OMG! Starting work on Monday!

Tues 8th April 2014

Had croissants on the balcony then set off for the day with Mike & Liz in their hire car. David really enjoyed this as he got to look at the views for a change. And what fantastic views and scenery it was! Mountains, lush green valleys and windy roads. We headed for a luxury hotel in the mountains to meet up with the owners and to check out our first potential Workaway / HelpX. We arrived just past Almogia at www.puertoelperal.com OMG! The scenery in the whole area is stunning and the hotel (Cortijo) was magnificent and to die for. The owners Hetty (Dutch) and Alan (English) made us very welcome and after a coffee gave us the grand tour! They built it 16 years ago and obviously put a lot of thought into it as it is  perfect. Puerto El Peral means home of the pear tree. They then showed us what would be our house only 50m from the hotel with plenty of parking for Priscilla and it's own swimming pool if we didn't want to use the hotels! Hetty (Hendrika) is the chef and she is an artist too (Rog - will be sending u pics of her work) we got on straight away with Alan and Hetty and Mike & Liz were very impressed too. It was then agreed that we will go on Sunday with Priscilla to start work on Monday(possibly for 6 weeks if everything works out ok!!!!) They will provide provisions for breakfast and lunch then in the evenings a get together with them to have a meal cooked by Hetty. They expect from us a max of 5 hours a day 5 days a week work which will be mainly gardening, painting, general maintenance, help in the kitchen etc. We drove away pinching ourselves and Mike said if David fell in shit he would come up smelling of roses! Let's hope it is as good as it seems. On their advice we then went to El Torcal (this area can be seen from the hotel). Amazing rock formations and again views forever and you could even see down to the sea. Had lunch in the cafeteria before doing an unexpected 2 and a half hour walk through the rock formations. Headed back down to the coast and Priscilla not arriving back until 8.30 where we enjoyed a BBQ before Mike and Liz left for their apartment (seeing them again on Thursday). Another wonderful day.