Bulletin 039 - Viaduct of Death
April 2005 - Somewhere en France
Hi you lovely lot!
As we mentioned in our last Bulletin, we stayed for a while at a Camping on the outskirts of Isla Cristina. This interesting Atlantic fishing port still has lots of the typical one and two storey, 18th and 19th century fishing workers houses (traditionally with a look out tower on the roof so the occupants could watch out to see for their loved ones' boats coming back). Its old narrow streets around the fishing quarter are really atmospheric. (But just don't mention 'narrow streets of Isla Cristina' too often to Jeni, otherwise we'll end up with more nightmares and sleepless noctural episodes, à la Bulletin 038!) On the back of the town map, provided by the friendly and helpful Señora in the Información Turistica, it tells us that its 20,000 inhabitants are 'noble yet friendly, with faces etched by the sea which warmly welcome the visitor' and should that not be enough, be assured that 'local gastronomy is highly prestigious due to the talents and graces of its chefs and restaurateurs [sic]'. So there you go.
Jeni did eventually relax enough to enjoy our stroll round the town and fishing port, though every so often clutched her head and wailed a bit at the memory of the Lorry's Tight Squeeze down the main street, closely followed by her minor but embarrassing incident when she'd popped into a food shop and didn't have enough money to pay for all the purchases. Amazing the rapidity of the Spanish in extremis - she didn't know before that moment she was capable of saying (reasonably correctly, she thinks) 'Sorry, I haven't got enough money here. I am just going to pop outside and ask my husband for some more cash - can I just leave these items here please?' - !! Phew!
Paella pan paradise
The Camping we were on at Isla Cristina was one of these very Spanish weekendy/holiday type sites, with lots of fixed 'caravan and awning and small annexe tents and over pitch shady cover' arrangements semi-permanently set up on various pitches. There was a great influx of huge families for the Easter holiday weekend of course, with barbeques and paella pans akimbo. It was a much more higgledy-piggledy, loud Camping (as befitted its mainly Spanish character), scattered with loads of mature trees of great variety. It was more informal and to our taste really, despite the facilities not necessarily being 110% - they were perfectly clean and adequate, just no hot water in the washing up or laundry sinks, which meant carrying a bucketful from the washbasins in the shower rooms, things like that. There was also that bizarre feature of the 'joven' (the young people) gathering in gaggles in the facilities blocks, sprawled across the laundry sinks or in a huddle in the washbasin area, playing music and getting away from their parents - we'd forgotten about those kind of idiosyncratic features of Spanish family weekend camping.
Definitely more to our liking than the starkly regimented, carefully hedged and demarcated type of site that a lot of winter-months-in-the-sun-in-the-same-place Northern Europeans often seem to prefer, which we came across more on the coast last year. At El Rocío from which we'd just come, for example, it being a neat and orderly site, the helpful staff spoke several languages beautifully, of course, and so always spoke to us in English. In contrast, at Isla Cristina there was a team of jovial, friendly, middle-aged men to whom one had to speak Spanish or sink - much more challenging and better for the language development!
So we enjoyed our several days there, revelling in the proximity of the beach, sand dunes and pine woods (though sadly failed to spot any chameleons which apparently live in the area in quite large numbers), collecting another bucketful of beautiful shells … and then we hit the road again.
Plan, what plan?
As you probably know, part of the Fruitbat mission statement includes the maxim 'The plan is to have no plan', which generally holds true. However, in order to make any progress at all when we have assignations to make and dates, however vague, to adhere to, we need to have a rough idea of where we're heading. So North East was the direction now, meaning that Sevilla, Cordoba, Portugal and Galicia (in the far North West corner of Spain), all of which we had hoped to visit, would go back into the 'pending' tray for now.
