Road Trip to the Mediterranean

Madrid is hot. Regularly in the high 80's, and the public pools closed the first weekend in September. What's with that? In need of some relief from the heat we took a trip to the Valencia, Javea and Alicante. We packed our backpacks, climbed into our rented Smart Car, and drove through the mountainous desert out of Madrid and towards the Mediterranean.

Once outside the congested city the sunset spread bright pinks, oranges and purples over the desert. Looking over the mountains into the yellow sun as it cast a water colored sky from one horizon to the other I was reminded how beautiful the earth can be. This was the first of many breathtaking skies over the weekend.

The pictures really don't do it justice. 

Being recently out of school as we are, and having also recently spent an entire summer nearly unemployed and yet still jet setting to as many locations as possible, we found ways to make this trip as economical as possible. 

Wallet saver #1 Couch Surfing. If you aren't familiar with it, there is a website called couchsurfing.com where you can volunteer your couch or a spare bed for free and in return you can request to stay with other members of the couch surfing community for free. We joined up, and spent our first night in Valencia with Jose, a gracious couch surfer in a centrally located part of the city. We had a great experience. Jose was a nice guy. He gave us some tips, talked to us about the culture in different cities, and then we parted ways. 

Wallet saver #2 Menu del dia for lunch, and grocery store for dinner. By law every restaurant in Spain is required to have a menu del dia (at least mon-fri), and it's made lunch my new favorite meal (actually I love them all, I can't pick a favorite). The menu del dia includes a starter, a main course, a dessert and a drink all for about 10 euros each. In Valencia we had jamon con melon, ensalada, dos tipos de paella, granizados de limon, pan, y 2 postres for 18 total euros. Grocery store dinner usually cost about 9 for both of us, but you have to live a little :) 

At lunch 

Visiting the main church in the city

The city plaza

That afternoon we drove out of the city center to the playa. We walked onto a white sand beach that had people scattered here and there. Along the side of the beach there was an channel with some fishermen. Colin decided we should cross the channel in order to get to the completely deserted area. We were the only people. We were separated from the road by a good 200 yards of sand dunes and light vegetation, and none of the other beach goers looked too intent on crossing the channel.  The water was warm, and unbelievable clear. There were small waves that gave us just enough push to body surf a bit. Here's a few pictures from sunset. 

On our way out, instead of crossing the channel we decided to walk up to the road, where we found this sign and this barbed wire explaining why the beach has been so picturesque and secluded. Thank you to the possibly endangered birds for sharing their sanctuary with us for the day :) 

Wallet saver #3 avoid toll-roads and take the most fuel efficient routes. Our beloved Smart Car rental had a navigation system. On our way from the bird sanctuary to our next couch surfing destination the navi took us over the mountains on what it deemed the most fuel efficient route. In the pitch black, as we snaked through the mountains with occasional street lights, we tried to reassure ourselves the navi knew what it was doing. When the navi told us to take a right turn down an even smaller road on the side of the mountain we hesitated, but decided to follow it. When we were instructed to drive down a step we still followed. When it told us to drive down 5 more stairs and through a locked gate we finally drew the line, reversed out of the small graveyard and back onto the main road. Not sure this one actually saved us money, but the navi certainly tried. 

That night we met our host in Javea. David had an amazing house. He designed it himself and we were impressed. It had a rustic wood motif throughout the the living room, kitchen, and bedrooms. There were huge double doors that opened onto a patio with custom designed lawn chairs. The backyard's focal point though was definitely the pool. It was bright blue with sloping edges and a pond to one side. We spent the evening chatting with David about his travels, and enjoying his salmon cashew spaghetti. We spent the next morning lounging by the pool and pushing all previous thoughts of going for a run far, far away. 

After a taxing day poolside we went into town for a menu del dia with David, then hit up the beach. I'll let the pictures do the talking.  

Wallet Saver #4 Stay in and play Angry Birds instead of going 2 da club. After leaving Javea we drove about two hours to Alicante. We got into our airbnb apartment around 11pm. We got all dressed up and ready to go out and enjoy the nightlife. I sat by Colin who was ready before me and started watching his angry birds games. I played for the first time, and we took turns on different levels for about half an hour before admitting we were too tired to go out, and we were both addicted to the game... 

In Alicante we hiked up Castillo de Santa Barbara, went to Playa de San Juan, and played volleyball with a really fun Argentinian family. 

Castillo de Santa Barbara

Playa de San Juan

Wallet saver #5 Don't buy swimsuits, just go to the nudist beaches. Ok, so we may not have followed this tip, but we did spend our last day on the shores of a nudist beach. The water at every beach we went to was crystal clear, calm, and perfectly refreshing. Here are a few (clothed) pictures from the last day :) 

I played around with this one on picmonkey.com

We reluctantly traveled back to the center of the country on Monday night. Madrid is a bit like the New York of Spain. It's crowded, a little bit dirty, and there is a big park in the middle where everyone runs. We like Madrid, but the Mediterranean coast is hard to beat. 

Now,Wallet Saver #7 When in Spain use segundamano.es. Segunda Mano is Spain's craigslist, and it rocks. Colin got a great bike for 85 euros, and I just got an iPad. I needed the iPad for some work stuff, so this one didn't really save my wallet, but I saved them about 100 euros. The iPad is so cool. Buying second hand is awesome. 

We love you guys! Beso Beso, Hasta Luego!