Island tour off road

Last night we went to the Irish bar “Tam Tam’s”; very nice too. In the morning, as we couldn’t wait until 9am to pick our car up from the hotel we walked to the car hire place and picked it up there. Claire had promised another couple a lift if they wanted but as no firm arrangements were made we had to wait until 10.30 to leave in case they turned up. The Turkish GP didn’t start until 11am local time so I wasn’t to catch the beginning as planned. Never mind maybe some kind soul recorded it for me. First stop the capital Espargos where nothing much was happening so we just drove around and then off to Pedra de Lume salt flats. It was hard to find and we sort of came to a dead end where I took this interesting picture. You can probably see what time it was taken. You need a 4x4 here as even their roads are like our off roads. In fact once off road you can drive faster than on their cobbled real roads.

We turned around and headed back along with the other “proper” 4x4 that followed us. I watched them pull off road as they followed us back the way they had come. Then another 4x4 coming towards us pulled off and followed the other one. We decided to follow them and the tracks lead behind this little church for anyone else trying to find it. To get to the salt production area you have to go through a cave. They still have the ancient looking wooden contraptions that were used to drive a pulley system in the early days. It all looked something like out of “Planet of the Apes”. Strange that salt flats can be so much more interesting than the capital. The complete island tour took us around 90 minutes.

Back home in time to see the last 10 laps of the GP in a lovely bar with a 360 degree view around the sea and a huge plasma. We had roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, very appropriate for a Sunday, washed down with beer and wine. I would recommend this place if I could remember its name but it was a little bit “El Dorado” servicing a collection of private, mainly English owned, properties.