Sitting in MacDonalds!

DAY 14 – Tuesday 8 June
AGEN, via ANDORRA, to BERGA (North of Barcelona) – 262 miles

The noise of a dog chewing a duck is actually frogs, how weird is that?

Up early, yakking and drinking coffee. It’s raining, so we decided to set off in search of the sun again.

Discovered, quite by accident, a bag of our ‘pain’ under our pitch number – what great service.

Packed slowly and took photos of the huge fig trees on site (and thought of my one, lone fig at home). It was only 32€ for two nights! Bargain.

Headed off towards Agen, then took a wrong turning somewhere and ended up on a toll motorway (pah!) going passed Montauban. Toulouse was a nightmare of roads, ended up on yet another toll road (PAH!) towards Foix and Andorra. No idea how much it cost because I used the credit card (took me ages to figure out how to do it, which really pleased the queue of cars behind us), but it did quicken our journey into Spain, which was fortuitous considering what we did next.

Fabulous, brightly-lit tunnel just before we hit Foix, it was like driving through a Christmas tree. And then we suddenly hit the ‘independent municipality’ of Andorra, didn’t even have to show our passports to the oh-so-bored guards at the border.

And then… AND THEN… we drove over the mountains of the PYRENEES! Oh my God, how berluddy brilliant. Squiggles of hairpin bends took us up, and up, and up. The increasing height was quite nerve-wracking, I found myself gripping onto the door handle and my seat with white knuckles. The faces of the people coming down was quite funny as they spotted me peering up at the mountains, my face pressed against the window, apparently navigating the treacherous roads blind with an invisible steering wheel.

It was MAGNIFICENT. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine driving our own car across the snow-covered mountains of the Pyrenees.

And guess what was at the top. A McDonalds! Tsk.

The first town (not sure what it was called) was absolutely HEAVING with ‘duty-free’ shops full of cheap booze and fags. At an altitude of 2,000 meters I could barely catch my breath and felt light-headed, almost faint – or maybe it was the sight of all that cheap stuff. Wandered into one shop at random and saw the BIGGEST bottles of whisky I’ve ever seen in my life. 4.5 litres of Jack Daniels! You better believe I had me some of that (well, not the JD cos I love it at night but hate it the next morning, but 2.5 litres of something on ‘special offer’).

So I got my cheap booze and my cheap fags, and Hubs got… a bar of chocolate. “I almost want to take up smoking again,” he said dejectedly. “NO!” I cried.

The girls at the till had perfected boredom and lethargy down to a fine art. Honestly, you could have cut through the apathy with a knife.

Carried on across the mountains, passing puddles of snow on the roadside. Parked to admire the view. A campervan in front of us had stopped to let their dog out… loose, on its own. Would you let your dog wander around right next to a 2,000 metre drop?

Drove through ski villages full of Swiss-style chalets, my whisky bottles clinking on the back seat. Whole towns looked like they’d been HACKED into the mountainside. I just kept saying “Oh my God, isn’t it beautiful!” over and over again.

As we drove through the city of Andorra itself, a local dared to beep his horn at us peevishly, for reasons unknown. “How rude!” I yelled through the open window, “Don’t you know we’re BRITISH?” Sometimes you’ve just got to let rip, its good for the soul.

Drove through the whole of Andorra in an hour. Man, its small. The temperature went from 18 degrees at the top of the mountains to 31 degrees at the bottom. Our poor car, pushed to uncomfortable altitudes and gasping at the thin air, didn’t know whether it was coming or going, but it did it, it’s a good little car.

We were suddenly at customs again, and this time we had to stop – no customs to get in but they check you on the way out? A very smartly uniformed and young official glanced with one eye at our bulging car whilst keeping the other eye on the lookout for real baddies.

And then we were in SPAIN! Whoo-hoo! We’ve done three countries today (France, Andorra and Spain in case you weren’t paying attention).

