We were dropped at the second bridge and wandered through the old town. It was touristy, but charming. We had chocolate hazelnuts in a paper cone then wandered to the ocean promenade where they were still fixing the storm damage.
It was quiet here, few realising it was reopened. A little white sail boat darted around the island and out to sea. The beach was jammed with sunbathers. When I later described it as a beach for posers Maite burst into laughter “yes exactly, exactly!” It was stifling with heat, any sensible person would be napping in their hotel room, our bedroom was a train ride away. We darted back into the landways to the surf beach on the otherside where it was full but not to bursting. It was baking hot, but as we reached the waters edge too cool to swim so we lay down to nap.
“You must try pinchos” Maite had said to us that morning. “For the Spanish it is a snack before dinner, for English people it is dinner”. With our bellies rumbling at 7pm and Spanish dinner starting around 9pm we thought pinchos sounded like a great idea. We wandered around, places were just opening, we got glimpses of plates of tantalising snack food skewered with toothpicks in every bar, but we weren’t sure what we were meant to do. We had foreigners anxiety, and we didn’t speak the language. We lingered like stray dogs, watching what happened, but couldn’t work it out from a distance, so we decided to grab a drink. Our fellow customers didn’t seem much interested in the tasty looking morsels waiting there for them, we grew impatient. Finally Dylan just went for it, it seemed all you needed was to obtain a plate and choose what you like, they zapped it in the microwave and brought it to you with a bill. Once we unlocked the secret it was like being at a fancy function picking this or that nibble, such fun! “dinner” over we wandered along the river under the welcome shade of the trees and the cool of the water, shadows long, floating on a slight sangria haze.