Jeni's Turn for an Anorak Alert: although we try and shop in local markets and smaller shops when we can, there are times when only a supermercado will do. Like so many other people we know, our supermarket of choice when in Spain is Mercadona. It's kind of Waitrose meets Sainsburys for choice and quality, with Asda prices, for those of you who know these supermarket chains and are sad enough to think in these terms. (Jeni's Mum, when she was alive, was a real Tesco aficionado and the family jokingly referred to the said chain as 'The Holy Place' since Grace 'worshipped' there so often. Mercadona has therefore been dubbed 'The Spanish Holy Place' for obvious reasons!) Why mention this now? Well, as we travelled a little way East from Huevla on the A49, to take our Northwards road just before Sevilla, Jeni cried out in delight. 'Look at the size of that Mercadona! We must stop there!' … and truly it was vast. The disappointing - indeed deeply distressing - thing for her, however, was that it turned out to be the regional distribution centre, not a real supermercado. Drat, drat and thousand times drat!
We took the scenic road inland towards the Minas de Ríotinto - the Río Tinto mineral mines - and wound into the Sierra Aracena. Dave noted the mines on his 'To Visit' list, since apparently the museum and trips around the open-cast mines are fascinating. Mineral extraction in the area dates from Phoenician times, the Romans had a major plunder as did the Visigoths a bit later on. This is definitely an area to which we'll return - really interesting villages, great countryside and a lovely mild climate. The hills were gentle (compared to the hills and mountains we've got used to) but more insistent than mere undulations, and there was a lot of pine, holm oak and cork oak on the hillsides. Gradually as we travelled there were more cattle (hence a big local leather industry), sheep and lots of free range pigs, including the famous 'pata negra' (black foot) pigs whose fate is to end up as speciality hams. The village of Jabugo, not far from where we travelled, is to the Sierra Aracena what Trevélez is to the Alpujarras - the Serrano ham mecca. We also saw many - fortunately well fenced - pastures with roaming 'toros bravos', the massive fighting bulls. Not the best place to take little Chip for walkies!
And thence East a little past the interestingly named Sierra Cabeza Gorda - fat head mountains - though we can't say that they looked any plumper on top than other hills of their calibre.
Well Trimmed Bushes!
We went towards Mérida for an overnight stay. It was a relatively unremarkable little Camping save for one feature. The site was festooned with the most amazing display of amateur topiary along the tops of the hedges that separated the sections of pitches. Jeni was soon out with the camera snapping away at green ducks, bulls, mushrooms and, we think, a large dinosaur - or could it have been a peacock? Anyroadup, it set us thinking that the Caravan Club could customise some of its own sites in similar ways ...
Another Dave Anorak Alert - This was yet another Spanish site with the dreaded' reverse polarity' problem on the electrics! This resulted in Dave whipping out his Lupti-reverso-polaritio gadget in order that the 'live' could come through the safety trips on The Lorry. Apparently (and Dave has tried many times to explain this in layperson's terms to most of us who don't really understand what this is all about!) the camper vans and caravans built in France and Spain have both the 'live' and 'neutral' circuits protected by trips (like fuses but more modern) so it doesn't matter if the 'live' from the supply actually goes into the vehicle through the wrong wire. The UK vehicles have just the 'live' side protected by a trip so that it's important that the supply goes into the right wire … geddit?! All that the Lupti-reverso gadget does is swap the 'live' feed across to the right 'live' wire … simple. So, no, Jeni, just backing onto the pitch doesn't solve the reverse polarity problem at all! O.K, anorak alert over! You can wake up now!!
Jeni also discovered lots of little walks around the Camping, and as Dave did his manly bit getting the electric sorted, etc., she took Chip for a bimble. Soon Small Sausage was chest deep in daisies, which looked really cute, but unfortunately resulted in him taking on board several little sheep ticks. Unbeknown to us at that time, the site owner had discovered that having a small flock of sheep to graze the site kept the grass down better than a lawnmower. However, Chip's new natural insect repellent collar came into its own and all the little blighters fell stunned to the floor of his sleeping cage. Not one took a hold. His little collar's active ingredients are natural oils (eucalyptus, mint and citronella mainly) - far easier on the nose and the dog's skin than the more aggressive flea collar makes and it seems to be just as effective. Chip is, after all, Small Dog Incarnate, so this puppy grade one seems to be ideal for him. Horrible little critters - that's the sheep ticks we've returned to now - very difficult to remove if they get dug in, as other dog owners among you will know, so we were delighted the collar did its job so well.