Looked for a campsite. First one was closed. Hubs didn’t like the look of the second one, but that turned out to be closed too. Third one was closed until 5.30 (as far as we could make out… it didn’t specify what date it opened at 5.30), and as it was only 3 o’clock we carried on looking, to no avail. I had visions of us sleeping in the car or ‘wild camping’ in some field and fighting with farmers in the morning, but we finally spotted the elusive camping sign at Berga, north of Barcelona. It was actually a ‘fitness and wellness’ centre with three swimming pools, spas, gyms, tennis courts and a massage parlour. ‘Uh huh’, I thought, as the receptionist went through all the activities on offer, ‘How much is this going to cost us?’ 25€, including electricity and PROPER WiFi. Yay! A couple of German bikers turned up and said it was the cheapest site in all of Spain. They also told us that Spanish campsites don’t actually open until July, so we were lucky to find this one. We’re always lucky.

Put up the tent in 100 degree heat. Only takes us 30 minutes now, we both know what we’re doing; we both pole and stand the tent, Hub pins it down while I hang up the bedroom and bring in the 10 bags from the car, then Hubs connects the gas cooker and blows up the air bed while I fill the bucket with cold water to chill the beer and water, and voila, home sweet home. How the car holds all that stuff I’ve no idea, but it does.

Afterwards we treated ourselves to a ‘grand’ beer in glass steins, sitting under an olive tree in the bar area overlooking the pretty town of Berga and the mountains beyond. “Only 2€!” cried the Hubs, and bought another two steins to take full advantage – you can take the man out of Yorkshire, but you can’t take Yorkshire out of the man.

Back at the tent a Frenchman on a pushbike turned up on the pitch next to ours. After he’d put up his teeny-tiny tent in the heat, Hubs went over with a bottle of cold beer, for which he seemed most grateful. Couldn’t speak a word of English, but he ‘charaded’ a lot, a bit like Monsieur Hulot. Later, seeing him perched on the wall outside his tent I gave him our spare fold-up chair.

Toilet and showers are IMMACULATE. Marble tops and automatic lights! More like hotel facilities than a campsite.

Tinned chilli for din-dins tonight, which consisted almost entirely of kidney beans, but washing it down with cheap whisky helped enormously.

And so to bed. We actually saw fading light tonight, although not actual darkness.

DAY 15 – Wednesday 9 June

Woke to the sound of Persistent Rain. Ye Gods, this is Spain, it’s not supposed to berluddy rain!

As electricity is free here, and tight-Yorkshire Hubs can’t resist a freebie, we found an electrical shop in Berga and spent 20€ on fittings to plug ourselves into the mains supply. Hubs still thinks he has a bargain, but its great to be able to use the laptop and not worry about its two hour battery life (and then worrying where to charge it up again) – I can’t live without my laptop; have fingers, MUST type. 5 metre extension cable isn’t quite long enough to reach to the tent though, so we have to charge everything in the car. We’ve completely given up on the crap e:can’t converter – I shall be emailing them when I get home.

Rain persisted. Relentlessly. Endlessly. We stayed in our tent ‘surfing the net’ (I actually did some transcription work!) Booked site for another two nights to give the excellent driver a well-earned rest. The place is huge and crammed with static caravans and awnings. The electric cables running from each one are a mess of connections – the Spanish have a VERY relaxed attitude to electricity, you feel the whole place might spark and burn at any minute. The site also has astro-turf laid around the caravans like green bandages, very odd.

We took advantage of the ‘social area’ between the gym and the indoor swimming pools to surf t’net as the rain LASHED down.

We could see Aldi (yeah, the shop) over in the town and set off for provisions, wriggling our way through the complicated streets. We only have to say ‘Hola’ to people and they cry “Ah, English?” We must have terrible Spanish accents (imagine, a Brummie and a Yorkshireman strangling their language). Everyone seems a bit surprised but pleased to see us and our GB car.

Read. Had shower. Watched the rain running down our plastic window and started twitching with cabin fever [CLIP], so went to bar for beer (where Hubs had a grand stein and I had a glass thimble, tsk). Then, as we had a fully charged laptop, we watched The Mist DVD, which, because it’s a copy (sharp intake of breath) was barely audible and finished two minutes before the end of the film.

