Thursday, December 8, 2000

We woke up to a windy, cool, overcast day. As we prepared to walk to the bus, we were told by neighboring Brits that as long as it was windy we would have no rain (famous last words!). We walked the 300 meters on an overpass crossing a highway and caught the bus to Seville. We had our first glimpse of the lovely painted tile buildings of Seville as we rode to the end of bus line, passing what we later learned were buildings built to celebrate an exposition held in 1929. Seville is known for its tile work, decorating all sorts of edifices in the most artistic manner. Domed roofs are tiled, actual landscape scenes or re-creations of famous art are made of painted tile and placed on walls or buildings, border tiles decorate facades, it is just beautiful. After two days of lovely sights, my overwhelming memory is of the tile. We left the bus near the Maria Luisa Park, named for the Princess who donated land for the 1929 Exposition. We had an itinerary of sorts, but our first stop took us off track to a beautiful building, the Casino de la Exposicion Teatro Lope de Vega (phew!) which was a domed theater housing a special display of religious art - not paintings but hand worked sacramental capes, silver carriages used in processionals to carry religious images of importance, embroidered banners carried on silver staffs and the like. The craftsmanship was stunning and although the information was only in Spanish, we were still able to appreciate the importance of these pieces within the Spanish society. It was an unexpected and delightful find. The Plaza de Espana was close by and wanting to see it, we headed there next. This was amazing - a plaza encompassed by a huge brick building with semi-circular arms stretching out. A man-made lake was in the center on which paddleboats could be rented and bridges passed over the lake to the plaza. Contained within the arms were regional scenes decorated with painted tiles. Many cities and regions were depicted along with something that stands out in that region's history. It was flat awesome! Everywhere were Spanish tourists having their photo taken in front of their home region. Bruce took one of me in front of Alicante, Benidorm's region (what the hell, it's our temporary home!!). Finally we were ready to walk the Santa Cruz section of Seville, historically the Jewish section, and home of the Cathedral and the Giralda. We must always remember that Seville originally was a Moorish city, with the lime-whitewashed buildings, maze streets and hidden plazas. The Moors originally used tiles for decoration and the tradition seems so deeply engrained as to continue to present day. The Cathedral and La Giralda were originally the grounds of the Mosque but once the Catholic Kings defeated the Moors, the grounds were re-consecrated to the Christian God and the Cathedral was built. It is the 3rd largest cathedral on the European continent, after the Vatican and St. Paul's in London. La Giralda, presently the bell tower was originally a minaret, built in 1198 AD. Built of brick, it is famous for the way the bricks were carved. It is now attached to a corner of the cathedral and you can walk up the ramps leading to the level the 25 bells are on. Heaven forbid you were up there when those bells took off! They are loud and play for a good 5 minutes each 1/4 hour at the noon hour. Sounds grand from ground level, but I am sure anyone up there as they rang would be able to sympathize with Quasimodo of Notre Dame fame.The cathedral holds many treasures, the most impressive to Americans being the memorial containing the remains of Christopher Columbus (that is what drew us anyway!), a fine, oversized depiction of 4 kings, representing the four regions of Spain who benefited from his discovery, carrying his coffin. Three organs in beautifully carved wooden casings depicting all sorts of personages (looking all for the world like wood gods to me) and greenery, were another highlight as well as the high alter, 30-50 feet high and all golden with more carved saints and the like. The internal columns supporting the roof were massive and beautifully carved as well. (I didn't think much of the cathedral when I was there, but reading this I obviously was more impressed than I thought!). Oh, yes, I forgot to mention that it was raining for most of the day (and still windy - so much for British weather forecasting!) While it rained, we walked the rest of the Santa Cruz section, taking in the narrow streets and white and ochre colored buildings which housed many restaurants, souvenir shops, clothing stores, all decorated with various tile work. After 8 1/2 hours, exhausted, we trooped back to the bus station to head home, stopping at the Carrefour supermercado, picking up a roasted chicken to share with the three camp cats (don't tell Willie!). By 10 pm we were in the land of Nod.

Friday, December 08, 2000

Today it was foggy, but no rain. Arriving in town, we decided to take the open roofed, double deck city bus tour, something we highly recommend whenever the opportunity arises, it gives an excellent overview and history of the sights of cities you are visiting. At $7.50/person, we couldn't go wrong! Awaiting the bus' arrival we were treated to a military band parade, the only out of the ordinary celebration we saw with respect to today's holiday. The tour took us along the 1929 Iberian/American Exposition route where we were shown the remains of houses representing the participating countries. They were examples of magnificent architecture of those countries. We also passed the area designated for the 1992 Seville World's Fair celebrating the 500 years since Columbus discovered America.  Bruce and I had dreamed of coming to this and the Barcelona Olympics held that same year, but never did. It is a shame that we didn't; that had to have been a fantastic 180-day fair; the remains of the buildings and exposition halls were just gorgeous. The bus tour also took us to the El Arenal section of Seville, the original docks and munitions area, where we disembarked. Here is the famous Seville Bull Ring, a gorgeous Spanish Renaissance structure that we made sure to get a tour of. The tour being in Spanish only, we understood very little off what was said, but still appreciated the building and there was a museum dedicated to bull fighting that was fascinating. Once again Hemingway's "Death in the Afternoon" came in handy for our understanding of what we were seeing. Along the banks of the Gualdaquiver River (that Seville is situated on) was the Torres de Ore (or Golden Tower), a Moorish tower that eventually held all the gold that arrived from the Americas. Sort of like a Spanish Fort Knox! Presently it contains a small maritime museum that we didn't go see. Down a block and behind the bullring was a church we wished to see, the Hospital de la Caridad, built by a Miguel de Marana who, before taking religious vows, was the model for Don Juan. The church holds some awesome artwork that I was able to glimpse as I entered, but a Mass was just beginning and I retreated. When we returned later, the church was closed (due to the holiday?). Walking around, we saw more tiled art; we will have it on the web page (be patient), and the remaining walls of the city dating from the Moorish occupation. A statue of Carmen (from the opera) graced the promenade along the Gualdaquiver directly across from the bullring. In the river, were Olympic rowing training courses, where athletes from many nations come to train. All through Seville were for hire horse-drawn carriages with the prettiest horses you could hope to see. We are sure there are hundreds of carriages for hire, they are everywhere, covering even more of the city than do the tour buses. Seville is a lovely, must see city, but I prefer Granada, perhaps because it was our first real Spanish city and a city I knew a something about, or perhaps because we had such fun with my aunt and uncle, whatever, they are both cities to experience!

