¡Po! ¡Li! ¡Cia!

 Wibbly, wobbly, wibbly, wobbly. As I type, we are aboard a boat, people! A boat!!! We’re Africa bound, baby (today’s theme)!

Last night was… “interesting”…!

We got to the port in Almeria late-ish and thought we’d speak to someone at the ticket office about crossings to Africa. Alas, the ticket office was closed. The wifi was naff at the port, which meant we couldn’t book tickets online either. We knew there was a crossing to Melilla at 8am the following morning and we agreed to sleep in the van near/at the port, buying tickets from the office when it opened early the next day.

But, we were bloody hungry…!

In an attempt to get something to eat/try and get some wifi to buy tickets online, we headed into Almeria centre. We hoped to find a bar open for a drink/tapas. It was a bit of a ghost town in the Meria of Al (ever noticed how many words are preceded by “Al” in Spain? It’s a moor thing. Another theme tune for you here.). Tony did a fabulous job of guiding us through the ever-narrowing avenues that took us further up above the town via a one-way labyrinth of Spanish side streets. Out of the maze, tyres a little scraged and scagged by the enclosing pavements, we managed to find a Burger King (it seems that, when in doubt - sadly but thankfully, but more sadly - Burger King and/or McDonalds always pulls through!).

Fed and watered (burgers firmly in bellies and Stace enjoying the European delights of beer in fast-food restaurants!) but wifi no more present than the port building, we head back there with Smiles for sleepsies. We found no toilets open to us for the night so found a discreet little spot by the entrance, tucked away between some trailers for hidden wild night-time peepees, and snuggle down, with the alarm on for 6am. Tone is snoring loudly, but I manage to drift off, just as I’m woken to bright lights and a tap on the window. The police.

“No puedes aparcar aqui. Esta prohibido.” (You can’t park here. It’s forbidden.)

What a way to be woken! I felt so in trouble! It was 1am at this point. Tony jumped up and into the driver’s seat and followed the police car that was now slowly crawling past the ticket office. I guess they wanted us to follow them?! They wind down their window and shout out to go around them and come back on ourselves, animatedly gesticulating their arms, wrists, hands and almost bodies. Tony does as they say and goes to park up, only to have the police officer get out of his vehicle again and come to the passenger window.

“¿Que haces? ¡A la derecha!”, he shouts.

But to the right there is a sign that effectively says “boarding passes only past this point”. I explain to the officer in my best Spanish that we don’t have boarding passes, at which point he started to get quite frustrated. He draws his pointed finger across his chest, tracing the embroidery of the police badge on his jersey.

“¿Que veas aqui? Policia. Po. Li. Cia. ¡Yo soy la policia!.”

Crikes. OK. OK. OK! We try to go to where the pedantic, pissy-pants policeman purports, perplexed and pretty petrified (#allthelliterationisnevertoomuch), park up (ok, those last two weren’t all that intentional!) and pad back down into our pillows (those were!).

A very random thought that Tony and I have been pondering together recently; why were we brought up to pray next to bed And why on knees?! Was it just our family!?

Lord, keep us safe this night, secure from all our fears,
May angels guard us while we sleep, ‘til morning light appears
Amen

In the morning, we go into the ticket office, buy our tickets and board the boat. To Melilla!