ESTEPONA

Sun 11th March.
After our walk down to the local beach which is quiet a way under the main road
and around past a hotel complex on Saturday we found the beach bar was closed
but the owners were getting it ready for opening in two weeks time,they have new
furniture and stock and invited us to the opening! Sunday started as a normal day
and ended with a surprise.We went down to Estepona for lunch to a restaurant
that we had been recommended to us by the F/B manager of one of the five star
hotels in town-we had met him when we had been looking around the hotels in
Estepona one day- he is in partnership with "Rafael " the name of the restaurant.
We had a lovely meal,Brenda had a starter of warm prawns.pineapple and rice,
followed by Calves Liver and i had a Shrimp cocktail and breaded Escalope of
Veal.washed down with a local Vino Blanco-"Senorio de Sobral " from the
Albarino region, we finished on shots of the local "Firewater" with the complements
of Rafael ! As we left our late lunch we noticed the local English bar was showing th
England/France match, so we watched the second half with a lively crowd.When
we first arrived in town before lunch we called into one of our local bars in the
square and had noticed that the town was busy and that all the children ,inc. babies
in push chairs had fancy dress costumes on- so when we returned to the main
street in the centre of town after lunch we suddenly realized that it was "Carnival"
What a great surprise ! The main road was closed and the floats were just
starting to pass thru- with bands,dancers,large floats and every body in fantastic
costumes. By now it was very lively and noisey and we where covered in confetti
and streamers and the road was a foot deep in it-untill the street cleaners army
that followed on -cleaned it up! A very special experience and sadly not caught
on video or pictures as we did not have the camcorder with us!! Sorry.