Saturday, December 09, 2000

After feeding the kitties a good-bye bowl of milk, we packed up and left our campground, driving off in chilling fog. We were headed 8 km NW of Seville to Italica, the remains of a Roman town founded in 206BC for veterans of the Roman victory over Carthage (that city in No. Africa whose soil was sown with salt so as never to useful again! - Those Romans were a little vengeful, if you ask me!!) The emperors Trajan and Hadrian (of the wall we visited) were born in Italica in the 1st century AD. The site is an ongoing archeological project, the diggings begun over 200 years ago. The remains of a huge amphitheater, capable of seating 25,000 people (!!) are there, as well as remains of villas with fabulously intricate mosaic tile floors. We saw our first original condition Roman road here; we are amazed that the large slabs of rock (most 2 feet or more in diameter and not square cut) could be fitted together as tightly as they were. Those Romans were some magnificent engineers! The sophisticated drainage systems from over 2000 years ago still existed. Actually the way the place was laid out reminded me of the mile forts on Hadrian's Wall in England, with the same dedication to detail evident in both locations.  Back in the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD, Italica was the wealthiest city in Spain, and if the reconstructions of the grounds come remotely close to the original, it was a beautiful city as well. Marble columned buildings are known to have existed (the Romans were also major pencil pushers - had records for everything!!), although most of them were carted off for other uses over the centuries. We wandered around for 1-2 hours, longer than we expected to, then took the N1V south for Jerez and Cadiz. We are now up to a count of 10 (out of 93 total) Osborne bulls actually sighted. We think it would be great tour of Spain to try and find all 93 bulls. We also discovered the bull's competition, a bottle of sherry looking like a cowboy with a guitar. We will get a photo of it up on the web page. Jerez has a world famous equestrian school, which trains horses and riders in dressage (what is that??) Every day but the weekends it puts on shows the public can visit, of course, this is a weekend, so our whole reason for coming to Jerez is defeated! We did drive through the town and felt it to be attractive, upscale and interesting, but we don't do sherry for which the area AND Jerez in particular seems to be famous, and we just finished Seville and wished for a break between cities, so we just drove to the campground at Puerto de Santa Maria, (the port Columbus left from on his 2nd and 4th voyages to America!!!! He also bought his ship, the Santa Maria, here - any bet that is how she got her name??) About 40 km south of Seville the fog burned off and we were back to that beautiful, sunny, hot southern Spanish weather that we so appreciate in Benidorm (the rest of the trip had this weather too)! We spent the rest of the afternoon in our bathing suits, catching some rays and relaxing. I whupped Bruce in two games of Boules: 13-2 and 13-1!!!!! He is dragging his boules in shame at such an overwhelming slaughter!!!! We had stew for dinner and called the day quits, so I could write this. Tomorrow Cadiz.

