Road trip - La Linea de la Concepcion

 So the road to Gibraltar was another twisty road with hairpin turns and switch back and lots of up and down the mountains- and it inclued a road closure we couldn't get around. No other route (rolling eye emoji here)

In a way it served us quite well- as we ended up backtracking a bit to go to another roadhouse for a meal, while we waited to see what happened.  There we found out the road would reopen in roughly 30 minutes. It was closed for a Sunday morning bike race. Meanwhile, we got to have a fabulous home cooked meal at a family run inn.  

Here is my FB post of the trip-

Left Ronda this morning and headed through the mountains to the south and ultimately La Linea de Concepcion (the border town in Spain with Gibraltar.) The trip was somewhat disrupted by several road closures but we eventually arrived late afternoon into town. On the way (while we were waiting for the road to reopen after a bike race from the morning) we stopped at another roadhouse for lunch. We had a terrific platter of pretty much everything they had on offer. Excellent cerdo and chorizo especially good, of the abundance of food. We also sampled a tapa of the "Jabalí" (wild boar) which Phil liked very much but I found a tad gamey for my taste. The service was as wonderful as could be. A family run Inn, Mom in the front, Dad in the kitchen, daughter serving the food.  Really great (if accidental) choice.

We finally arrived in La Linea as the sun was low in the sky. Tim and Jean opted to skip dinner as Jean had some bad news from the States of a friend's passing. Understandably she wans't up to socializing. 

Phil and I went out for a Uruguayan parillada meal. Empanadas, proveleta, berenjenas, as starters and skirt steak and milanese (veal) for mains and a terrific panqueque with dulce de leche for our postre. at Parillada El Uruguayo on Calle Sol in La linea. 

We got a good night's sleep and were ready for our trip to another country toorrow- across the border to Gibraltar - the Rock! Here is a brief video of a few seonds of the drive down the moutnains to the sea to the border town at The Rock...

Next up our day in Gibraltar...

we see an amazing light show

so we arrive at the town of Yangshou and get to walk through a local market to our hotel which is located about a mile away from where the boat let us off but along the river so we have views-

as it turns out we have seen the hotel from the river while the boat was turning around to await its turn to disgorge the passengers... here is the photo from the Li River-

so we arrive and head through the market-

It was mostly souvenirs for those who came off the boats and were headed for hotels or for return transport to Guilin- but as we were walking along a guy came up and was staring at us and cutting away with his scissors- and voila! there was Phil in silhouette- quite the likeness-

then we arrived at the hotel- and checked in- I had enough of the hot weather and walking so I stayed behind and showered while the boys went off to the silver cave with Christie.  they reported many many steps when they returned-

I was happy to stay behind and watch the river traffic and relax for a bit-

Later we met Christie and headed around the corner for a fresh fish (pick your own) meal before going to the light show on the river later that night... below Larry admires the choices while Christie bargains for dinner-

for those who didn't care for fish you could choose poultry---

our helper fishes out one of the weight we requested...

the restaurant is very clean and all the place settings a wrapped "for our protection" LOL-

our meal arrives in fairly short order- and the fish is delicious - as are the noodles with shrimp and the rice - an excellent meal---

we head on to the show- Christie escorts us through the throngs of people after the driver (doing an amazing job of getting us fairly close to the venue) dropped us off... The show is designed by the same production team that did the Beijing Olympics and also the fabulous Impressions of Lijiang that we saw while in Yunnan province.  It too is a spectacular show! here is a link to the Lijiang show which was done in daylight- so the photos are much clearer than the ones of the night show-

http://semifreelife.blogspot.com/2013/12/back-to-china.html

but still  - these will hopefully give you a sense of how beautiful this was---

and I do have a short video that helps you get a better idea of how stunning this show was-

we head home to the hotel and the next day drive back to Guilin to catch a flight to Shanghai- but we stop at the Chinese medicine facility for a quick (really quick) tour and sales pitch (not quite as quick but Christie got us out of there by saying we had a flight to catch) - we stopped at a hotel for a mediocre Chinese meal.  they came with sweet and sour pork and we refused it- LOL.  We told Christie that even in the US no one eats that stuff- so they made us a dish of grilled pork on skewers which was waaaaay better than the crap they think we eat here as Chinese food.  We laughed and remembered a time a group of 12 of us had dinner at Sun Wah in New China Town in Chicago near our house and Dick wanted to order sweet and sour pork and no one touched it except him.  At the end of the meal he commented that he must be the only one who liked it - LOL....do you think?

anyway- we have rounded out our time in this part of the country and will next be in Shanghai - which was incredible and will undoubtedly be a number of posts - but first let's wrap up here- the Chinese medicine stuff and then off to the airport-

our flight was an hour late taking off- LOL- really?????