Brothers Reunited

After spending the last few days city and town hopping we were excited to finally get the chance to meet up with Bobs big brother Ian and also meet his partner Yael. They made the big step before Brexit in July 2020 to start a new life near Vinuelas in the province of Malaga. Sadly Bob has not seen his brother for over 10 years and possibly not since his mum died, although they have been in regular contact and we were eager to make the journey to see him. The photos he often posted looked amazing as they lived up in the mountains with lake views and now finally we were getting to see it all for real and not only meet Yael for the first time but also their new family members Pincho and Zumba.

The drive from Olvera was a nice road through the mountains and all was going quite smoothly until the last 5 mins when we had to take a very steep climb up a very narrow road with some hairy tight hairpin bends. How we got up there I can only say that Bob is a bloody good driver as my heart was in my mouth and we could both hardly speak! We later found out that there are 3 roads to take to their villa and our Sat Nav had chosen the worst of the 3!

Ian and Yael have a gorgeous villa set in a very pretty village high up in a valley overlooking the lake. There are a mixture of all different types of villas dotted all over the valley owned by a variety of nationalities. They are all set amongst land that is farmed for olives, grapes, mangoes and avocados by locals and the two seem to live harmoniously side by side. No two villas looked the same and some were quite  palatial. Ian and Yael’s was set on one floor but with different level terraces for outdoor living and a gorgeous looking pool. They have turned it onto a lovely  home and I can really see why they are very happy there. To wake up to that view every morning would life my spirits too.

Since moving to Spain they have adopted two dogs, first Pincho came along, they rehomed him from a Dog Rescue centre, he has a very similar nature to George and they mainly ignored each other. Zumba was about 18 months old and quite new to the household. She was a stray who had taken a shine to Pincho and they have taken her under their wing. Zumba was a little more bothered by George’s presence and when there was food around tried to tell him who was boss so George did his best to avoid her!

 We spent 2 nights with them and were treated like royalty. All our meals were cooked for us, they are both vegan so the meals were right up my street and we had a super warm comfy bed (day and night temperatures went from 18 in the day to 1 at night)  and our own bathroom. They took us on walks to explore the area and we took a trip down to the lake – which they told us was the lowest it’s been for a long time due to lack of rain for the last 3 years. It would have been easy to stay there longer but we knew that we have a long road ahead of us to get through Spain and time was starting to run out. So, it was with a promise to return again next year that we said our goodbyes and headed back down the mountains to make our way across Spain.

I want to add a note to the last blog as I think that I gave Portugal a negative slant. Of course we have only really touched a small part of Portugal on our visit.  There was so much that we were unable to see like Porto, Lisbon and Sintra as we couldn’t take the Motorhome close enough and couldn’t use public transport with George. The drive through central region and the West Atlantic coast was fabulous and these are areas I would love to go back to….if I am honest I think it would have been an easier experience without a dog.

Since arriving in Spain, we both realise how much we love it, but perhaps that is because the sun is shining and we have many happy memories of family holidays here. Could I live in Spain – no I don’t think I could, but I could spend much of the winter here exploring more areas and learning more of the interesting culture and history of such a huge country and its lovely people.