12/11/00

Well, Cadiz was a pleasant surprise. The guidebooks told us not to expect much, but we really enjoyed it. Cadiz has the reputation of being the oldest city in Europe, founded by the Phoenicians in 1100 BC. Pretty impressive, but we couldn't figure out why an area on the Atlantic, west of Gibraltar (check your maps) would be the oldest city. Why not something within the Mediterranean coastline? Well, we found out the Phoenicians traded amber and silver there. We also learned that the Iberian Penn. indigenous people mined silver way back then, so we figure the Phoenicians came in, conquered and established a base there. Anyhow, it is pretty neat. It is situated on a little peninsula jutting out around the Bay of Cadiz and by now, the 21st century (and doesn't that seem odd, we have lived so long in the 20th century...) the peninsula is completely covered by city. There are remains of the fortified walls which once surrounded the old city with a couple of towers left (there once were 160 towers!!!!) an impressive 200 year old cathedral with domes instead of tall spires - the architecture of the churches in this part of Spain are unique, the larger ones have domes that look very Arabic, and many of the smaller ones look like the Alamo, except still in good repair. Cadiz has a fabulous beach the goes for miles on the Atlantic side and a "coastal walk" that covers the outer perimeter of the city with lovely garden parks dotting the walkway. The city itself seems to have a very laid back atmosphere with the typical narrow streets we have come to expect in old Moorish towns. We walked the streets and found it easy to imagine ourselves back hundreds of years ago, because the town layout has been the same for centuries. All the buildings were whitewashed with painted tile decorations in entryways, or around doors and windows. We are noticing that all the windows of the cities we have recently been in, have wrought iron grills over them, at least on the first floor, and don't know if this is traditional decoration or security. It is attractive however and somehow fits in with the Spanish "picture" we have in our minds. Of course the shops were decorated for Christmas, and the inhabitants were strolling around Christmas window-shopping. It is very different from the states; this was on Sunday and many shops were closed. No rush to make that Christmas buck here! We were looking for the Museo de Cadiz, which was on the other side of the city from where we had parked, so we got to walk a bit of the old town. We came across many squares; they must be a delight to the Spaniards, shaded by magnificent trees with trimmed ornamental bushes interspersed among the walkways. We passed a flower market in one of the squares, filled with bouquets of colorful cut flowers and poinsettia plants to commemorate the season. Poinsettia plants had been placed in big wooden planters containing trees for decoration but were dying for lack of water. Why go to all that trouble to plant them and not help them survive?  Eventually we reached the museum and were pleased to get free entry! We were fortunate enough to get to see a great exhibition on the Cadiz and surrounding area cover the last 4000 years! They showed how prehistoric societies smelted metals, made ceramics, different burial techniques, the evolution of towns, how archeological digs were done and lots of other stuff, it was SO interesting! Then we hit the regular displays of antiquity with their showpiece display of 2 Phoenician stone carved sarcophagi, one male and one female (discovered in the 1980s!). They also had the largest display of antique glass we have seen, glass doesn't hold up well over the years, and these pieces had survived for centuries and centuries. Some were delicate and shaped like test tubes and modern day perfume bottles, so it was pretty impressive that they had survived.  The second floor of the museum was dedicated to paintings. Goya, Velasquez, P.P. Rubens were three names we easily recognized but the collection held many Spanish and other European artists. There were five outstanding paintings, shaped like huge open fans, 10-15 feet wide and 5-6 feet tall. They were canvas mounted on oak wood. Originally they were in the cupola of a local church and needed restoration. Upon completion they were on display in this museum. Goya did three of them; Velasquez did one. They depicted scenes from Christ's life and were just magnificent! Absolute masterpieces. We were impressed. There was lots of other art of all types from religious to secular, all of it interesting. This was the first museum we had been to in a couple of months, it was a spur-of-the-moment decision to visit and we really enjoyed it. I think what I love best about our trip is all the unexpected discoveries we have made along the way, itineraries are needed to create a plan, but all the things you see and don't know you are going to, are what make our trip memorable. Having accomplished what we knew to see in the city, we walked back through town to Queenie, made sandwiches and left for Tarifa, the southern most part of Spain. Question. Where is Trafalgar? We learned in our history classes about the English Admiral Nelson's naval victory over Napoleon at Trafalgar, but where was it? I myself, always thought it was somewhere off the coast of France, English/French naval battle; not in England; must be in France. Wrong. Trafalgar is a small point below Cadiz and just above the Strait of Gibraltar. We found it on the map as we negotiated our way south, looked it up in the travel books and, lo and behold, it was the same Trafalgar!! It caused quite a stir in Queenie for a while. Nothing seems to mark the spot except for Trafalgar Square in London. As we worked our way south along the coast (or as near as the only road would take us) we drove right by a fighting bull-raising ranch. There, right next to the highway, were dozens of big black bulls grazing. You can tell fighting bulls from regular breed bulls by the way their horns grow, curving in on a level plane rather than up and out. Of course there are other ways to identify fighting bulls but this is the easiest for me. Fighting bulls are supposed to be a throwback to (or recreation of) the breed before it was totally domesticated. We knew we were in the area of bull raising ranches but didn't really hope to see any so this caused another stir in Queenie. Finally we broke through the hills hugging the coast to descend down to Tarifa. Now Tarifa is where I always thought Gibraltar to be, at the very bottom tip of Spain. I must say that when I learned that Gibraltar was to the east by about 60 km I was really disappointed, for years and years I had imagined some big old rock pointing the way both to Africa and the Atlantic. On the other hand, standing on a beach, watching the windsurfers frolic in the surf, we caught our first sight of Africa! We had come to Tarifa because we heard it was a gateway to Tangiers, Morocco. We could leave Queenie safely in a campground and hop a ferry from Tarifa to Tangiers and put our feet on the African continent, a feat that captured our imagination. Tarifa is where windsurfing championships take place. There are mighty winds, easterly or westerly, depending on the conditions, which, while perhaps making it an uncomfortable for sunbathers, are ideal for windsurfing. As well as windsurfers, we watched a new (to us) sport; water skiing using a Para foil as a sail. No boats needed, just the wind and a big kite! All of this we viewed with the backdrop of the African mountains, so close we wondered if the windsurfers ever just kept going right across to Morocco. At this point only about 8 miles separate the two continents. This really seemed like another world, removed from our daily experiences, we almost forgot we were still in Spain. With our binoculars we could see whitewashed villages, just like the Andalusian ones we have been traveling past, and yet we knew these people practiced a different religion and way of life. Pretty exotic! Finally we drove into the town of Tarifa and discovered it catered to the windsurfing crowd. By that I mean it was really youth oriented like Santa Cruz, in fact it is referred to as the Venice Beach of Spain; lots of young people, hip art and "surfing" names of businesses. Berkeley and Shannon would be right at home here. There is a castle there whose history is that the defender, Guzman, protected the city against horrible personal loss. The Moors, having invaded the area, captured Guzman's young son and threatened him with the son's death if he did not surrender. He refused and they murdered the boy in front of his eyes. The remains of the castle still stand, along with some more recent embattlements whose gun turrets face the sea. The rest of the town was typical with the winding streets and whitewashed buildings we have learned to expect in Andalusia. Eventually we decided on a campground, El Jara, and settled in. We began discussing the pros and cons of going to Tangiers. We were told by the campground managers that Tarifa wouldn't have a ferry to Tangiers (due to some sort of legal issues) and the nearest would be Algeciras, 20 km east. That changed the Queenie safety issue. We were not thrilled with leaving her in a parking lot for the day and possibly a night. Our original thought had been to take Queenie over and bypass Tangiers to get a better feel of Morocco itself but we decided that would be too time-consuming for this short trip we had planned. Tangiers has a reputation of hustlers who tend to make tourists' life difficult, and after much discussion we reached the decision that we would bypass the whole thing and save Africa for another time. Every trip needs a sequel, ya know! Having made this decision, our next stop would be Gibraltar. The next morning, Monday, we took to the road, over a summit filled with windmills. We felt we were at Altamont Pass in the Bay Area! Loads and loads of big white, metal windmills