Yesterday, during our daily walk, coming from the Playa de las Moreras, along the Playa Canina, and taking the direction of the boulevard of Bolnuevo, we passed Camping Playa de Mazarrón.
During most of the year, there are a lot of campers and caravans from people that hibernate in Spain. But now during verano (summer), the camping looks really crowded.
Every time we pass the camping, we go back in our minds to the first time ever we arrived in Bolnuevo. During 2016 we more and more concluded that we wanted to be closer to our grandchildren. This meant we had to move to Spain.
We decided we couldn’t just leave everything behind and go and live there. Thorough research was required. We would first spend Christmas at the family in Martorell and from there drive to the south and rent a house or an apartment. For one month at one coastal area and subsequently one month each at two other spots. Only one criterium was relevant: it had to be on a coast where most of the time the sun would shine. We only had to pick the right spots.
So after a few nights with google maps, I suggested we first should go to Mazarrón, because there was a campground where they had those small wooden sheds we came to love during our regular visits to Camping El Garrofer in Sitges.
From Martorell to Mazarrón is a six hour drive. So after a night in a hotel in Elche, it was a Monday because we discovered that the Parque Arceológico El Alcudia was closed, we arrived in Bolnuevo around noon at the Camping Playa de Mazarrón. An almost friendly lady at the reception allowed us to go and check one of the cabins they rented out for 850 euros a month, with additional costs for electricity and water. We crossed the campground and noticed that the campers and caravans were so close to each other, you would be able to hear the neighbors eat and sleep.
But the cabin was the real surprise. It wasn’t made of wood but of plastic. The rooms in the cabin were so small, you could hardly breathe. Which was for the best because the cabin smelled funny and wasn’t very clean. We called it a chicken run.
The surprise got bigger. I noticed that at the two-square-meter-lawn of artificial grass in front of the cabin a German lady was venting her ‘chihuahua’ (I’m not sure this actually was a chihuahua, but chihuahuas are awfully small, that’s why). The dog hung from the neck-yoke, could hardly yap, but produced a turd which would even make a Danish Dog proud. Both satisfied, the lady and the dog went their way, leaving us with a creamy-colored vista.
Avoiding the obvious trap, we returned to the lady at the reception and with pinched voices, but kindly, told her we would think about it.
We decided to take a more serious route and looked around for an estate agent. There was one right across the entrance of the campground. But no agent was present. We walked back to our car and noticed an office that offered insurances in English. Somebody was inside.
We explained our problem, said yes to the question of whether we already tried the local estate agent, and hence were advised to go to an English estate agent in Puerto de Mazarrón. From then on everything went extremely smoothly. Within two hours we were settled in a lovely and big apartment, only 200 meters from the beach and within walking distance to all the amenities Puerto de Mazarrón has to offer. And for a price that was almost half we had to pay at the campground.
We stayed at the apartment for two and a half months and never bothered to explore any other areas. At least until December 2017. A story that you can pick up by reading this series of blogs from the beginning.
^tvo