Fuengirola – Feria de Abril

We drove to Fuengirola to meet up with some friends and had no idea what was waiting for us. By pure luck, our visit happened to land right during the Feria de Abril. The XXVII Feria Internacional de los Países (FIP) ran from Thursday, April 27 to Monday, May 1, 2023.

For anyone who doesn’t know, Feria de Abril is a traditional Spanish fair, originally from Seville, celebrating Andalusian culture with music, dance, food, and colorful tents. Many cities now host international versions, and Fuengirola’s is one of the liveliest.

The feria area is packed with tents — 32 countries participating, each bringing their music, food, and culture. The Jamaican tent is alive with good live music, the Peruvian corner has dancers moving to the rhythms of their homeland, and the Mexican section is full of art and colors. Belgium has an amazing tiny Smurf village that’s oddly charming and fun to explore.

Walking through it all feels like jumping between countries in a few minutes. Every corner has something new to taste, hear, or watch — and somehow, it all works together in one huge, vibrant celebration.

We highly recommend anyone visiting next year to join in, try the foods, enjoy the music, and have a really good time.

Dénia

After finishing the window install in Vilassar de Mar, we followed the coastline south and ended up in a city called Dénia. It’s one of those stops you don’t plan for, but feel glad you stumbled into.

The old castle sits on the hill, watching over the city. Walking its streets, you get the sense that life here has always carried on in a mix of noise, laughter, and sea breeze.

Friday night turned into something unexpected. We found ourselves in the middle of a street party that started with food, music, and drinks. By the time the evening deepened, the whole thing had shifted into a street disco. DJs set up right there in the open, and the narrow streets filled with dancing. Everyone — locals, travellers, strangers — moved together like old friends.

We ended the night sweaty, happy, and a little dizzy from the beer. Dénia treated us well. We met a lot of lovely locals and fellow travellers — the kind of people who make a place stick with you long after you’ve moved on.

Building While Travelling

Are you planning to live on the road in a van? We were in the same boat as you, and we learned a lot during the process. We made a decision to end our rental contract in Finland by the end of November 2022 and hit the road. But before that, we needed to ensure that our van was equipped with all the basics we needed to live, including enough battery power and heat. Running warm water would have been great, but it was something extra.

We spent December and Christmas in Jyväskylä, near Miro's family, where we were able to fix our frozen grey water tank issues and test how warm our van actually gets with a Chinese diesel heater when there are -25 degrees Celsius outside.

Originally, we planned to buy windows for our van from Germany, where they are much cheaper than in Finland. Unfortunately, we were in Germany between Christmas and New Year's, and all the places that sold camper accessories were closed. So, we changed our plan and decided to buy windows later, maybe from Spain. After arriving in Spain, we realized that being inside the van during the day was already warm, but we felt claustrophobic without windows. After a quick Google search, we found Campernet.es, a retailer in Terrassa, Barcelona.

Since we were already in the northern part of Barcelona in Vilassar de Mar, it was only a 50-km drive to Terrassa. We went to the shop on Thursday after work and had one of the best customer experiences we've ever had. Victor helped us choose the right windows and even showed us how to install them. The next morning, he ordered the windows for us, and we could pick them up later that day.

We designed our electric system to allow us to perform maintenance on the road without needing to rely on external sources of electricity. To achieve this, we installed a 2000W Renogy inverter and a 200Ah lithium battery, providing us with enough power to use electric tools such as a jigsaw and drill. I will go into more detail about our electric system in a future post.

Installing all three windows took us two days because it was our first time ever installing a window. We had to measure everything a hundred times and make sure everything was straight. We did the whole job in front of the beach of Platja De I'Almadrava at Villasar de Mar, and everyone who walked by our van was curious and wanted to know what we were doing. Some really friendly people even stopped to chat with us during our installation process.

After those two days of installation, we are really happy with the outcome of how the windows look, how much air and light they bring in, and how they take away the claustrophobic feeling that we were having inside the van. If you're planning to install windows in your van, we highly recommend Campernet.es in Terrassa!