whirling away along the low mountains as we drove by. We began our descent to the bay that Gibraltar protects, and there before us was the ROCK! We have talked with some English about Gibraltar and they said they were amazed at how small it was. Well, I beg to disagree. This was a very impressive outcropping of limestone that had Bruce and I excited! (I don't know what they expected; after all it IS a rock, not a country!). It sits at the tip of a short, slender peninsula, and is under English control. Never in all my imaginings of this trip did I think I would see the Rock of Gibraltar. When I was a child, our neighbor was an insurance salesman for Prudential, and from that early time in my life I knew of Gibraltar (Own a piece of the Rock). Gibraltar is one of the Pillars of Hercules. The Greek myth goes something like this; Hercules placed two rocks here, one on each side of the narrow strait to mark the ends of the known world. Having learned that Cadiz was supposedly established in 1100 BC outside the Pillars, it makes you wonder just how old these myths are? Obviously they go back way further than that! The other pillar is claimed by the guidebooks to be some peak in the coastal mountain range of Morocco. What do they know! Right across from Gibraltar is another narrow peninsula, Ceuta (a Spanish territory) with Mt. Hacho on it. If these two spots are not the Pillars of Hercules, we'll eat Bruce's hat! La Linea, the Spanish border town that just precedes Gibraltar is where we parked Queenie, on a busy street a block from the border. We were unable to fit her in the preferred underground parking lot due to her height. Passports and camera in hand, we made for the border. Gibraltar was given to England a couple of centuries ago for perpetuity so we needed to leave Spain and enter English territory. For some reason, we feared difficulty in crossing the border, but that didn't happen and we walked past the passport controls onto English soil.  An airport runway lies across the peninsula and to reach the Rock you must cross it. This is kind of exciting since you must make the walk between landing planes! Actually it is much safer than that sounds, they have erected barriers and traffic lights, which drop and turn red (respectively) and sirens go off when planes approach. We waited as a small commercial jetliner landed, then strode passed it, watching a military helicopter hover nearby, looking like a scene from a Vietnam movie, preparing to pepper us with machinegun bursts!! Ah, what an imagination! It is a 1.5km walk from the border to the center of town, at which point you walk through an opening in a wall that originally surrounded the town. Here, you run a gauntlet of stores that is almost overwhelming. Gibraltar is a free port so tourists come from all over to take advantage of prices. No V.A.T. tax here, but as near as we could see, the prices were still high. The local currency is Gibraltar pounds, equal to the English pound sterling and prices reflected that mindset. England was the most expensive country we visited, and we couldn't figure out the interest in buying stuff in Gibraltar when Spain, the cheapest country we have yet been in, was walking distance away. We saw no advantage to purchasing items here except perhaps product familiarity to the English. So we walked down Main Street, passing store after store selling everything they thought would be of interest to visiting tourists. Of course we found our obligatory magnet and pin, but we really wanted to get to the top of that rock! There is a cable car just past the town that will take you up to the top and we headed towards it. That darn thing reminded me of the funicular in Loudres, only instead of a track, the car was suspended on a cable. It was just as steep though. I immediately decided I would throw up going up it, and Bruce decided I would not. We paid for our tickets and ascended along with 3 young British tourists, the young fellow feeling as uncomfortable as I. Fortunately the trip, which was quick, was also smooth and within minutes we were on the top. As we rose, we saw the defense preparations left over the different periods of occupation. First were the remains of the Moorish castle then evidence of English occupation; gun turrets and concrete bunkers that led to casements within the rock. A road had been carved in the rock for vehicles to go up and down on. Halfway up, the cable car stopped at a midway point but Bruce felt we should go to the top and then walk down this point to finish our descent and so we did. The views from the top are stupendous: the busy port in the Bay of Algeciras with tankers, ferries, merchant and military ships, the concrete water catchments on the east face that used to catch the island's water supply, once again Africa was in view specifically the other Pillar of Hercules (which we spoke of previously), and of course the rock itself. We walked all along the upper road taking in the sights, in awe that we were actually here. There is a cave in the rock, St. Michael's Cave (why is it that St. Michael is EVERYWHERE?) with a network of stalactite/stalagmite columns that were dazzling. It was a fairly large cave with different caverns, one being used as a concert hall with great acoustics. The cave was inhabited by Neanderthals, (their home must have been the envy of the neighborhood!), so Gibraltar's human history is ancient.  Gibraltar is also a nature preserve with all sorts of plants indigenous to it. Walking through it was like walking in a rocky tropical rain forest. Eventually we meandered down to the Apes' Den. Gibraltar claims to be the only natural home of wild primates in Europe (other than homo sapiens). They are a colony of Barbary Macaques that might have come over with the Moors. Legend has it that as long as the apes are on Gibraltar, the English will control it (sounds suspiciously like the crows in London Tower story to us). Very people oriented, their antics were a lot of fun to watch and we, as well as other tourists, took many photos of them. Bruce insisted on feeding them sunflower seeds in disregard of all signs, but we did get some good pictures! We only had 5 hours on our parking meter and time was running out so we headed to the cable car middle platform, met up with the English kids once again and took the cable car to the bottom. As we walked back we found a cemetery filled with English sailors who died on Gibraltar after the Trafalgar battle. All in all, it was a very satisfying experience for us, and I must say personally that it was a highlight similar to Les Eyzies except this time we were at a spot of Greek mythological origins (and I have also always been interested in Greek myths). It was around 3:30 pm when we reached Queenie so we decided to hoof it up to Ronda, about 100km inland, an area rich in bullfighting tradition. The road was a scenic route and we passed many more Pueblos Blancos (white villages) on our way, oohing and aahing as we drove along. Finding our campground, 1.5 km from the town, we settled in, only to be greeted by a charming black and white camp kitty that gave us a tour of the campground and was rewarded with dinner. At 10:30 pm that night we were awakened by the resident trash pickup service, emptying the dumpsters (for pity's sake!) and the next morning the owner's dog was under our car barking and trying to reach the kitty that had made a beeline to our undercarriage for safety. We chased him off, fed the cat breakfast, packed up and left for Ronda. Ronda was one of the last towns reconquered by the Catholic kings in 1485. It is situated on a totally defendable bluff, with sheer walls on 3 sides cut by a river flowing 300 feet below. The Puerto Nuevo or New Bridge, was built in 1755 to allow the newer city to connect with the medina, or old town, which was the Moorish city. Lots of interesting buildings are in the old city, but Ronda has become famous for it's bullfighting history. It has what may be the oldest bullring in Spain, certainly the most elegant one.  Three generations of the Romero family in the 1700's developed modern bullfighting, which was fighting the bulls on foot. Previous to that bullfighting was a calvary sport, used to train the king's horsemen in the Ronda area. The same architect who built the Puerto Nuevo, built the bullring to honor the Romero's' skill in developing the sport,. Of course we went in and looked around. It has 2 tiers of covered seats, 192 columns forming 86 Tuscan arches and... awe, just look at the photo when we get it up. It was nice (as the Brits would say!). We had about wrapped up our trip, having seen all we could take in, so we decided to head to Marbella, back on the coast. On the way, we drove through mountains that had the desolated look of the Burren in Ireland, and followed a highway that could have been the Arctic Circle in Big Bear, driving around the mountains on a road at the same level for miles. Dropping back down towards the coast we had our last view of Gibraltar and Ceuta rising above the fog, anyone who saw that sight would have no doubt that these were the Pillars of Hercules! Marbella, also known as the Palm Springs of Spain boasts homes of the movie stars and we saw some beauties - homes, not movie stars. It gets its nickname because there are 40 golf courses in its general area, along the Costa del Sol. There is supposed to be a marina with some outstanding yachts but we couldn't find it for the life of us. That may have had a little to do with our fatigue by this late in the day, so we pressed on to our chosen campsite outside of Marbella. Boy, people talk about the crowded sites in Benidorm! Ha! This was the most cramped campground we have seen to date. Villasol looks like Beverly Hills compared to this one and all the people seemed to be long-stayers. They didn't even provide hot water for washing dishes - a service that even much smaller campgrounds regularly provide. We were very glad we were staying only one night.

