Our Second Friend-Filled Fortnight in San Jose

It is the eve before we move out of our cosy little apartment in San Jose, Dan is packing up our things and it seemed like a good time to review our second friend-filled fortnight.  Feels like only yesterday I was writing about our first fortnight here!  However, we feel we are getting so much benefit from our time here and the stability of a temporary base that we had decided to stay on a little while longer ..... so tomorrow we won't be moving back into Homer just yet but we are moving a few hundred metres down the road into a small Casa.  This second fortnight has continue to build and grow on the work and ideas we have been developing in the first two weeks as well as being filled with reunions with new friends.  We've even been back on the bikes and exploring a little further a field.

We've enjoyed being reunited with several friends from Los Escullos campsite, where we stayed last year - with one couple we've enjoyed evening mint teas at the little bar on the square as well as being cooked for, others we've been reunited with on the Padel court. Penny and Andy, who were the wonderful couple who last year threw a very festive Christmas afternoon party for the campers at Los Escullos, came over from the campsite with Vivan and PG to meet us in San Jose to share a meal together at a restaurant with a lovely view overlooking the port.  It was lovely to catch up again, be able to share stories and laugh together.

We were very excited to also find out that our friendly feline companion, Felix at camping Los Escullos was still very well and enjoying the comforts of our friends Penny and Andy's caravan!

In addition to being reunited with friends who we'd made during our stay here last year,  three other motorhomers who we'd met on our travels elsewhere (Hayley and Marcus who we'd met in Anglet in France in December and in a Dutch friend we'd made in Valencia on the beach parking over Christmas) had also found themselves being drawn to the area.  We've enjoyed some good catch ups, meals together, sharing of ideas and recipes and much more.

We enjoyed getting back on the bikes for the first time since November - cycling over to the salt flats at El Cabo de Gata to see our friends but also were treated to good sighting of the flamingoes!

We've fitted in two wonderful hikes this fortnight - over the clifftop path to the Cabo de Gata lighthouse where we also got friendly with a very different motorhome pet......

........ and a hike with our friends saw us return to the summit of El Fraile but this time ascending on a track from San Jose and again being treated to a special wildlife encounter.....

We can't stay away from Playa de los Genoveses and had to share it's beauty with our friends.......

Our evening jogs and exercise sessions on the roof terrace have continued........

We've continued to explore the beautiful bays around San Jose..... sometimes whilst listening to our audiobooks.

As have our group Padel sessions on Monday and Wednesday mornings ....... we even booked our own extra 1.5hr session to enjoy with friends......

We've continued to enjoy the weekly Sunday market in San Jose and getting reacquainted with the very friendly stall holders.  But during this fortnight we also decided to make our first trip into Almeria to top up our bio supplies.  We'd ordered an organic vegetable and fruit box from Andalucia Ecologica which we picked up from the delivery depot (encountering a few sat nav surprises along the way!) as well as visiting Ecocentro.

We continued our love of trying new recipes whilst having the bigger kitchen to cook in...... cookie dough hummus turned out surprisingly well as did our sushi night (this was inspired by our first experience of making sushi when we stayed on the farm in Guillestre in Summer) .......

So although the fortnight has been fun-packed and friend-filled as we decided to take a few days mini-break to enjoy the time with friends, the time has mainly been focused on continuing our reading, listening, learning, getting inspiration and developing ideas as to where we might be able to contribute as we move forward into 2016.   Dan again has continued pursuing his creativity through his writing which has also been particularly cathartic these past weeks.  We are continue to redefine our blog and have reflected on the benefits we've felt from taking this extended career break, why we're focusing on community minded touring, how we are funding our tours, how we are saving money on the road as well as reviewed our tour costs.  We're also continuing to be inspired by a blog post we read over New Year and want to continue our focus on raising awareness of causes that we are passionate about, such as the Tony Robbins Foundation.

A few admin things have also popped up from home and presented a few challenges that needed dealing with so it's been good to have a base to deal with them too.

We even fitted in a bit of time for motorhome spring-cleaning which Homer appreciated......





So after a long day behind the computers we feel very grateful to be in such a wonderful area to unwind and be treated to some very spectacular sunsets.....