Agua Amarga Again

This year I took a chance on our summer vacation. By mid-June, I had Nacho's following month schedule and so I knew we would be trying to get to Spain around the 23rd of July. I figured within a week of that, we would probably take a little side trip to the beach as a family. But I wasn't sure yet of Nacho's August schedule, so planning anything was a bit tricky. After a few quick searches near Agua Amarga, I was disheartened. Agua Amarga is a special little white-washed village in Almeria that Nacho and I discovered on our first beach trip back in 2012. Most of the Airbnb type rentals were not that nice or completely booked and none of it was cheap. Fast forward a few weeks and I sat down one night to make some more inquiries in that area and check out hotels too. That's when a listing came up for a place called Arto Blanco that seemed to be a sort of hybrid apartment/hotel with availability for the week starting Aug. 30th. I was intrigued. When the price came back under $1000, I was sold. But I still didn't have Nacho's time off confirmed yet and waiting wasn't an option. I booked it and prayed we'd find out in a few days that he was free until later in August. Otherwise, the girls and I would be enjoying the beach without him (yeah, right). Luckily, by middle of July we found out that he was indeed off until August 10th and so we were all systems go for both the big trip to Madrid and our beach vacation to Agua Amarga. 

Of course, booking a place online and not having been to the village for a few summers, I was slightly nervous about pulling up to a dump. But within minutes, I could see we had lucked out and our tour of the three-story apartment with the girls oohing and ahhhing every minute proved to be quite the introduction to this perfect little getaway. The girls loved all the steps and our roof deck and I loved our washer and full kitchen. Nacho was just happy to be back in the village and we all hit the beach that afternoon without a care in the world. In previous trips to that region, Nacho and I had stayed at a small resort outside of the village. So we'd never actually spent much time at the beach in Agua Amarga. But it turned out to be a great village beach for the girls and so near to our hotel that it was really the total opposite of their first trip to the beach last year when we stayed in Lorca and drove everywhere. Not that we didn't enjoy exploring different areas every day. But something about being in one place, with a beach just a 5 minute walk away was ideal. We closed out our first evening with pizza up on the roof at sunset and the most amazing views. Yeah, I could get used to this. Happy to be here and so glad we are showing this to our girls. They love it as much as we hoped they would.