Wednesday morning, 12/13/00

Heading home. This has been fun, but this is also the first time we have been on a time schedule and it is exhausting! We much prefer driving until we don't want to drive anymore, finding a campground, exploring the area and moving on when we are ready. This was a wham, bam, thank you mam, kinda trip so if any of you out there are thinking of doing the "Europe in Fourteen Days" circuit, DON'T DO IT!!! It will kill you and you won't know what you saw. We are still digesting our last seven months. This trip was to see the Andalusia province, only a small part of Spain and we have enjoyed it thoroughly. We probably will need another trip in another season to see the rest of Spain but that will have to come under the sequel we talked about earlier. Now we are heading back to Benidorm, retracing the route we took coming home from Granada a month ago so we expect no surprises. We have noted the coastal road from Malaga to Alicante is dotted about every 2-3 kilometers with Moorish towers, sentries against Barbary pirates who regularly invaded the coastal towns up until the 18th century. (And just exactly where is the Barbary coast?) The other thing of note on this return trip is, Mr. Deli is back!! Bruce has been making some killer sandwich lunches for us that probably will not continue once we get home to Villasol. The lunches are a good reason for road trips! Our last night was spent in a campground in Majacar (we still haven't seen the town). Bruce took off on an errand mainly so he could walk off the drive, and he came home with a couple of cans of beer for us to drink. We drank beers with balls! Honest! These beers had a plastic ball, a little smaller than a ping-pong ball that we suppose was used to stir up the yeast, or slow down the pour, hell, we don't know, but we sure were intrigued! They were good beers too. And one last thing - we are up to 15 Osborne bulls and the cribbage score is: Bruce 85, Peg 81. Ta-ta til next time!

Wednesday 12/20/00

When we arrived back in Benidorm on Thursday we were greeted by neighbors, all wondering about our trip. Trying to communicate to Dutch, Germans and Swedes is so odd, we must use truly basic words - city names, landmarks, etc. to convey the trip. 10 days of travel become summed up in about fifteen words or less! Britt and Martin, the Swedes behind us had parked their car on our pitch so it would not appear vacant, and we brought Britt a little stuffed Gibraltar monkey as a thank-you gift. (She had asked Bruce if he was going to Gibraltar to see his "cousins," the apes). The weather here had turned a little cooler, according to Allen to be expected although the days were still sunny. As soon as we heard this, we got to witness it firsthand, the next three nights were so close to freezing that the condensation inside Queenie froze! In fact it was warmer in the mornings outside than inside! That took us back a bit, we decided to hell with electrical prices, we would set our electric heater to low, bite the bullet when the electric bill came and at least not be freezing in the night - I must say our sleeping bags are wonderfully warm so it is only the air temperature that is ugly - then we discovered our heater's thermostat is broken, it won't turn off and, while we were willing to pay for warmth, we aren't stupid! Fortunately, the freezing spell broke off after 3 nights and the urgency regards heater repair was lessened. Sunday night Martin and Britt (the Swedish neighbors) invited us over for dinner. They are definite entertainers, often having their Swedish friends over for an evening in which they talk, sing (remember the accordian?) and seem to have very good times. We hoped they would include friends who could speak English to act as translators but to our surprise and temporary consternation found out it would be just the four of us. Martin does pretty well with English as long as we go slow, and Britt speaks and understands more than she thinks, so along with a Swedish/American dictionary we all did fine. They served Swedish fare, Swedish ham, only served at Christmas, a potato onion dish, similar to scalloped potatoes, Swedish cheese, a cracker bread like plain rye crisp, tomatoe/onion salad - all of it very tasty! Then we had homemade schnapps, drunk to singing Swedish toasts ending in "Skoll!" and down the hatch! So THAT was where all the singing had come from in nights past!! We did about four of those toasts and then proceeded on to some serious drinking (!). They introduced us to a drink called something like "LalaBomb" made of Brandy or Cognac (and lots of it) mixed with warmed chocolate milk. Drunk using a flex straw, we all looked like little kids sipping our hot cocoa! It tasted very similar to warmed Bailey's Irish Cream though not so thick. Bruce and I got blasted!! Thankfully we didn't make fools of ourselves but by 11pm we had to excuse ourselves to get home and pass out. We didn't get up until noon the next day. I suspect they think we are lightweights!! The rest of Monday was spent recuperating. Tuesday we took our longest bike ride yet, to Altea, about 10km away. Yeah I know, Berk, that is nothing to you but it was for us. Only a half hour of steady pedaling, we were going to the Altea market of which we had heard such good reports from everyone around. The market was big but had nothing the other markets didn't have and did not have any produce, our main reason for going. We did have lunch at a good Chinese restaurant that had been recommended to us, then got back on the bikes, thigh muscles screaming, and pedaled home. The ride home was a mild uphill slope the whole way and by the time we reached the campground we were done. No energy left to do anything - it was only 2:30 - we sat in our chairs to read for a while, then moved to our bed where, after we took some Tylenol, we napped for 2 hours. When we got up we still were tired, took more Tylenol, played some cards (Bruce won all 3 games) had a very light dinner and by 8:00 were back in bed reading for a couple of hours. It is almost Christmas and we suppose all of you are in the middle of last minute preparations. Ours will be quiet, possible with a dinner out or visiting with fellow campers, certainly much different that our normal Christmas' at home. We wish you a Merry Christmas and wish we could be with you at this time of year, all though truly, we are having the best Christmas present we could ever imagine, in this trip!  TTFN!

