May Expenses... right on target!

Usually when I make up the budget for the next month, I do so with a best case scenario... to try to give us something to shoot for. That's why we generally go over budget. It's not that we absolutely need to stick to the budget... it's just a guide. And provided the annual expenses don't often go over $40,000 CAD ($30,000 USD) or so, then we're doing just fine. And even if they do go over that amount, we're still doing just fine!

Anyhow, it is odd when we do come in under budget... and even more odd when we pretty much meet the budget bang on!

Boat cruise on the Sil River

We stayed home and relaxed until about 3:00pm when it was time to get going for our 4:30pm boat tour departure on the Sil River.

Oh, but before we get to that, I have to show you a video of the drive we have to do to get to our accommodation here on the side of the hill...

Viewpoints over the Sil River Valley

We are in what is known as the Ribeira Sacra... a spectacularly beautiful wine region in the Sil, Miño, Cabe and Bibei river valleys in Galicia in the northwest corner of the Iberian peninsula in Spain. 

There are many miradors... viewpoints that are made overlooking the valleys. Yesterday, we decided to drive to some of the viewpoints.

Day trip to Pontevedra and Spain's west coast

We got a fairly early start, hitting the road at just after 9:00am for the two hour drive to Pontevedra. 

Pontevedra itself is only about 83,000 people, but the built up areas continue all along the coast and as you reach the beaches, it's quite busy. 

Day trip to Montforte de Lemos

The nearest grocery stores of any size are located in Montforte de Lemos, about 25 kms (15 miles) away. 

We had already been there when we first arrived as we needed to stock up, but we never explored the city itself at the time.

We are going to rent a house!

No, we're not "settling down". 

However, we do want to have a home base. A place where we can be part of the community. Somewhere that we can just lock the door and leave, and come back to and find things exactly as we left them. Somewhere close to a major international airport, because of course the travel will continue!

And we think we have found that place.

It was a good test of my new boots!

Ruth packed a lunch and we set off walking directly from the house. We were headed to two different viewpoints.

Into the city of Ourense, and a wine tasting evening!

I only had one pair of shoes with me so far on this trip... the new Sketchers that I had bought in Madrid. I learned the other day that I need some hiking boots! Those Sketchers are fine for walking on flat paved surfaces, but they have zero support for anything more than that. And, I knew I was going to have to buy hikers soon anyhow. 

So, we headed into the city of Ourense (pop 109,000) to see the sights and buy some hiking boots.

Well, the time has come

But let's face it, it had to happen eventually.

A fun hike, right from our front door!

We decided on an 8 km (5 mile) round trip hike that leaves right from our door. The destination was the deserted hamlet of San Cosmede.

We kind of thought we might get some nice views of the Sil Canyon, but unfortunately not. However, there were a lot of other interesting things to see along the way! In fact, it turned out to be a really good hike!

Day trip to Ribadavia, and the Melon Waterfalls

There are so many choices of things to do and places to see, it took us a while to decide!

We chose to go to the town of Ribadavia, about a 45 minute drive. Then, Ruth found an 8 km (5 mile) hike with some waterfalls a few kms past Ribadavia, so we went there afterwards.

Hike to a beautiful viewpoint

Once again, we woke up to fog that doesn't seem to totally burn off until after lunch. And there's no point in hiking in beautiful scenery if you can't see the scenery!

So we didn't get out walking until about 2:00pm.

A few photos around the village where we are staying

We woke up Monday morning to thick fog. We couldn't even see the mountain on the other side of the river valley!

Our schedule has been pretty hectic for the past while, and it was nice to just relax for the morning. It was after 11:30am by the time we hopped in the car to go find a grocery store.

Our home for the next two weeks... what a great area!

We headed out of Valladolid with plans to make one stop... at a big Carrefour grocery store on the outskirts of the city. 

Good thing it wasn't much of a detour... because it was closed!

A busy day as we explored both Segovia and Valladolid

We took the metro (subway, underground) from the north part of Madrid to the Atocha train station. We had used up our original ten ride purchase at €0.61 a ride, and it didn't make sense to buy another ten ride package so we had to buy individual tickets at €2 ($3.12 CAD, $2.23 USD) each. 

Arrived at Atocha station a half hour early for our 10am rental car reservation.

The bus broke down, so extra time in El Barco de Avila!

Well, Friday was the last day of the volunteer language program, and we are now back in Madrid.

