Last days on the beach

We're nearing the end of our awesome week on the beach near Chiclana, Spain. I have to post and write about a couple things we did recently that were real high points for me.

First was playing tennis on Spanish red clay with Sammie. I had never played tennis on clay before, and prior to coming on this trip it was one of the things I was thinking in the back of my mind that I would like to try. Conveniently, there are several resorts near our beach community and a couple of them have clay courts. It was easy to rent an hour - they even provided racquets, shoes and balls. The fellow who ran the tennis club was from the Czech Republic and his wife was from Germany. Neither spoke great English, and our Spanish is rather weak, but we made it work. Tricia came along just to watch, and Sammie and I had a terrific time. The clay was weird, giving unpredictable bounces and causing the ball to bounce rather high in the air. It took awhile for Sammie and I to get used to it, but by the end we were doing rather well. Afterwards, with a cafe con leche from the club cafe in hand, we could say playing on the clay was a rousing success.

The other fun, but somewhat harrowing, experience was renting and riding mountain bikes on the cliffs overlooking the ocean between Conil and Roche, Spain. Getting to Conil, finding the rental shop, arranging the bikes with a dude who spoke no English, navigating our way out of Conil to to the trails were all very dicey experiences. But, the riding was awesome. We had great mountain bikes, and the trails were just dusty paths through the shrubbery on the cliffs. We often pedaled just feet from the edge of the cliffs with nothing to prevent us from toppling over. The trails were not well-marked, so we got lost a couple of times. But, again, the riding was fun and the view spectacular. We did a little swimming and a little drinking at a beach cove just off the trail before turning back. It wasn't a perfect experience, but I guess I would say all the trouble was worth the couple hours of fun.

Tomorrow we head to Portugal, and the Aragos back to Madrid. We'll reunite in London four days later. For now, I'm going to go and enjoy one last day on the beach and probably some World Cup tonight. Fun stuff!!!