No Steering
It was taking Jeni a few days to get back into the swing of being on the road again. She found it rather disconcerting sitting in the front passenger seat, which after the left hand drive car was, in effect, the driving position with no steering wheel or controls! Always a bit disturbing, especially on faster roads with the huge Spanish lorries trundling past or sitting in front of us, blocking the view of the road ahead for Dave. Dave would sometimes glance at his passenger as he was overtaking, or being overtaken by, one of these mega lorries, to see that she had her eyes shut or was looking away pointedly at the scenery so she couldn't see the lorry passing. Trouble is, the shudder and slewing of our van as it gets sucked into the slipstream of these wagons is sometimes deeply unnerving and hard to ignore (even fingers in ears and loud 'La la la la laaaah!' doesn't always do the trick on windier days!).
Hence, when we can, when we're not in a screaming hurry, we do try to avoid the big, lorry-infested routes.
We had another really excellent scenic drive the next day - up through easy hills at first, where the animals grazed on almost moor-land like terrain, with lots of rocks and scattered with holm oaks. We passed at one point a group of several remarkable little repro (but old) castles on low ground, which seemed a very un-castle-like location (hence believing them to be repros). Into the edge of the Parque Natural de Montfragüe where once again it was extremely birditudinous - loads of black storks (quick check with the bird book), lots of large birds of prey (there are apparently black vultures and imperial eagle further into the mountains) and a vast variety of other swooping, gliding and fluttering birds all round, as it became much more hilly.
We passed numerous large lakes/reservoirs, embalsas, and of one in particular we said 'If this was in France, there would be several scenic picnic and rest areas around the water and at viewpoints' - we were hoping for at least one such as we were ready for a coffee stop. But no, this is Spain and in most places they haven't learned the trick of well tended rest areas in convenient but scenic spots. You might get a bit of a pull-off by the roadside on the edge of an interesting landfill site (Gill and Pete's speciality), or a bit of waste ground by the cement works … just don't look over the edge of the attractive slope though, as the chances are there's been a decade of that national pastime 'Tip your basura [rubbish] over this handy precipice so it's out of sight and you don't have to go all the way to the official municipal dump'. Okay, it's not all that bad, but the Spanish have an awful lot to learn from their French neighbours about lovely and plentiful 'Aires de Service/Aires de Répos'!
Viaduct of Death?
Where roads in Spain become bridges over gorges, rivers or canyons, there's usually a road sign giving the name of that particular viaduct. Sometimes it's just the name of the river over which the bridge is crossing, at other times the names seem to be a bit more colourful or obscure. We crossed one that involved the body of a man. Viaduct del cuerpo del hombre, we seem to remember - dead mans drop we thought was a reasonable interpretation, as we tried not to look over the edge! Another one Jeni decided on the spur of the moment must be Viaduct of Death (Viaduct de la Mata). She was thinking of 'matar', the verb to kill (hence 'matador' and 'matanza', pig killing), and was thrown further off course by the fact that we'd recently passed a 'matadero' which she'd correctly translated as abattoir. Anyway it turns out, disappointingly, that 'mata' is actually thicket, shrub, clump or bush - but we still think Viaduct of Death is better!
This incident reminded us of our time at Mark and Becky's when Dave would use our own ladders from The Lorry in preference to a set of steps they had in their outhouse which were familiarly known as 'Uncle Len's Ladders of Death'! (We didn't like to question too closely either!)
But a highly recommended drive, north from Huelva/Seville through the Sierra Arecena and onwards through Mérida, Cacares, Plasencia and to Salamanca. There is much to recommend it. But if bright lights and urban glitz are more your thing than good countryside and a variety of birdlife, then you could do a lot worse than Salamanca.