Tuesday December 26, 2000

I'd like to say we became amateur anthropologists during the Christmas season and could report on the various ways different cultures celebrated it, but in truth, we felt so alone we really just hunkered down and muddled our way through the holiday. Whatever customs took place were behind closed doors and we were not close enough to anyone to be invited to share them.Bruce developed a massive headache that lasted for about four days and spent the better part of two days lying in bed, I am sure it was related to Christmas. Finally we decided to treat ourselves Christmas day to a visit to Terra Mitica, an amusement park here in Benidorm. It was a great idea. The day was sunny and clear, not the 80o of last year, but decidedly better than the rain that had been forecast. The park opened at 10 am, and besides being the first visitors through the gate for the day, we were also the only Americans. We know this because they were taking a survey of everyone who entered and at the end of the day we checked with the survey takers just to see. I wonder how many Americans are even in Benidorm? We have only met one other couple - Fred and Elizabeth, staying in the campground across from us. Terra Mitica is a theme park based on the five civilizations that developed around the Mediterranean, Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Iberia and the Balearic Islands. Now wasn't that right up my alley! The way it is laid out is a cross between Disneyland and the Six Flags amusement parks. The entry gates lead you into Egypt with replicas of a pyramid, obelisk, the Lighthouse of Alexandria and buildings, statues and decorations reminiscent of Egyptian architecture. Each of the lands was as well constructed at Egypt. The Roman land was called the Frontier and had army camps laid out and Roman arches. Iberia had Moorish buildings and a restaurant the replicating the Alhambra in Granada. Greece had temples and a statue of Zeus that was pretty cool. An artificial river flows through the park and Egyptian boats can be used as a taxi from one "land" to another. The whole park was amazingly well constructed and held up to my incomplete knowledge of the ancient civilizations. Street entertainers, like belly dancing troupes accompanied by drummers, or marching Roman legionnaires were dressed in quality costumes and had been well trained in their choreographed roles. There were costumed mannequins that were traded with live people at different times during the day, so you really had to look to see who was real and who wasn't! A couple of "Spectaculars" played in different theaters - one was in a mockup of the Roman Coliseum and featured a comedy involving gladiators and a doofus who kept screwing up the works. Another was about Barbary pirates raiding a village. Both were great fun, full of laughs, with great stunts done by the actors and included members of the audience chosen to participate in the shows.And then there were the rides. We rode the largest wooden roller coaster in Europe, the Colossus, speeding up and down at up to 100km/hr. I haven't been on a roller coaster since I was about 20 years old and was this ever a rush! Then there was the "Flight of the Phoenix" (I think that was the translation) a 54-meter column that, sitting in a seat, drops you free-fall from the top!! That was our first time on such a creature and to say our stomachs were in our throats is an understatement! Never had we experienced such a sensation as that free-fall feeling, and if that is what parachuting is like - I'll pass!! Don't get me wrong, it was fun - ONCE. Icarus Chairs was next, chairs attached to chains that swing around in a circle, about 30 feet in the air, Bruce kept grabbingat me to swing me around - "Stop it, Bruce - STOP IT, BRUCE!" There were three or four water rides (bring your rain poncho) that would have been heaven in the hot summers around here, the one we rode was The Rapids of Argos, seated in a huge inner tube, we rode down rapids and through tunnels, simulating the journey of Jason and the Argonauts. We took a ride through the Labyrinth of the Minotaur and shot at various beasts with our laser guns culminating in killing the Minotaur (we did that ride twice - killed the Minotaur too!). We drove great bumper cars, smashing into everyone we could reach. Walking around, we saw characters in costumes like Disney's Mickey Mouse, Goofy, etc., dressed as centaurs, cherubs, legionnaires and the like, performing for children. Oh, and before I forget, thepark had a whole series of rides on miniature scale for children too small to ride the big rides. The park was virtually deserted - I bet if there were 1000 people there it was a miracle - but it suited our purposes well, Bruce can't stand queues and we never had to wait to get on a ride. Terra Mitica opened 5 months ago, in July, and sometime last week was it's third largest day with an attendance of a whopping 14,000! The cost was more than reasonable - about $18/each for the all-inclusive day, how long since Disneyland was that cheap? Even the souvenirs were reasonable - we each bought good quality t-shirts, mine was $10 and Bruce's a little more at $15. Another thing we liked was every land had souvenirs that represented that land; Egypt had little statues of Egyptian art, jewelry, even the t-shirts themed Egypt. The Iberian land had brightly colored pottery and the like. I remember Disneyland as having lots of souvenirs but not as individually themed as these. We paid our entrance fee, ate, bought souvenirs and only just exceeded our self-imposed $70/day budget. How is that for a bargain? The park, again open only for five months, was excellent, I would love to come back in 10 years when it has a chance to mature and see what improvements have been made. I only hope they have deep pockets so they can keep it open until it becomes well enough known to pay for itself! (How is that for an American talking?) We left at closing time, 6 pm, tired out and very happy we went. And so our Christmas turned out pretty good. Our only disappointment was when we tried calling home to wish our family Merry Christmas we were unable to get through; I guess the international circuits were just too busy.

