Karen PoretSad to say but Amazon can be a source when no one else is. Decathlon gave me a long song and dance about how my standard tire doesn't exist in Spain. Maybe so, but Amazon.es delivered it to our hotel room pronto.
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2 weeks ago

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By the way, the price for these was 10€ each - cheap compared to other prices I had found online. But the ones we use as bowls we bought at our local grocery for $2 each. The store  thinks they are quick fold outs for dog water and therefore are not charging the yuppie camper price!

We are spending the rest of the day unusually doing nothing. But tomorrow we will set off on a trial run to the Mallorca ferry dock. The way there passes the Oceanografica, but I don't expect we will shell out the 42€ to go in again. That will sadly shut off the chance to photograph further scads of (to eBird) illegal captive birds. But there is sort of a parrot jungle building we have never visited, and maybe we'll find it.