Spazmo, The Differently Abled Tent - Spain 2011

Part of Golfet Beach, Catalonia, Spain

Erin

Our trip to Spain in 2011 was a bit of a different one for us. We had decided that it would work out cheaper to head over on an all inclusive package deal rather than do it independently, but then take off for a night here and there and do our own thing rather than just stay in the town we had planned to stay in. We prefer hitting the road and exploring - not having our itineraries planned for us or dictating which towns we stay in and when, and as it turned out, we were there mainly for the wedding of Pete's cousin near Barcelona anyway.

So we booked an all inclusive in the coastal town of Tossa de Mar, a lovely little place on the edge of the Costa Brava, with beaches that could be better (mainly due to the shore being comprised of tiny tiny rocks and not actually sand!!). The hotel itself was decent, but the food left much to be desired. It was standard British fare, sometimes Paella, sometimes not and served in a great hall alongside giant groups of people with screaming children running around. Suffice it to say, heading out into the wilderness on our own was something we highly enjoyed.

We had looked around in advance for some great beaches to hit, kind of north of Tossa de Mar, and one really piqued our interest. Golfet Beach looked great but it was too awkward to get to in one day, so we opted to stay overnight. But how? Hotels were a bit too expensive, and we didn't want to have to rush around to hit the beach and get back before buses stopped running. So we arranged to camp out near Golfet beach, and so we bought a tent in Tesco before we set off.

Little did we know that this particular tent appeared to be missing a part of some kind and as a result, it didn’t exactly set up correctly. It was tilted and sagging - it definitely was missing a piece, or maybe three. Nothing was quite like eating ice cream from the bucket in the door of what we named “Spazmo, the differently abled tent”. Yes, yes. Offensive. We know. Not PC at all.

Suffice it to say the tent did fulfill its job well. We didn’t die from exposure (not that we would have in the 30 degree heat), and we managed to remain relatively bug free. I’m not sure what happened to Spazmo. I hope he found a good home at the allotment back in the UK.