Busy, busy though... I didn't even have time to do a blog post yesterday, and time is quickly running out this morning too!

Walk into town

Another busy day. They give you fun group assignments, and you think that maybe you don't have time to complete them, but somehow you manage to get them done, even if it cuts into your free time.

As I said, they sure keep you busy!

Another fun day!

Once again, a fun and enjoyable day. 

It's so nice that we are able to go out walking during our one on one conversations. It's such a beautiful area, and we've been pretty lucky with the weather although we did have a few drops of rain yesterday afternoon.

They sure do keep you busy!

We had a fun day yesterday. They sure keep you busy, and the time passes quickly. We had breakfast from 9am to 10am, then began our "one on one" sessions with the Spaniards.

You do three 50 minute sessions, each one followed by a 10 minute break.

First day of the language program

We had signed up as volunteers at an English language program for Spaniards here in Spain. So, this language program is not about us learning Spanish... it is to help Spaniards learning English.

It's five nights/six days, and Sunday morning at 9:30am the bus picked us up to take us to a resort two and a half hours west of Madrid near the village of El Barco de Avila.

Some quirky things in Madrid

Once again, we waited out the rain before heading out to do more exploring here in Madrid. So it was almost 1:30pm before we set out on the subway towards the center of the city.

We often use the Atlas Obscura website to find interesting things to see that aren't necessarily on the tourist radar, and Ruth had mapped out a short list of them.

We moved to another accommodation

Despite sleeping in Friday morning, we managed to get out of the apartment with time to spare. We walked to the nearby subway station to take the metro underground to the north of Madrid.

Only a ten minute walk from the subway station and we arrived at our next accommodation. It's in a very residential area, with a lot of apartment buildings.

Madrid's El Retiro Park, and another photo matchup

We went and did some shopping Thursday morning. I actually didn't plan this very well. I wore my hiking boots on the plane as the only pair of footwear that I brought. But I knew that my hiking boots didn't have many miles left on them. I should have left them behind and wore my sneakers and bought some new hiking boots here.

Wandering around central Madrid, and some more photo matching!

We had two goals on Wednesday. The first was to see the special changing of the guard ceremony at Madrid's Royal Palace that only takes place on the first Wednesday of the month. And the second was to match up a couple of my dad's photos from when he was here in October of 1954.

We only got one goal accomplished.

Getting ourselves settled in

When we left you last, we were sitting at a coffee shop in Madrid airport. We had some time to waste because we weren't able to get into our accommodation until 12 noon, and it was only 8am. 

We left the airport at about 9:30am. The express bus from the airport would be able to take us to the Atocha train station, and then it would be a 2.5 km (about a mile) walk from there to our apartment.

Arrived at Madrid Airport

We were down for the included breakfast at our Mexico City hotel right on the nose at 7:00am when they opened. Once again, it was a good breakfast. This was the same MX hotel chain that we have used in the past in Mexico City, although this was the first time at the Hotel MX Congreso location.

Not bad, for 784 pesos ($55 CAD, $40 USD) a night with the good included breakfast. On the down side, we found the room too warm, and the WiFi didn't work very well. Good thing we have enough cellular data left on our Telcel SIM card.

And... we're off!

Saturday evening we had a nice surprise.

Normally, we look forward to seeing friends Paco and Oti whenever we visit Valle de Bravo. This time, they had other plans and had told us they weren't able to make it. We would have to wait to see them when we return in October.

Getting things organized

Spent the day yesterday giving Igor a good cleanup. He'll be sitting here waiting for us for five months until our return around October 8th. The exterior will need another good scrub by then, at least the inside will be ready and waiting for us.

This morning, I am going to change the solar charge controller to the one that came with the last kit we ordered. I think it's a better quality one, and the one that's currently installed doesn't seem to want to kick down to float voltage when the batteries are fully charged.

Well, that was a great trip!

Reflecting on the last five and a half months, what a great trip this has been! Of course we always love our time here in Mexico, but we hadn't been here for almost five years and we were really missing it. This trip was all about visiting old friends and favorite locations, with only one new area that we hadn't explored in the past.

We had arrived in Cancun on November 12th.

April Expenses - Our cheapest month so far this year

We had a budget of $1,783 CAD ($1,247 USD) for the month of April. We spent more than that, but we always make our budget as a best case scenario as something to strive for. So although we spent more, it wasn't by much.

We spent $1,960 CAD ($1,420 USD), which is the lowest month we've had since April 2023... so we're pretty happy with that!