Spain – Monesterio (En)
We went to Monesterio because it had a motorhome area with free electricity and a mechanic right next door. We urgently needed a mechanic because our brakes were making a suspicious noise. However, every time we asked a mechanic, they told us the brakes were fine, including the one who performed our vehicle inspection in England. To our surprise, we discovered that Monesterio is a beautiful town with lovely people and a ham museum!
Where to stay
We stayed at the village’s motorhome area (38.093899, -6.27727 latitude, longitude), which is free and includes a water and electricity filling and emptying station. The area is huge and good for large motorhomes over 8 meters long. There’s electricity for 6 pitches, but plenty of parking space if those 6 pitches are occupied. We arrived in the evening around 7 pm to see the mechanic, who closed at 8 pm. We parked next to the pitches with electricity, and the next morning, we had a spot with electricity without any problems. The drinking water wasn’t working because someone had broken the tap, but the villagers told me they would inform the town hall to fix it. There’s a Spar supermarket right next door for shopping, and the mechanic is also next to the area. You can be in the village centre in 5 minutes. I recommend it to see this lovely village with its friendly people who are very helpful.
What to see
The first thing we did when we arrived was go to the mechanic, who told us to bring the campervan in and park outside so he could check the brakes. He looked at them and said that he definitely needed to replace them. Since it was the weekend, he told us to park outside the garage first thing Monday morning, and he’d replace them there while he went to get the necessary parts on Saturday. He was a really nice guy named Kiko. So, we spent the weekend exploring the town. In five minutes, we were in the centre, which has a main street lined with huge flowerpots, white houses, and lots of bars and restaurants.
In an alley to the left, you reach another square where the Church of Saint Peter the Apostle is located, very beautiful, but it was closed, and we could not see inside.
Following the advice of the locals, we went to the Ham Museum, which is located at the bottom of the main street. Inside the museum, they explain how the pig slaughter is done and the procedures followed to obtain your leg of Iberian ham. I recommend seeing it, as it’s small and you learn a lot.
Walking up the main street near the museum, there’s a shop that sells all sorts of Iberian products, so we went in to see what they had. The shop assistants were lovely, and when we told them about our brake problem and how great the mechanic was, one of them, the one with short hair, said, “That’s Kiko, isn’t it? Kiko’s really nice, a sweetheart.” I think she really liked Kiko the mechanic, because she couldn’t stop talking about him. We bought some torreznos (fried pork belly) that were delicious, and the shop assistants posed for photos for us. I recommend visiting the shop; they have everything.
On Monday at 9 a.m., we were parked outside the garage, and Kiko came to change our brakes. When he took one of the wheels off, he realised we’d also ruined the brake disks, so he had to get new ones to replace those too. He told us we’d completely lost the brake pad on the left side and that we could have been killed driving in that condition. He couldn’t believe that all the mechanics we’d told to change our brakes said they were fine. I told him about the shop assistant who had spoken very highly of him, and he turned bright red. I tried to get him to tell me if there was something between them, but he didn’t say a word, hahaha. He spent from 9 a.m. until almost 8 p.m. changing the pads and brake disks, and he even put all the hubcaps on so they wouldn’t squeak. We gave him a 20-euro tip, and he said he’d buy us some beers at the bar, hahaha.
With the brakes finally fixed, we headed to Andalusia, specifically to Camping Tropical, located between Marbella and Estepona and surrounded by really cool places, bars and towns that you can see in the following blog posts.
