Hello! I’m back and sorry about the delay. I was bitten and it was hot and it took all my energy staying sane. We are in Portugal as I write, sheltering from the heat with shade and showers and cafe abatanada (americano coffee) on tap. There’s no going off on adventures, catching local transport or visiting museums – staying cool seems adventurous enough.

It’s 27 degrees C here at the campsite at the moment, it’s forecast to go past 30. I’m sitting on the steps of a closed restaurant in a sliver of shade. We will move on tomorrow and hug the coast and travel north to get that temperature down for me. Denis doesn’t have the same requirement for sane temperatures and can work away inside the van (where temperatures go up to 10 degrees higher than outside) while I wilt (and complain loudly) in the shade.

The bug bites are healing now and I don’t look as diseased as I did… or maybe I don’t care as much. They were a new kind of bug and I didn’t really notice them at first, thought they were flies landing on me. Two days later I was able to count 40 itchy blisters. It had been during the day, there was a breeze blowing… mosquitoes come out in the evening and don’t like the wind, right? What were these new monsters? I really don’t like getting bitten, it’s like a blackness comes over me and everything turns negative. I am hell to live with. Of course I didn’t spray any repellant, I thought I was safe if I stayed inside at dusk with the little bug-killing light. I wasn’t, nope.

I want to catch you up on where we’ve been since I last wrote and that’s what’s coming next.

We left Toledo late afternoon on Friday and headed for the small town of Baños de la Encina where a hot shower awaited. It had been a long day and there would be two and a half more hours driving but the temperature was lower than France had been so all was well.

Arriving at the foot of the very steep village at 8.45pm we had quick showers and headed uphill. It was the kind of hill that was so steep it makes you wonder how you’ll get back down again in one piece. But of course every step upwards brought views worth the effort.

We had googled for a tapas restaurant and there was one at the top. The place was hopping, our timing was accidentally perfect – meaning food was available. We read the menu as best we could but didn’t quite understand the procedure. There were plenty of options but which ones were tapas and what were those others?

When the waitress arrived Denis asked, do you speak English? She smiled, said no, just a moment and left. While she was gone we did our best to use the translate app on the whole menu but still we weren’t sure. Eventually a young man arrived at the restaurant door, rushed to a cupboard to pick up his apron and came to ask us what we wanted. He could speak English! We ordered what we thought were a few tapas dishes and then he told us something that now made sense as we looked around at all the other diners.

He told us the tapas were free with an alcoholic drink – Denis could have one but I would have to pay for mine. Everyone there had a single tapas and a drink. No one was actually having dinner. This was possibly pre-dinner time. When he arrived with our food we started to understand that we had ordered three full dinners between us… and he’d also added a plate of free bread. Plus we had just finished our “free” tapas.

Needless to say we couldn’t finish our dinners. We did make it back to the campsite without getting lost or sliding down the hill and next morning (Saturday) we headed off to Grenada, another hilltop old town.

And another place where we didn’t quite understand the procedure.