Salamanders in Salamanca
Salamanca, for the uninitiated, needs to be spoken with the tongue licking the lips vigorously at the same time. This relates to a woman from Jeni's dim and distant past who, with a lovely Bury accent, used to speak in this manner all the time. She became affectionately known as Delia Salamander due to her constantly and quickly darting tongue, and has become one of Jen's many impressions. Hence … slurp …Salamanca … slurp! (uh-oh, that brings on a lip-balm emergency if sustained for too long!)
On a more serious note, Salamanca did have some fine and impressive buildings, which, unusually, were easily reached without having to drive through kilometres of industrial outskirts first. We were actually able to drive around some parts of it (no we hadn't taken a wrong turn that time!) without getting dangerously snarled up in narrow roads, and once again noted it as a place for future visiting. Generally, as you'll have guessed, we're not really big town and city people, but there are some which feel easier to be in than others. Salamanca is definitely on that list.
Obras Majorettes
There is a massive amount of road building going on throughout Spain. One Big Project is the improvement to the coastal routes along from Almería to Malága, and another is that along part of the route we were taking - the N630. This is becoming a much busier route up from Seville, bypassing Madrid on the West side. In lots of areas, as we drove along, we could see the new, improved road being cut parallel to the existing N630. We noticed here, as elsewhere, that it's obviously cheaper to employ lots of people with red flags and stop/go 'lollipop' signs to slow down the traffic, rather than install control lights at the obras (roadworks) and junctions where the works vehicles were crossing the existing road or emerging onto it. At least these folk were entirely clad in day-glo yellow, hi-vi outfits, although frankly, stepping out into the path of an onrushing motorhome, car or truck, doing majorette-like twirls with your red flag (however large it is) deserves considerable danger money, in our book. Says something about the labour rate!
And while we're on related topics, we're still amazed at the sheer bravado - or should that be foolhardiness - of many Spanish drivers even after all these months in Spain. However, we have seen three or four horrific-looking accidents, so Jeni's decided not to sign up with that Spanish driving school to move her on from her methodical and more cautious driving style - the Spanish method is clearly not a recommended approach to getting from A to B with all body parts intact.
After our stay just outside Salamanca, we hit a long, fastish stretch of road through rather flat countryside. The potential monotony of the route was mightily relieved by a concept which we took to be Starter Homes for Storks on the roadsides. There they were, every few kilometres, a series of high poles with metal baskets on top, with one in each group having a metal stork standing on the side - this was either the estate agent stork or, more mundanely, the decoy figure to make the real ones think what a great place this would be to nest - after all, there's one got stuck in there already.
Spain seems to specialise in historical figures with interesting nicknames. There's of course good old Wilfred the Hairy, with his associations with Barcelona, Ordoña the Bad, Sancho the Fat and poor old Juana La Loca, Joanna the Mad, daughter of Fernando and Isabella. She's a particularly tragic figure in the history of Spain as she spent most of her adult life incarcerated in a mansion at Tordesillas. As if that wasn't bad enough, she opted to be accompanied by her husband, Philip the Fair. Not so unusual until you realise that her husband died when she was about 27 and she insisted on having his embalmed body with her. Dear oh dear. And she lived until she was 76 … ! We make this aside merely because we diverted to have a little visit to Tordesillas on our way past, it looking an interesting small town. It certainly was.
Taunting
Another bigger place we stopped at en route which we greatly enjoyed was Burgos. No, we didn't even take against it when it taunted us with a sign saying it had not one but two Mercadonas, neither of which we could get The Lorry to (since they often go in for town centre-ish stores with underground car parks with height restrictions. Manuela, our shopping trolley, was too tightly packed in the garage to make a town centre shop feasible.). No, even that didn't put us off.