And so to bed, where we indulged in some giggling paranoia. We suspect the Frenchman in the teeny-tiny tent next to ours is actually an undercover policeman keeping an eye on us. Have we actually seen him ride the pushbike he has? We have not. And he smokes, a lot, surely a proper cyclist (who’s apparently pedalled all the way down from France) wouldn’t smoke? As we lay in bed sniggering, a mobile phone rang right outside our tent, and the Frenchman answered it, thus confirming our suspicions that we’re being watched (for reasons unknown… unless Hubs peeing into bushes outside our tent in the middle of the night is a criminal offence, in which case we’re stuffed).

A very, VERY damp day.

DAY 16 – Thursday 10 June

Woke to rain. Rain! RAIN! Checked on internet and it seems the whole of Europe is swathed in dark clouds. Just our luck!

Gave the Frenchman/policeman next door a mug of coffee (trying to win him round so he won’t arrest us).

Sat in social area for a while, then, unwilling to spend another day trapped in our soggy tent, we headed out. Anywhere. Just picked a road and drove down it, marvelling as we always do at the magnificent scenery; hills and valleys and distant mountain ranges, olive trees, pretty Spanish villas, quaint little villages, virtually empty roads. And finally we found the sun!

In the distance we could see a castle perched on a hill. Aimed at it and found Cordona, a typical Spanish town with roofs of terracotta tiles and balconies of flowers. Followed a coach up a scream-inducing road to the top of the hill, to the castle (where you didn’t have to pay to get in). The views were breathtaking, the castle magnificent.

Drove into the narrow and crazy streets of the town itself and came to a small supermarket frequented by locals. They stared at us as we marvelled at all the different foods, picking something for dinner. They had 1kg blocks of cake in huge boxes, who needs that much cake?

Came back to the tent and chilled, studying the map and deciding where to go next – I love that bit, planning our next adventure. Our poor mapbook looks a bit battered now, with pages torn and stained… a proper adventurers’ mapbook!

Finally the dark clouds coming over the mountains broke up and blue sky poked through again. At last! Cooked and ate outside.

And then the Russians came, three men and a woman, pitching their tent next to ours where the Frenchman had been. They whacked in their tent pegs using the back of an enormous axe! Obviously the KGB are keeping on eye on Hubs’ bladder habits now. He went off to converse with them, and then next thing I know one of them is in our tent showing us his state-of-the-art netbook and navigator system. He had a HUGE head. They’re definitely the KGB, infiltrating our tent in order to place tracking devices. Later they all sat together outside their tent listening to what sounded like sombre 70s folk music. They did come over and ask, in very good English, if we minded, and when I said no they turned the volume up.

And so to bed, hoping for better weather tomorrow. After three nights, I’m ready for the off now, my feet are itching again.

DAY 17 – Friday 11 June
BERGA to CADAQUES

The Russians, having planted their surveillance devices, packed up in total silence at 6.30am, then had to wait for the gates to open at 8am. As I walked to the toilets the youngest one passed me, smiled, and said something in Russian; I’m pretty sure it was something along the lines of ‘We’ll be watching you’ or ‘There is no escape’.

Our plan today is to drive to the coast, overland, from Berga to Ripoll, Olot and Figueres, to Cadaques and the Mediterranean sea. We’d sourced a campsite on the internet which looked very nice. Considering we were on minor ‘yellow’ roads and I had some doubt about our ability to navigate our way after the disastrous attempts in northern France, it all went without a hitch, not a single wrong turn. The scenery was, as always, magnificent.

“Oh my God!” Hubs cried at one point, as we wiggled our way up a hill/mountain.

“What?” I asked, because it’s quite alarming when the calm and efficient driver suddenly makes statements like that, “WHAT?”

“You’re not sitting where I am,” he said, peering over the thin metal road barrier, “There’s a sheer drop on this side.” Which, because it concerned him, immediately concerned me, and I clutched at the door handle and seat again.

Drove through several tunnels bigger than the Queensway in Birmingham, terribly exciting.