Saturday, January 06, 2001

Remember our little canopy house outside Queenie? The one we set up so we would have extra room? The one we bought the sidewalls for so we could have privacy and heat it so we could be warm? Well, Tuesday night, Dec. 26 we had the first of two nights of the Great Benidorm Windstorm! Proud of ourselves for getting through Christmas, we were finally prepared to get on with life. Late in the afternoon, a bit of a wind from the north began blowing. We went to bed around 10 pm. Bruce fell right to sleep, having suffered from some sleep deprivation for the previous 2-3 nights. I was reading. Around 11:30 the wind started gusting pretty strongly. Looking out Queenie's window I saw one of the side curtains of the canopy blowing loose for all it was worth. I got up and tied it back, moved our plant into the house and went back to bed. By midnight the winds had picked up so strongly that all hell broke loose! Two more of our side curtains broke loose flapping inside the canopy, knocking over a table and chair and everything in their path. All the racket woke Bruce and we rushed out to almost be blown over by hard gusting wind. Our windbreaks had blown loose, the canopy top was flapping, one of legs was swinging loose and we spent the next hour tying and staking everything in hopes it would ride out till the morning. When we finally got back in bed, Queenie was shaking so violently we were barely able to sleep.In the morning the winds died down to a steady but lesser blowing and we began reconstructing our site. We took down the windbreaks, cleared out everything under the canopy - food boxes, tables, chairs, BBQ, etc. and prepared to rebuild. We found that some seams on the canopy had ripped, so I was kept busy do emergency sewing repairs. One of the horizontal poles was bent and Bruce and a neighbor repaired it with a spare awning pole the neighbor had. (They worked that out using sign language - neighbor spoke German, Bruce, English). Once we got the canopy firmly attached to it's frame we staked it down with extra ropes, even poking small holes through the top of the canopy so we could attach the ropes to the frame itself rather than the loops attached to the canopy. We put the windbreaks back up in a different position that was more secure and finally, by the end of the day were quite happy with the sturdiness of the whole contraption. That baby was secure! Various neighbors came by and congratulated us on our day's labor (in a variety of languages!), and we all talked about how that wind did blow! Wednesday night around 10:30 the winds picked up again. Lying in our rocking bed, we listened to them as they began whistling and graduated into a loud howl as they blew by. We kept peeking out our window and every once in a while Bruce would get up, go out and check the poles - the canopy was holding! Bravo us! Then, around 12:30 our back wall tore loose knocking over a loaded table, the BBQ and everything else placed against that wall (what we thought was our most secure side). We jumped up and tried to release the other sidewalls in hopes that would relieve some pressure. Well it didn't. The wind blew harder and harder. Our next option was to release the canopy top. Remember we had run ropes through the canopy and that move became our downfall. By this time it was a United Nations effort to keep the canopy from blowing down the street! The English representative was hanging off a sidebar, unable to let go! The Swedish contingent was pulling legs off to lower the thing, the Germans were pulling stakes and the Americans were cutting ropes! What an effort! Within ten minutes all our outside possessions were in a 12'x12'x3' pile. The finishing touch was to throw our bikes on top to anchor the pile down. By this time (1:30 am) 75% of the park was up and trying to save their sites! Bruce wandered up and down rows with a handful of stakes, rope and a 3lb sledge helping anyone who needed it. Finally around 2:30 we went back to Queenie and slept having no more worries (since our site was demolished), until 7:00 when we heard a ruckus at the Swedish Embassy next door. They were fighting to get their torn awning room down before the wind destroyed everything inside. We threw our clothes on pitched in to help them. And so after spending the whole day Wednesday rebuilding our site we ended up totally destroyed! It really was hilarious - it took about 20 minutes to undo 6 hard hours of work. The final count was close to a dozen destroyed awning rooms (those things cost $1000's), our canopy (our cost $35) and innumerable possessions broken or blown about. Lesson learned: Don't try to outsmart Mother Nature!! Friday everyone was walking around in a semi-daze (half from shock, half from lack of sleep) and we heard the winds (clocked at up to 80 km/hr) were to continue through the weekend. Everyone with surviving awnings was debating with themselves whether or not to pull them down. We were back to square one, picking up. The canopy was obliterated and 3-4 poles bent - we returned our German neighbor's pole to him (slightly bent) and threw away the broken stuff. We went over to see how Barbara and Allen had faired and learned they spent the entire night holding onto their awning support poles so they wouldn't break. By the time morning arrived, they were a little blurry-eyed! We are situated right at an intersection near a toilet block with lots of foot traffic as people head to and from. Every morning one of our German neighbors passes us and in greetings always says, "All is goot?" We always reply, "All is goot!" Every morning, "All is goot? - All is goot?" The morning after the storm he passes by and goes "All is kaput!!" We died laughing!  We went to the supermercado, Carrefour, to buy a new awning but there was so much wind damage there, that the garden department looked like our house and was closed. The parking lot has these large metal carports, probably 50' wide and 250-300' long. One had torn loose from it's anchors and been blown across the parking lot to slam into another. Fortunately it was during the night and no cars were involved. While the wind has continued, it has not reached near the intensity of Thursday night. It has blown enough for us to decide to wait until after the New Year before we try reconstructing once again.

