030 - Sun, Sea and Satellites
1st December 2004
¡Hola todo el mundo!
So there we were, if you remember, under extreme pressure relaxing in the warmth of the peaceful pine woods near the Desperate Dogs natural park (as our friends Steve and Sheila have dubbed the Despeñaperros area). Out came the Birds of Europe book to identify the multitude of interesting looking feathered friends, and Jeni was unnaturally thrilled to be able to definitively pronounce that we were surrounded by azure winged magpies, birds only to be found in España, we'll have you know.
Santa Elena, our local village, was a great little place. It offered us a small food shop where Jeni took to chatting in French with the (Spanish) proprietor who had lived for years in Grenoble; a ferreteria where Dave was able to communicate that he needed co-axial cable; a random-opening hours Correos (post office) which was simply an empty room next to the town hall where the two (possibly random passers-by) staffing it couldn't really agree what rate to charge for Jeni's 'urgente' packages back to the Patriarch and the Gorgeous Grand-daughters, and a resident who excitedly introduced himself to us (in Spanish of course) as Señor José Smith, as his great-grandfather had been English. Quite a collection of happenings for a tiny village. (And that's without going into the story of Jeni being graphically propositioned by a local fella on one of her solo Correos expeditions!)
We were having a serious chill-out between all these exciting events and the only moments of tension seemed to surround the return to our Rummikubbing and Boggling in the evenings. Despite Dave's voracious reading appetite, Jeni was still thrashing him at Boggle ... but many and lively were the discussions about the allow-ability of various of Jeni's words. These included those of Asian origin (she puts it down to several years working in Ealing and her readings of A Suitable Boy, The God of Small Things and so on) and those arising from her intimate knowledge of Elizabethan literary terms. (Ha! Never let it be said that the M.A. in Elizabethan and Jacobean Studies was wasted - although Dave is still trying to find a use for his O-level macramé qualification!) Should our on-board Collins Compact Dictionary and Thesaurus be the final arbiter, or would these less-than-everyday words really be found in a full, 3 volume Oxford Dictionary, which could be held to be the Boggle Oracle??
Triumphant Reunion
After a couple of days, we got a cheering phone call from Sean and Daisy to report that they were moments away from La Carolina. Whoops! Our directions not too great, so they doubled back one junction to find Santa Elena which is actually what we should have told them to find. There was much cheering and whooping as Rusty triumphantly tootled onto the Camping - Sean had identified and sorted the difficulty with her inner workings. As they were setting themselves up across the way, Gypsy-Dog did several victory laps of both encampments with different shoes or slippers in succession. She then proceeded with some frenzied digging dangerously close to the ants nest near our pitch, so Dave had to distract her with tug-o-wars with sticks. We took it that she was quite pleased to see us, anyway!
We later learned from Sean and Daisy that they had had some even more eventful moments since we'd last seen them sailing off the opposite way round the M40 Madrid ring road. When they were pulled up in a service station waiting for Rusty's engine to cool, a wagon-load of Guardia Civil rolled up (they're the Big Boys, police-wise), screeched to a halt and leapt out, brandishing machine guns and other intimidating weaponry. They rushed around for a while, flaunting guns over the motorway, whilst Sean and Daisy quivered (and Gypsy sensibly buried herself under the duvet in the back). Then as quickly and inexplicably as they arrived, the Heavy Mob leapt back in their vans and sped away .... ! Well.
Camper Van Convention
Remarkably, since they're not a common sight in these parts, there was another VW camper van on this very under-populated Camping. Sean and Dave ended up helping the young German couple who owned this slightly younger VW camper, since it was a bit sick. Dave was thrilled that the episode presented him with his first chance to try out our 4 ton axle stands and bottle-jack (bit overkill for the little VW, 'tis true, but at least everyone was impressed with Dave's equipment - nuff said!).
Cumpleaños Feliz! (Happy Birthday!)
One of the reasons we'd decided to have a few relaxing days in this pine forest idyll was to rest up somewhere lovely for Jeni's birthday. (Isn't the Spanish equivalent of 'happy birthday' nice? - happy completed years!) Unfortunately the weather broke during the day, so much of her birthday was spent cosied up in the van, reading and writing, whilst the rain bounced off the Lorry roof. But what a gorgeous setting to look out on as we were forced indoors.
By the time evening came, significant amounts of water were cascading across the Camping and we had to fish out the big umbrellas for our foray to the village's one small hotel, where we'd decided to try out the restaurant. Naturally, we did the Northern European thing and turned up at about 7.30 p.m. hoping to eat around 8 p.m. Odd looks from the barman-cum-waiter-cum-receptionist (who probably quadrupled up as the pool cleaner, chef and room attendant too if the truth be known), but he said that he'd finished serving lunch (!!) but could re-open the restaurant for us at 8.30 p.m. for an evening meal if we would we like to have a drink in the bar first. As you may know, dinner time in Spain is rarely before 9 p.m., and more commonly Spanish people are taking their tables around 9.30 p.m. or 10.00 p.m. as the Northern Europeans are getting their bills. We had a thoroughly delicious and jolly meal anyway, despite being only the second table occupied in the dining room when we started eating. Nice little hotel, by the way, should you find yourselves in the Desperate Dogs area without a Camping Car - it's aptly called the Hotel-Restaurante El Mesón de Despeñaperros.
