Peter & Joanne McLeod's Travels 2018

Seville - hot Still under construction!!! Flamingos at lake Fuente de Piedra, a shallow inland salty lake. They were miles away because the lake nearly dries up in the summer time and the lookout is back at least 400m from the shoreline Old and very healthy olives carrying a very good crop. Thousand of hectares, all appear to be irrigated. Olives to the far horizon. A block of almonds in the mid-left of the picture. Jo struggling up hill in 38C A good crop of green olives The locals fish market in old-town Seville Pomegranates growing in the Alcazar gardens Real Alcazar de Sevilla - an old palace in the middle of old Seville. The gardens are amazing. So green and lush in the middle of a hot, dry and dusty city Real Alcazar de Sevilla. Various buildings have been on this site since the 8th centrury BC. a lot of the present buildings date from the mid-1700's The main part of this construction dates from 1958!!

Portugal - seems to be the poor cousin to Spain. The unused ground, the poorly maintained secondary roads, the dirty, unpainted and shabby buildings, the lack of new construction all suggest Portugal is still struggling to get over its years of a nationalist and right wing dictatorship that persisted until the early 70's. The Algarve is the southern coast of Portugal. We were told that "Al garve" means "the west" in Arabic. It is the southern coast of Portugal and west of Gibraltar. The soft yellow sandstone rocks that make up a lot of southern Spain gives  rise to the dusty dry soils of the area, and to the kilometres of yellow-brown cliffs and caves along the southern coast interspersed with beautiful beaches with their golden sands. The beaches are beautiful - and thousand of tourist have a sit-in on the beaches all summer long to prove it. The beaches are crowded, the accommodation is full and expensive. But we were talking to a waitress in Lisbon who s...

After Gibraltar we went back (and Peter hates backtracking!) to a seaside town near Malaga called Rincon de la Victoria. There was a festival on in Malaga that we thought would be good to go to and accommodation in Malaga was nearly impossible. Rincon de la Victoria was about 15 minutes away from Malaga. The first night we drove to the outskirts of Malaga and took the train into near the centre. The festival comprised a number of activities spread over a number of venues. The Flamenco show was supposed to be a 10 minute walk from the train terminal at the Town Hall, starting at 11 pm. 40 minutes later!! we get to the Town Hall and there is nothing there at all. It is shut. Dead. There were lots of people around who had been watching earlier shows so it was still a busy place. We had walked 7 km by the time we got back to the train. We got to bed about 1am Festive site after closing time on central pedestrian mall at midnight - Malaga The next night we thought we would try ag...

Gibraltar was a really amazing experience and visit. A real Tick Box visit but one that exceeded my expectations. The Rock is amazing. 426 m high in such a militarily strategic position looking right over the entrance to the Med. No wonder Britain has held it since 1704. The views are amazing. The ride up their is amazing. The tunnels are amazing. The monkeys are amazing. Come down to earth after the visit up the Rock and you can see the best and the worst of British. It has the feeling of a British outpost - a lot of people speak with a London or Yorkshire or some other British accent. The currency is British. Work starts on the building sites at 8am or earlier - not 9am as in Spain. And the work seems to be much more efficient. There are a number of reminders around of Gibraltar's military history -  statues, plaques, gun placements, military barracks, etc - the the role Gibraltar was played in British military history. War memorials in Spain seem quite rare whereas in UK...

Stayed in a small town called Atamaria, near Cartagena, about 2 hrs south of Valencia, for two nights. You are really getting into the summer beach crowds from here south. Cartagena has a lot of hisytory that goes back to Roman times (100 BC). Cartagena has a deep and well protected harbour which has made it attractive for the Romans, later for the Moors and then the Spanish. It has a naval base. In 1986 a Roman Amphitheatre was discovered buried under urban development. No one knew it was there. And the seating and amphitheatre was largely intact. They believe it was built by Emperor Augustus in about 100 B.C. It is amazing to think it had lain there for 2000 years largely untouched while different empires, rulers and people had raged and built above it. We went to a beach about 20 minutes out of Atamaria called Playa de los Muertos. It is recognized as one of the nicest beaches in Spain. The beach is made up of small quartz pebbles. Small enough to walk and sit on com...

Valencia is a very attractive city. It used to have a river flowing right through the centre of the city. They diverted the river outside of the city and made the old river bed into an amazing open green space. There are playing fields, walking running and cycling paths, duck ponds, playing fields and courts, playgrounds, skate parks. It would go for about 15kms. The beaches are wide and long and sandy - and unbelievably crowded. The water is warm, but like all the Med that we have seen, there is little of no surf You think Mount Beach gets crowded sometimes? We did a cycle of 26km right through the green belt Valencia has a wonderful central greenbelt right through the city. Biked 26km. Only about 33C! An interesting character on the beach!

Our church convention in Barcelona is held about 1 hour north of the centre of Barcelona in a semi-rural suburb. There were about 150 people there from probably 20 different countries. I was talking to a guy, Jay Sperl, who comes from Washington DC and is working in Spain for ABB, an international company that makes and sells large transformers. During the conversation he was asking what I did and I told him I was doing some work in Bangladesh. He said his wife had been over there in January of this year seeing her friend Kari Boettcher from Washington and Adele Janske in January of this year. (They are doing missionary work in Bangladesh) I said we had stayed with them in February. Just then his wife, Nancy, came along and Jay was telling her that we had been to Bangladesh shortly after her and did some work with Paul Sarkar. She said "What do you do in Bangladesh." I said "Paul Sarkar processes stocking off-cuts or toecli..." Nancy exclaimed "Are you th...