Having vilified the Sotogrande as a hell realm early in the Casa story, it has always been avoided ... apart from a couple of incursions into the port area for the Sunday market. Since San Enrique is a couple of kilometres from the coast, up the River Guadiaro, and since the bleak urbanisation which is the soulless Sotogrande spreads across the estuary, walking routes have been mainly across the campo to the coast or by car to Torreguadiaro and north away from hell. .. though other urbanisations pop up along the way ... the whole coast is infested with them.
Between the Guadiaro and La Linea is another large suburb called Alcaidesa, and the idea of exploring the coastline popped up, so bravely slipping by the armed guards, I wandered through Soto port, over the bridge and down to the sea ... the beach stretched into the distance and proved perfect for surf walking, firm underfoot and mostly deserted. After an hour or so, turning round the headland, the hollywoodesque vision of Alcaidesa appeared, complete with golf course. ... mission accomplished and with no desire to explore another hell realm, a couple of photos and a short rest was enough ... especially as this turned out to be a gay bay, with early cruising bare chaps offering a slightly predatory vibe ... a shame, since the beach was perfectly placed for a naturist friendly zone, which always appeals to your blogger, whose great pleasure is to swim as nature intended ...
The return was rewarded with a cooling dip and a coffee at the edge of the Soto ... meaning Soto prices ... €2 instead of the Tubalitas €1.20 ...and so back through the overpriced estate, with its mixture of Art Deco and traditional villas, tasteless tat, barrack like flats and look at me yachts ... though this time one or two wandering tourists responded to my greeting and my earlier harsh characterisation is revised, along with progress in the perception of wealthy and aspiring wealthy folks as equally worthy of compassion as the poor and dispossessed, since all the clutter is really a burden in life and the sometimes snooty behaviour is mostly driven by fear ... which we know is the main obstacle to love ...
A later encounter with an Irishman, walking a large dog, confirmed the dogalyst effect of canine companions ... before he had the dog, no-one on the urbanisations spoke to him ... now lots do ... via the dog ...
As a linguistic footnote, finding the Spanish word "urbanisation" rather clumsy and the usual English translation "development", bland, maybe we could employ "urbs" as a word? It saves on syllables, suggests suburbs, with all their lifestyle attributes and has a certain grunty sound to it ... hmmm
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