3 countries...

Extremadura - adventures in a dusty region
Martin turned 31 last Wednesday. To welcome in his 32nd year, we decided to go urban. Well, we went to Trujillo, a kind of large town and then Caceres. Both have beautiful old architecture, lots of storks nesting in church towers, and are great to wander round.

Fun things we did to celebrate Martin's birthday:

• stoppped a view point and saw about 20 eagels and vultures flying above us and alongside us.Pretty cool, though couldn't stay too long as we were melting into the tarmac (36 degrees outside)
• ate novelty frozen yogurt in the Plaza at Catheres
• drove through very narrow, medieval streets that you probably weren't meant to drive down, looking for parking
• drank beer, ate tapas, in a variety of establishments
• discovered that the initials "DO" when used as part of a cheese dish mean more mature than your grandma - a little strong even for Martin
• hit the sales! Which begin on the 30th of June in Spain. Kara bought a lovely new dress. Martin sulked round various shops muttering "this isn't fun on my birthday"
• repeated the conversation many times about how glad we were we'd bought a car with air-conditioning*

*for Kara's parents: how did we manage to drive to Malta, during the height of summer, THREE times in my childhood, with no air-con in the car? Were you mad?!? No wait - you must have been right all along, today's youth are soft.

The long and winding road...
we might have mentioned our ambitous road trip. Extremadura (about 50km away from Portugal) to Lecce, the heel of Italy...a nive 1500 mile trip...

We decided to drive the width of Spain on one day. So we left from near the Portugese border and drove (via the ring road of Madrid- much better than the one round Paris) to the French border. We wound up at about 7 in the evening at a little Spanish Pyrenean town of Pons (in Catalonia). We used our backpacker powers to swiftly identify the cheapest accommodation going and once again, made good use of the cool box by having our own breakfast in our room to save money (Uncle Brian - we thought of you and knew you'd be smiling at us).

So, next we hear you say...to France! But no! For in between France and Spain lies the little known principality of Andorra. Hey, if you can, why not. So we did.

Andorra is known for 3 things: Shopping; skiing; cheap petrol.

Team Stanford is in summer and have no money. Guess which of these we took advantage of....

Andorra is every bit as crass as the guide book says. Huge shopping malls, tax free cigarettes and booze, ugle ski resort buildings...but on the other hand, where else can you find a lovely mountain view with a McDonalds on it?

Onwards to France! Where we made good use of our cheap Andorran petrol and rolled down the mountains for the next 45 minutes, using virtually none of it.

Alet Les Bains
Kara has actually been here before. Last time she had money and a sister. This time she is skint and with a husband. Is this really progress? So, ignoring the guesthouse Kara stayed in before, we are at a lovely riverside camping ground. Comedy animal of choice here seem to be the caterpillar (plagued by them, in Spain it was the ant) and a large duck-thing we can't seem to identify. There was also an English chocolate labradoodle (labrador and poodle cross) with an impressive moustache but he's gone now. In fact the campsite, run by Brits, is full of English people which leads to much nervously muttering "bonjour" at each other, not quite sure what language to use.

As the temperature is a mere 26 degrees here we managed a walk round the lovely village of Arques - it even has its own lake and chateau. After 3 hours of sweaty walking, we collapsed in the grounds of the chateau to break open the bread we'd picked up at the boulangerie with some very runny camembert. Team Stanford is down with the peasant life style.

Tomorrow - to Carcassone!