New Year's Eve

For New Years we decided to go in town and see what the Spanish do to celebrate. We dressed up (I wore nylons and a party dress I had brought with me for "special occasions") and left home around 9:30. We've heard an interesting statistic; there are supposed to be 3,200 bars in Benidorm, some 600 of them "English Bars". Who knows if it is true or not, but it does indicate that there are a lot of bars in town. There are a lot of cabaret clubs in "new town" that cater to all the tourists and we had been promising ourselves to check them out sometime. They have no cover charge - you just go in, find a table, order a drink and watch the entertainment. On our way to the Triangulum (the square in old town where all Spanish celebrations begin or end), we had time to kill and decided to check out the clubs. The first one had a band and a singer; we watched for a few minutes and headed for another. The Stardust was a bit rowdier with two men singing and telling jokes and included audience participation. Again, we watched for a while then moved on. The third cabaret club had an English comedian. It took us a minute to realize he was even English, his accent was so strange to our ears, but finally we began to key into it. Then, as we concentrated on listening, the audience would break out in laughter. What'd he say? We didn't get it...something about drinking and being stopped by cops... We listened for 10-15 minutes and never could figure out the humor of his routine. All around us the audience was busting up and Bruce and I might as well have been listening to German. We know English/American humor is different but the differences get worse when the topics are current and regional. We went to a couple more clubs but they were very quiet, so we continued our walk towards Old Town. Pretty unimpressed, we were glad we used this night to sample the clubs rather than waste a whole evening just on them. As we were walking along we kept running into English tourists dressed in the silliest costumes. Superman, Donald Duck, vampires, clowns etc. What was this about? Was another English custom to dress up at New Years? We asked and were told that was the case, that the English were silly, you know! (Later in the evening other English we asked said this was not ordinary behavior!!) Eventually we made it to the Triangulum where a huge stage had been set up with sound systems, laser lights and the like. It was 11 pm and many people were milling about, drinking and eating cardboard tasting pizza slices (our dinner too, since all restaurants were either full, private party or closed). A long, long queue was forming around a temporary bar where at some point; free champagne and party favors would be passed out. We decided we would pass on that. Sitting at a table at a closed café awaiting midnight, we saw another couple from the campground, Pam and Alan, and called them over. At 11:30 the crowd came alive around the bar as volunteers passed out bags of party favors and champagne bottles and glasses. We got into the middle of what soon became pandemonium as the crowd hijacked boxes of goodies. Bruce of course, got into the fray, returning with goody bags, a bottle of champagne and a 12 pack of plastic champagne flutes. Alan ended up with an injured hand when a terribly rude Englishman yanked the bottle from him, scrapping a flap of skin right off the back of his hand. At this point we began a full-fledged retreat, and headed for the beach where a fireworks display was to go off. Once again we got to see the Spaniards in action. I am telling you, these people like their fireworks! We like their fireworks!! We were literally right under the display this time, actually slapping at jackets to put out the sparks as they came floating down on us! But boy, are they something else! We were treated to multicolored spirals, spinners, booms, cracklers and the like! HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! Afterwards we walked the streets, heading slowly back to camp, arriving home around 2 pm. A New Years tradition in Spain is, at each stroke of midnight, you are to pop a grape in your mouth - that is 12 grapes in 12 seconds - and if you can get them down without mishap it is supposed to bring you good luck in the coming year. Bruce had gotten us some grapes, but we didn't have a chance to do them until we got home, so our little ritual wasn't "legal." Try that sometime - it is hard! We couldn't get even get them in our mouths in time; we certainly failed in the swallowing in 12 seconds! And the grapes have seeds, adding to the difficulty. New Years Day we got up around 9 am, made a simplified English breakfast and had mimosas (champagne and OJ). We planned to take mimosas to Allen and Barbara and Alan and Pam, but after finishing off a bottle on our own we thought a better plan was to go back to bed! The following day, Tuesday, we finally made it to Carrefour to buy our new canopy. Would you believe it, we got it for half off! Some of the canopy boxes had gotten rain damaged and were on sale for 3000 pesetas (about $16.75 US). We love that! Nothing wrong with the contents, just the outer cardboard boxes looking ugly! We waited until Thursday to put it up and my, it feels wonderful to have our house back! And it is all color coordinated - Queenie Dark Blue! Unlike the U.S., the holidays in Spain are not over at New Years. They celebrate Epiphany, Jan. 6, (the 12th day of Christmas) when the three Kings brought their gifts to the baby Jesus. The day seems to be geared to the children, at home they get gifts from the Three Kings as well. The stores are packed with toys and parents making last minute purchases. A pastry that is circular sliced in half and has a custard looking filling, appears to be tradition fare. It has a name that includes "dos Reyes" (the Kings) and a gold colored paper crown is packaged with it. Friday night there was the Parade of the Three Kings, in old town ending at the Triangulum Square. In the square was a crèche with live actors including young children as angels and shepherds and a real baby in the role of Baby Jesus. The parade ended at the crèche with the climax being the entry of the Three Kings and their entourage, all dressed in really cool costumes, with camels in tow!! As the kings approached the stage crèche, a spiral firework was lit and slid along a wire leading from one end of the square to the stage (easily the length of a football field) where a fireworks star with blazing tail stood. The spiral firework lit the star and everything worked according to plan thankfully, cause there was a lot of open flame here! Once more Bruce and I marveled how this obviously wasn't the States! We in the states seem so bound up by safety rules and regulations - I can't imagine the spiral firework along a wire being allowed, but even if it were, can you imagine them letting a live baby be on stage within 15 feet of all this commotion? To top it all off, directly behind the stage on the street, arial fireworks went off for about 7-8 minutes announcing the arrival of the Kings! Once the speeches and introductions had been made, the real purpose of the evening became apparent. Children were lining up to go up on stage and whisper their desires to one of the Kings, and receive a gift from them. Ah Ha! This is like Santa Claus in the department stores! Only truly, this was much better. More pageantry and less commercialism. And lots of pushing crowds! Parents seemed frantic to get their kids to the kings. The Spaniards don't do a very good job of waiting in a line! They shove and squeeze and squirm their way through to whatever their destination is! In the end we left the children to their Kings and rode our bikes back home, delighted we had gone to see the parade and to share in however small a manner another of this country's customs. Supposedly Saturday there will be more celebrations but interestingly enough, they are not advertised. We wonder if perhaps the townsfolk don't prefer to keep their celebrations to themselves, away from the tourist gawking, and we wouldn't blame them!