While we're on desperate, by the way, for any Don Quijote aficionados among you, you'll probably recognise the references to the Despeñaperros Pass from Old Don's adventures with Sancho Panchez. The middle of the pass was where he 'ran mad and played the desperate, the raving, the furious lover'!
South to the Coast
Sean and Daisy heard from their friends in France that there was more work available for Sean up there, if he wanted it. Since Mark and Becky, the friends towards whom we were heading, were not quite ready to receive the Labouring Crew, Sean and Daisy decided to head back up north. Sadly, they also heard of a death in Daisy's family, so felt that it might be better if they were further North so that it would be easier to get back to the UK if Daisy decided to return.
So, a little forlornly as we'd enjoyed travelling with them all, we waved goodbye and set off in different directions (deliberately this time!) on the N1. For us it was down to the coast to meet up with friends who were down there enticing us South, and to wait until Mark and Becky were ready to receive us. The weather was definitely turning colder up in the hills and mountains, and storms were predicted, so it seemed like an opportune moment to be heading South.
It was another wonderfully scenic drive. We're so glad that we came across Spain via a very different route from last year, as it has given us the chance to see a whole swathe of the country we didn't come near on our last journey. Most of the time we have been travelling in bright sunshine, which has made the autumn colours even more vibrant. We took the N323 through wonderful hills of olive groves and skirted round Jaen. A guidebook gem tells us that the name is derived from the Arabic Geen, meaning a stop on the caravan route. (We think they didn't mean Caravan Club route!)
Despite its reputation as having high unemployment and a great deal of poverty, Jaen has also been dubbed the olive oil capital of the world (10% of the world's olives are grown in Jaen province apparently). What we later discovered from a local paper was that e'en as we skirted round and headed down the beautiful Granada road, the world's first international conference on the health benefits of olive oil was going on in the town. There's supposedly a saying in Spanish that translates roughly as 'olive oil and wine, healthy and divine' (though we can't work out how it gets a nice little rhyme and swing in Spanish as in its English translation). Jeni looked pleased by this bit of news and bought another half kilo of local olives to go with her now-nightly medicinal glass of red wine!
Unlikely hideaway for Fruitbats
A monster supermercado stock-up just before we found our destination, and thence we sallied into a very unlikely place for Fruitbats. We didn't think we were going to do much (if any) of the fairly crowded Mediterranean coast this time, but in the traditions of Flexible Fruitbatting we are always open to changes in our itinerary. And we ended up having a bit of a ball in the unlikely surrounds of Torre del Mar, not far from Malaga.
Well. Beryl and Alan, friends we made last winter who had been trying to inveigle us South, did say don't be put off by the approach to the site - an area of somewhat desolate wasteground between beach and Camping, at furthest edge of a pretty unlovely coastal town. However, it must be said that it was a bit of a culture shock when we arrived on the site - after acres of pine-wooded space to ourselves at Santa Elena, we were back to a busy site with carefully demarcated pitches and a constant bustle of activity.
Many of these pitches were of course occupied by here-for-the-duration Northern Europeans, which meant that lots of them, particularly the ones taken by German and Dutch caravanners, were well fortified by windbreak surrounds, pots of plants, etc. etc., and of course kitted out with every known domestic appliance.
The other bizarre phenomenon was the energetic and obsessional leaf-clearing. The Camping was dotted with plenty of deciduous trees - great for shade in the sun but, naturally, shedding their gold, bronze and russet leaves as the autumn encroached. So they were all out there three or four times a day sweeping the fallen leaves off their pitches. Well, we say sweeping, what they were actually doing was sweeping, scraping, raking and even blowing (with garden leaf-blower can you believe?!). 101 ways to clear the leaves from your pitch? We defied this inexplicable behaviour, relying on our belief that there's a falling-leaf related variation on Quentin Crisp's maxim that if you don't do any dusting for two years, it never gets any thicker (and having rather better things to do with our time!).
Despite that, or perhaps partly because of all that, the place grew on us. It was a very, very friendly site - some oddballs, naturally, but that always adds to the colour - and it had good facilities. Jeni resumed language practice and Developing Harmonious International Relations in the washing up room. It was a short walk through the wasteland outside the gate to a long and excellent prom, along which we spent a happy few hours cycling in a hired pedalo, beach, the busy little town and all its offerings. Post office, lots of interesting shops (we ferreted out at least 3 ferreterias - DIY/hardware shops - for Dave!), cafes and restaurants - everything one could need, including a biggish Mercadona supermercado 10 minutes walk away and the bus station if you fancied journeys to Malaga, Nerja and other places beyond. Jeni and Beryl went native and bought themselves their long-promised shopping trolleys from one of the 'todo' (everything) shops.