And then we spotted something that made us look at each other with ‘Was it?’ expressions. There was a red umbrella at the side of a dual carriageway. Underneath it sat a fully made-up woman in a chair, just sitting there waiting for ‘trade’. A hooker!

“No way!” I cried, because I’ve led a very sheltered life and I’ve never seen a hooker before.

“Looks like it,” Hubs said.

Further on was another one. I was fascinated. What kind of lives must they lead to offer themselves up at roadsides like that?

At Rosa near the coast we passed a shop selling boats. Not little boats but BIG buggers inside what looked like a glass walled hangar. Outside were other boats, one from the UK (Solitaire Prince, London was one… just wanted to mention that in case the owner ever Googles it, and if he does, Hi!).

Passing Rosa, which looked a bit touristy for our liking with its big hotels and water parks, we drove up into the mountains again, across a national park, heading towards Cadaques, which, on the internet and on the mapbook, looked like a very nice place to camp. We traversed the winding roads and saw it in the distance, a pretty little village sitting right next to the sea.

Then we arrived. Oh my God, I’ve never been anywhere like it in my life. I had adrenaline rushes of the extreme kind, and I suspect Hubs did too. The streets were TINY. I’m talking slightly bigger than car width. We drove slowly down one street fairly BRUSHING against the doorsteps of the houses on either side. And not only that, they were all at least a 45 degree angle with tight bits at the end and no road signs, AND the roads were so bad they look like they’d been bombed. On a particularly steep slope going down Hubs put on his brakes and, very calmly I thought given the circumstances, said “We’re not stopping, the car’s still sliding.”

Flipping ‘eck, it was a nightmare. Other cars seemed to be going round in circles, inching round corners and up and down steep gradients just like us, trying to find a way out. It all felt very claustrophobic and not a little dangerous. Pedestrians pressed themselves against the buildings as we passed. Even the beach was tiny, the Mediterranean seeming to press against the village.

We found a tourist map on high poles and climbed a rock to look at it, searching for the campsite. Then we were back on the narrow streets again, teeth gritted, hands clenched tightly on the steering wheel or pushed into the mouth to stop the hysterical screams from escaping.

We eventually found the campsite. It was APPALLING. Like a huge football pitch of sand, strips of wood had been placed, seemingly at random given the varying sizes of the pitches, on the ground. It was desolate, with a couple of run-down campervans in one corner and a small tent next to a motorbike in another. No water taps, no electricity, no trees or bushes, just a run down reception/bar area at the top. It was NOTHING like the picture we’d seen on the internet.

“What do you think?” Hubs asked.

“I think I’d rather sleep in the car.”

“Yeah,” he said, “Me too.” We sat there for a moment, looking at the sand pit and the convoluted village beyond, and then Hubs said, “Let’s go back to France.”

“Okay.”

So that’s what we did, we escaped, and it really felt like an escape. Hubs was so shaken he asked for a drag on my fag as we careered around hairpin bends back into the mountains. “Are you sure that’s wise given the wriggly road?” I asked, “You’ll get light-headed and drive off the edge.” But he insisted, and he really did look quite shaken, so I handed him my cigarette. He took a drag and I shrieked, “Give it back! You’re not having any more!”

We didn’t crash.

Drove up to el Port de la Selva and through Colrea and back into France (we didn’t even have to show our passports). The entire journey was FANTASTIC. The road clung to the coast and we drove through the cutest villages with the Mediterranean Sea on our right, up and down hills, through vineyards and olive groves. It was like being in a film. Hubs kept leaning back in his chair, one hand on the steering wheel, the other slipping around my shoulders, humming old Mediterranean music [CLIP]. I giggled coquettishly. It was beautiful.

Our first ‘campings’ sign was at Banyuls sur Mer. Municipal too, therefore cheap and of good standard. Lunch was still ongoing, so we drove around the site… very small, very packed, but with a couple of spaces available. Sat in the car waiting for it to open and fell asleep. When we woke up we noticed a road running up and had a walk up there… to the rest of the site. The place is MASSIVE, but everyone seems to have camped around the toilet block (very scenic). Picked our pitch on one of the uppermost terraces overlooking the vineyards and the town (and, if you craned your neck, the sea).