We had a good wander round the old town - it is a really striking and pleasant place. The city has lots of green lungs - like an elegant, tree-lined, well used passeo (pedestrian promenade) along the riverside and another down through parts of the old town. El Cid of course is well commemorated since he was born in a village just outside the ancient city, and his remains are now buried in the cathedral. Burgos also boasts lots of interesting public sculpture, modern and more traditional. One statue of a hooded monk, however, totally freaked Chip out - we were going to do a photo-shoot around the base as it was an unusual statue, but suddenly Chip looked up at the monk and started his deep throaty growling - sounds muy feroz, very ferocious (that is until the rather squeakier barking which often follows it - that lets him down somewhat in the ravening hound stakes!). It was really funny, he just didn't like it at all for some reason!
The weather on the day that we were in Burgos was beautifully warm and sunny which, we understand, is a bit of an aberration. A reference in our Footprint guidebook states that the local lore is that Burgos normally has nine months of winter and then three months of hell! We must have hit the exception that proves the wossname!
Courteous City Servants
Burgos also has the dubious distinction of being the place where Franco's junta was located during the Spanish civil war. Our guide book maintains that Burgos has kept a somewhat conservative profile ever since. Earlier than that, in the 16th century a Venetian traveller by the name of Andres Navagero said of its citizens that they were the politest - 'They have very good houses and live very comfortably, and they are the most courteous people I have come across in Spain'. Well if our limited, day-tour experience is anything to go by, we'd say that is still true. The guy in the Información Turistica was a positive poppet, even when our interest in his beautiful city and all its cultural offerings was equal only to our passion for finding a supermercado we could drive to, preferably the Mercadona!
The second charming and polite citizen was one of Burgos' municipal parking attendants who was about to issue us with a ticket. We had left The Lorry in a perfectly legitimate car park, and we genuinely believed that the ticket machine was out of order - we'd just seen one side all padlocked up, and failed to walk round the other side to find the money-in and ticket-out slots ... doh! Anyroadup, Jeni completely baffled him with a torrent of obviously incomprehsible Spanish (well punctuated with much arm waving, anguished bursts of 'ILo siento!' - 'I'm sorry!' - complete with guilty looks and a bit of hand-wringing). It worked - not only did we not get an on-the-spot fine but we didn't even have to pay the regular car park rate either. Probably he was just glad to be rid of the demented foreigners with the Normandy cow slipper still strapped to the front grille of their motorhome and a tiny, but fiercely growling, cocktail sausage on a string. He just told us not to worry and made his getaway, pronto! We did likewise, while the going was good, and drove half a kilometre down the road to a nice picnic area in a park by the river, with a free scrubby bit of car park, there to have our late picnic lunch and let Chip have an exuberant bimble through the trees to get over his Ordeal by Monk Statue Incident.
Supreme Being
And time for just one more snippet before we leave you in peace. A couple of our regular readers (yes, we have got some of those, really!!) have asked what has happened to the ongoing Boggle championship we told you about during our first year on the road. (That's the letter/word board-game in which we competitively indulged during many evenings.) Well, we've progressed (?) onto playing cut-throat games of Rumikub in those post-supper hours now that we aren't involved in a wild social whirl. This enables us to determine who will be Supreme Being for the next 24 hours (sad eh?!).
For the uninitiated, Rumikub is a game involving small tiles with coloured numbers on them. You have to collect 'runs' and 'sets', similar to the card game Rummy and get rid of all of your pieces. It's been pretty even so far, with Dave coming into his own after a consistent thrashing from Jeni for several successive weeks … but Jeni's been muttering about a new strategy so watch this space (she'll probably hide my glasses or something says Dave!)
Well, as that intimate domestic note takes its place alongside the great span of Spanish history, and, as Humphrey Littleton might say on 'I'm sorry I haven't a clue', as the fruitiness of motorhoming meets the mysterious mango of destiny, we take our leave for now ... hoping that you will indeed join us again when the next episode of the Rollingfruitbats Bulletin gets posted on this increasingly bizarre website.
Lots of love to you all.
In great fruititude,
Dave, Jeni y Chip
xxx
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