And as a bonus, there were several 'locutorias', places you can make cheap international phone calls, and internet cafes in town as well. One in particular became our favourite, as we could take the laptop and plug it in - brilliant for those slightly-overdue on-line anti-virus updates (usually a long and costly business via the mobile of course), sending off a whole load of emails with attachments (again very costly usually) and all whilst drinking delicious café con leche. Marvellous.
Lorry gets an update
Remember the tales of satellite dish shenanigans in France? Jeni posed a prescient question in that bulletin (026) - would the Normandy satellite dish episode be the last we heard of endeavours to get the Lorry kitted out with TV? Naturalmente, naturellement, natürlich, naturally, the answer to that question was no, non, nein, no! How could it be anything else when we were parked up on a Camping where ninety per cent of the pitches boasted at least one satellite dish (and some had two!) and people were very friendly and helpful?
Quite quickly, Dave made some satellite-boffin friends (boffin in the technical sense of the word!) and from that point forth, the Lorry has been receiving Radios 2, 4, Euronews, BBC1 (all regions), BBC 2, 3 and 4 and a brace of other English-speaking TV and radio stations loud and clear. Ooh err! That makes it sound easy - perhaps we'll spare you the details of hours of fun and games - boys and toys? - and tales of trips to the relevant shop in town with Jeni in tow as translator. Just if you need to know, 'parabolica' is the word you'll be looking for when you get your own dish out here!! Anyroadup, it was all remarkably cheap and Jeni does confess that sometimes, in the evenings since, she - yes, she - has been the one to initiate the 'Shall we watch the news and weather?' episode.
Maybe underlying all this, was Dave's fear that one day, despite vigorous book-swapping with people we meet, he might actually run out of books to read. His reading speed is legendary - he'll get through three or four books while Jeni plods contentedly through one ...
Oops!
Sometimes friends quiz us about the relentlessly cheery tales in the bulletins and other communications, and suggest that maybe we're omitting the all-important detail of terrible happenings, boredom [duh? wot that??!], ghastly people and things that irritate us. 'There must be something that you hate about the way you're living!' one friend goaded us. Sorry to disappoint, but no we've not yet found anything of that profundity. We think it's a combination of the way we look at life through our legs, and the simple fact that we can go somewhere else if we don't like what we find. But real life does feature in Fruitbat World too, and we had an Incident during our stay at Torre del Mar that will appeal to any depressive gloom-mongers among you (naw! surely not?!).
Simply that we became victims of the criminal fraternity when we had a bag lifted that - annoyingly - contained Jeni's purse (not a lot of cash, but a couple of cards and her driving licence), her mobile phone (the crucial one that had the string to connect laptop to internet) and, to Jeni's immense consternation, her mini-dictionary, phrase book and a pile of postcards and letters waiting to be posted. Bah! We went to our favourite internet café which was right nearby to use the phones to cancel cards and mobile phone etc., and the owners were so sweet. They insisted on taking us to the police station so they could get help us to report the theft - very necessary as it turned out, since Jeni's Spanish definitely wasn't up to the job and no-one at the Cop Shop spoke English.
We did get rather concerned when we were at the police station that we might see some shady characters rushing in, in a state of panic, with our rucksack - 'Find the rightful owners of this bag! Lock them away immediatemente! These people aren't safe to be on the streets!'. This was a distinct possibility, since if the felons had they delved into the un-sent post, they would have found, among other things, a letter with two emergency teabags in it, destined for friends in France and marked as coming from T. Bagge at the Department for Ex-Patriot Necessities and Comforts; a post-card of a couple in sauna-hotpants together with an advert for Dr. Dieter's Liposculptura Clinica de Marbella with some bizarre fantasy ramblings about same for our friend Jenny Knight back in yUK; and another food-picture postcard in our Eat Your Way Round Europe series for the Patriarch. So we think somewhere there are some very, very nervous bag-snatchers.
Ah well, these things happen the world over, and it'll teach us to be 110% vigilant about our belongings and not let complacency slip us down to 95% vigilance. Hey ho. Nuisance though, having to sort out replacements - and that was our favourite rucksack too. Swines!
Onward and upward!
We regret to say that our time at Camping Laguna Playa in Torre del Mar brought on a rash of serious Fruitbattiness, as we endeavoured to capture some of the sillier moments on the site. If you've had your inoculations, you might want to have a look at some of the outpourings in the new Miscellany section.
A few days later we had word from Mark and Becky that they were ready to receive us, having had several dozen cubic metres of gravel levelled out for an aparcamiento for the Lorry, and having confirmed that their newly dug fossa septica was now in working order so we'd not have to dig holes in the orchard, after all, to empty the cludgie!
So we bid fond farewells to new friends we'd made down on the coast, and an especially warm farewell to Alan and Beryl, our original pals who it was such a delight to see (now resplendent with new satellite dish and digibox of their own following a spread of the parabolica disease!). Lorry loaded, maps at the ready, instructions from Mark and Becky printed off - and away we went in search of ... ah, but you'll have to wait until next time.
Loads of love and plumptious fruitiness,
Keep safe and well and warm wherever you are,
Dave y Jeni
xxx
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