We booked in with our chosen pitch number. The receptionist said we couldn’t have that one, but could have the one behind, which was squashed into a corner with no view. We pitched where the view was and plugged in the laptop (I love electricity).

We put up tent irritably because we were tired after our long drive and this is our ninth campsite… and it was raining. Then we sat a while to recuperate. Carrefour was on the other side of the road, but we were so tired we drove over and dragged ourselves round the supermarket for provisions. The food here is more expensive than at home, but we splurged and bought an adjustable chair for Hubs like the one I insisted we bring, which is tres comfortable. He’s now a very happy man.

We bought a tin of something for din-dins, choosing it from the picture on the label. It was actually sauerkraut with sausages and, strangely, tuna. It was disgusting, but we ate it anyway.

Site is beautiful, peaceful, scenic, spacious and private. We stayed up for as long as we could admiring the view before hauling ourselves, unbelievably early, into bed. After two nights of crickets, two nights of frogs and three nights of air-conditioning noise at the last site, I slept like a log.

Bliss.

DAY 18 – Saturday 12 June

Beautiful day. Hubs discovered that the car break-down cover is actually for a calendar month and not for 28 days… which means we actually have more time here than we thought. WHOO-HOO!!

Chilled and relaxed around the tent for awhile, which really does feel like home now, then took a walk down to the village/town through pretty streets full of balconies with flowers and shutters at the windows. The cemetery contains gigantic family tombs, and heavy church bells hung from hunks of wood.

Sat on the sea front, admiring the edge of the world and people-watching. Wandered up a hill to a scenic view where there were picnic tables, sat and admired some more. Children played in the clear water with fishing nets. People lay on towels on the gravel beach, tanning themselves. Boats pottered on the water and into the tiny marina. It’s a lovely little place, hardly touched by tourism at all.

We would have eaten at one of the restaurants overlooking the sea, but we can’t read French and wouldn’t know what to order – we could do with pictures like they do in the Canaries, but I guess that would lower the whole tone of the place. Instead, we ducked into a little supermarket and bought sandwiches, which were awful (we fed them to the birds). The French ‘don’t do’ sandwiches, they don’t do ‘quick snacks’ for lunch like trays of salad or pies or freshly stuffed bread (think Greggs). There’s definitely a gap in the market. Another gap is Takeaways… CURRY! Haven’t seen a single one. Not one! What on earth do they do on a Saturday night when they can’t be bothered to cook??

Entrepreneurs, take note: sandwich shops and curry houses are the way to go.

Took a different route back to the tent… which was MILES longer than the walk we took there, and in the searing heat as well (mad dogs and Englishmen). Finally shuffled into camp, exhausted, pulled out our adjustable chairs, dragged them into the shade, and slept, both of us, Hubs snoring like a drain. Then Hubs lay on the bed and slept for another hour – I think all the driving might be getting to him.

After his siesta we trundled on over to Carrefoure for more provisions – we buy daily because everything goes off so fast in the heat. I’m anosmic (no sense of smell), which means my taste-buds aren’t firing on all four cylinders… in fact, my sense of taste is Crap. I need spicy food. I NEED spices, and I haven’t had any since we left home more than two weeks ago – hence my gagging desperation for a curry (my kingdom for a berluddy CURRY!)

And lo, I found a microwave meal that promised chicken tikka. No worries about not actually having a microwave, I was having it, would heat it in the sun if I had to. I was so excited. Hubs carried his box of beer bottles back to the tent in a backpack, mugging about the weight all the way. Tossed tikka and rice into the same saucepan, heated, and ate. OH MY GOD, I COULD TASTE IT! And all was well with the world again.

Went to bed early – surprise surprise. We get the urge to slip into a coma at around 7pm, but manage to hold off until 8.30-ish. Heat? Fresh air? Exercise? Who knows, but we do get up early… usually.

Uploading pictures onto Blogger is a bit of a pain, I can never get them in the right place without fiddling, and I hate fiddling, so here’s a bunch of them… make of them what you will.