Spain : Nov. 10 - 22

Tarragona: Thursday Nov. 10, 2005

Hola!!

Our day started early at 5:15 because we had to get through France en route to Spain. Brian’s dislike of France was definitely affecting our travel plans. He wanted to be through the country in less than 6 hours. I just didn’t want to be hunting for a hotel late at night again.

We did the crossing in 5 hours and 59 minutes including a gas stop and a pee break. Whenever Brian could he was driving 140 km per hour. Often we were overtaken by the speedy French. A Porsche flew by us at such a speed that he shook our SUV. He had to have been doing at least 180 km/hour. Brian was also cheesed by the extreme tolls we were charged for highway travel. For six hours of travel, it cost over 50 euros in tolls!!! He was a happy guy when we saw the Welcome to Spain sign!

My first impression of the country was that it reminded me a lot of northern California. The Spaniards must have felt at home in the new lands. My second impression was that the guidebooks were correct in their negative descriptions of the coast line. The beaches were truly overdeveloped with large featureless block buildings. I didn’t see the attraction and wouldn’t be interested in a beach holiday in Spain.

As we arrived in Spain at a relatively reasonable hour, we decided to push on further than we originally intended. We ended up in Tarragona and after some tight driving and parking with a large vehicle in small spaces, we settled in for the night. We were a little concerned upon entering the lobby and discovering a trade union convention. It was very loud and smoky but thankfully the noise didn’t continue on through the night. Believe it or not, we had Chinese food for dinner. We couldn’t find an interesting Spanish restaurant near to the hotel and the kids were craving Chinese food. (We haven’t had any since leaving Calgary.) Sierra was disappointed when they brought out the wrong pork dish for her. The rest of us actually preferred the mistake because it was spicy and Sierra usually picks bland dishes. The English to Spanish and Chinese language barrier was just too much to rectify the situation. So unfortunately Sierra will have to wait till next time. Thankfully she enjoyed my choice. Tomorrow we intend to go inland, away from the ocean and the big block buildings.

Nov.11, 2005: Cazorla, Spain

The rain in Spain does not only fall in the plain! A hell of a lot of it falls in Costa Brava. As we drove down the coast to Valencia and then made the turn west to the interior, we were pelted with torrential flood like rains. Brian calmly stated that Spain was in its twelfth year of drought. I found that hard to believe as we were sliding along the highway at 110 km per hour and being passed by most of the cars. The whole macho male thing was still very much in evidence in Spain. At one point a large truck tried to overtake another sizeable truck and then ran out of power. So for several kilometers they raced side by side, neither giving an inch while dozens of impatient drivers lined up behind them. Remember this is all happening at 120 km/hr and in a rainstorm. Finally the truck that attempted to overtake pulled in quickly and cut off the other truck. He had to throw on his brakes which caused him to skid on to the shoulder, overcorrect, sway like a drunk and then almost tip his load. Meanwhile we were only two cars behind all this and next to a third truck that had to throw on his brakes. I thought we were going to have a chain reaction and all because one truck wouldn’t slow down a bit in a deluge. I was glad that Brian was driving…..

As we continued westward to the plains, the rain abated. The sun was extremely welcome as we were given fabulous vistas of nearby rolling hills covered with orange trees and towering mountains on the horizon. Spain became pretty! At Albacete we had to turn southwest to skirt the Sierra Nevadas. By this point, the oranges were replaced by olive trees and the climate definitely was drier than the coast. We were also now on secondary highways so the driving was calm. However Brian was not relaxed as it was taking us much longer than anticipated to cover the distance we needed to go. It didn’t help when we were flagged down by a man on the side of the road. Two cars were parked together and we thought they had been in an accident. Carefully we pulled up, with all the doors locked and only one window partially down. It quickly became apparent that he wanted money, supposedly for gas. He started offering us a bank card and the gold rings off of his fingers. At this action, we bailed and left him to the next motorist. We don’t know if it was a scam but we decided to leave him to someone who spoke Spanish. We have been approached by many beggars with interesting schemes to obtain money. I still think the man in Romania who pulled out a colostomy bag full of urine (?) was the grossest. Anyway back to Spain……

Today was a Friday and we didn’t have hotel reservations. We wanted to stay in a small town called Cazorla, next to a national park in the Sierras. As well we wanted to get there before dark. The last thirty kilometers down a twisty mountain road was full of tension as we wondered if we were too late. As we pulled up to the Villas Turistica de Cazorla we all had crossed fingers and it worked. The hotel had a room just for Friday. It turned out to be a two storey villa and we felt so relieved. After settling in, we wandered up and down through the village. There weren’t many flat streets! As a bonus Brian found a Spanish barber and managed to get his shaggy mop cut. It must have all been done by hand gestures because the barber didn’t speak any English.

The Spanish eat dinner extremely late, often at 10 o’clock. We did a late dinner last night in Tarragona and felt very uncomfortable going to bed. So we arrived at the hotel restaurant at 8:45 tonight and had the place to ourselves for about 45 minutes. It was fun figuring out what we wanted to eat because the menu was in Spanish and the waitress didn’t speak much English. However we were all happy with our choices. After dinner we did a little star gazing and called it a night.( NEXT PAGE )