Slides, Pools and the Ocean

Thankfully I was feeling much better than yesterday and so water park plans were on!
We really wanted to get there early, but 11am was the best we could do. (We had to fit in the buffet breakfast and call Tom's mum...)

We headed straight to the "magic oval" queue and planned to do this ride as a family. Tom and Sammy did it the other day and said it was pretty calm, you sit on a lilo, tube thingy and journey through a tunnel. Meanwhile Adalia took one look and was hysterical with fear- although any innocent bystander would have just seen a four year old psycho yelling at her dad, it's hard to differentiate the two. We grabbed our green tube and began climbing to the top of the slide.

Once at the top poor Adalia was sobbing, but we genuinely thought she would like it. She has this reaction to all new experiences. Sammy decided to sit high on the side to make the tube go faster, Tom was next to Sammy, I was opposite Tom and Adalia was between us.

The next twenty seconds was just horrible for everyone. Somehow I ended up going backwards the whole way! I hate going backwards, I thought I was going to be sick. Adalia was on the side that was continually thrown into the air and she screamed with genuine fear the whole way down, she thought she was going to tip out. And Sammy was sitting so high on the tube that he banged his head at the end of the tunnel when we were expelled into the pool at the bottom.

After that I was ready to leave! I wasn't keen to spend my morning with an hysterical daughter. Tom and Sammy really wanted to do some of the scarier slides, so I positioned myself in the only shaded spot in the whole water park, in the shadows of a baby slide (Seriously, you have to pay for shade there) and watched Adalia in the children's section.

I quite enjoyed watching all the parents with their children. I wondered who these people were before they had kids. A man covered in tattoos with a shaved head and big muscles crouching down and laughing at his daughter splashing, Mr too-cool-for-school dad with his low hung bordies and grey spiked hair catching his son at the end of a slide. And swimmers reveal everything, all the embarrassing tattoos that are usually hidden. There were some truly bad ones; a puppy paw that looked like an eight year old drew it, writing that wasn't straight and each letter was a slightly different size.

I convinced Adalia to go on the rapids a couple of times then thankfully it was time to go home via the supermarket for 27 cent 2L water. We really needed a break from the sun, but when we got to our room the cleaners were ready to clean it.

We headed out and had a picnic lunch poolside; salt and vinegar chips, doughnuts and croissants smuggled from breakfast and coke for the grown ups. Does it get any better than that?!?! We had a quick swim to cool off, but decided to go to the beach rather than be in a crowded pool.

Tom wanted to try a beach that was slightly further away, but part way through our journey we glimpsed the beach and it was very crowded. We cut our walk short and turned off the road to take a path to our regular beach. This path led us to a near cliff edge with a half wrung ladder that descended to rocky foreshows. Tom's great plan was to traverse the water covered rocks and wade to shore.

I did not want any part this! I could only see trauma or detestation or both. Tom suggested I take the beach bag and shoes and return along the safe route. While I wasn't keen to leave my babies, I figured someone needed to be able to call in the rescue squad if it all went wrong.

When I got to the top of the hill I could hear Adalia screaming, so I knew they hadn't drowned (well at least she was still above water). Their adventure has been successful. I still wasn't happy with the unnecessary risk, but I enjoyed one last swim in Spain.

No one wanted to leave the water, but we needed to pack our bags, watch more Spanish kids tv and eat another buffet dinner...so much to do when on holidays.Read more