I start this story with reminding you that one needs realistic expectations and a sense of humour when travelling. Paris is never as romantic as they say, Italy not as charming, and the UK isn’t a Hugh Grant movie. And it always blows the budget on stuff you could not have anticipated with any amount of planning. I’m fairly even-tempered but when I travel, and especially during road trips, I’m a Zen master – tomorrow is another day and this too shall pass. People can learn from me.
Cambrils
On Saturday, we set off on our annual escape from the Costa Blanca heat and humidity. We spent the first night in Cambrils, about 4 hours’ drive up the coast. We loved it! The beach is magnificent and because the Spanish schools had closed for their 3-month summer holiday the day before, shiny happy people arrived in their droves with their pool noodles and sun umbrellas. It’s like Benidorm for the Spanish. It’s always lekker being around happy people.
We don’t normally pay for hotel breakfasts but this one was included and boasted an English breakfast buffet. The Spanish people at this hotel disappointed me. At home, our Spanish neighbours skip breakfast altogether or they nibble some toast with grated tomato (yes, I wrote that correctly), but at this hotel, the queue for the eggs and bacon stretched out the door. I ended up with two rolls and some salami and cheese. We’ve been living in Spain for 10 years and I know tricky words like otorrinolaringólogo (ear-nose-and-throat specialist) and arco iris (rainbow), but I cannot ever remember the words for knife, fork, and spoon. I needed a knife and I asked a staff member for a tenedor. She handed me a fork. I played it cool. Oh, and a cuchara, please. She handed me a spoon. I buttered my roll with the damn fork. Four little tubs of butter later I realised it’s margarine.
Back in the room the Spanish news told us a European heatwave had officially started that day. It was 34ºC by the time we left the hotel at 11am. I was Zen.
Camping in Spain
We pulled into the Rio Vero campsite at the foothills of the Pyrenees at mid-afternoon. It’s beautifully tree-lined and next to a river so the 36ºC heat felt bearable. Spain played Saudi Arabia in the world cut soccer at 6pm and we watched it on a very large TV in the outside bar area. Only 3 people were smoking so we only had to move twice. I had a pint, a bottle of sparkling water, and a litre bottle of still water and because of the heat I’m still waiting to wee it out. I’m so dehydrated, even my snot is coming out in chunks. The only negative thing about that campsite was that the pitches were hard soil rather than lawn, but we have a great groundsheet that kept things clean. I would go there again.
Yesterday we headed towards France. Right on the border is a Spanish village called Canfranc. We first heard of when Michael Portillo visited a few years ago. It’s a tiny village with a magnificent station building. Cross-border traffic stopped in 1970 and the building fell into disrepair until it was recently refurbished as a 5-star hotel with a 2-star Michelin restaurant. The town isn’t visible from the highway and when we passed by two years ago on our way back from France, we couldn’t find it. I followed Google maps down a dirt track and nearly let Colleen drive us off a cliff. This is not an exaggeration; we had to reverse up a gravel track and there was that one moment when the wheels wouldn’t find purchase and we were sliding towards a Thelma and Louise ending. Thank the Lord Jesus in heaven Colleen once did an advance driving course and she performed some magic that got us out of it. My heart still skips just thinking about it. Anyway, it turns out the village is somewhat less impossible to find when you approach it from the Spanish side – i.e. the same side of the road as the village itself.
France: No Roaming and a Suspicious Pharmacist
As soon as you leave Canfranc you enter a 10km-long tunnel that deposits you in France. And immediately both our phones lost the signal. Mine is normally the phone with the roaming issues, but this time we were both stuffed. Not a problem – these things happen. We had the Google map loaded for our next campsite outside Lourdes so we would be OK. About 45 minutes from our destination, we changed drivers and I was navigating. I remembered that restarting my phone sometimes sorts out the roaming, so I restarted my phone. Not only did it not sort out the roaming, but we also lost the map. We were stuck in rural France without coverage and without a paper map. I swore a little. But, ‘n boer maak ‘n plan and in the next village we found a pharmacy that was open. I explained our predicament and asked if I could use their Wi-Fi to load a Google map. The man became all complicated and started interrogating me. By then, it was 5pm, 38 degrees, and I was hungry and tired. ‘I’m not trying to hack into your bank account,’ I told him, but I don’t think he believed me, so I left. The only other place that was open in the village was the hairdresser and a charming young woman not only put me onto their Wi-Fi, she also offered me her phone if I needed to call someone.
Camping in France
By the time we arrived at the campsite, I was still Zen, but somewhat lower down on the spectrum. This one has lovely lawn and we chose a pitch in the shade. All those Americans throwing their toys on Facebook over transgender women using woman’s toilets will not enjoy the unisex facilities at this campsite. Colleen and I would like to mark ourselves safe after having peed with men.
The sun woke us up at 7am. It turns out ours is the only pitch on the campsite that gets full morning sun. By 11am it was 40º. A Dutch couple moved into the spot next to us and while the husband was connecting them up to the electric box, he said hallo. It led to, ‘Where are you from?’ When people learn I’m South African, they always have one of two replies: those who have been there say something like, ‘beautiful country, loved Cape Town’, and those who have not been there say something obvious or ignorant. I was surprised to learn from him that many things are changing is South Africa.
We were going to spend the day lounging at the campsite, but one must be flexible when travelling and we decided to escape to a restaurant with aircon. The Spanish are fantastic when it comes to tolerating people lounging in their restaurants, using their Wi-Fi and drinking their beer and water. The Spanish are also fantastic when it comes to having aircon. Long story short, the nearest we could find to a place with aircon was an Indian restaurant with a fan and mostly hamburgers on the menu. The owner was happy for us to use her wi-fi and drink her water and beer. We eventually ordered lunch – Colleen had noddles (which we correctly assumed were noodles) and I had lamb biryani. I assume the three small bones and the bit of cartilage I fished out of mine represented the lamb but even so, both meals were delicious. We might have stayed longer, but the owner’s brother, who kept reminding us he was Canadian, struck up a conversation and settled at the table next to us. I wasn’t in the mood for small talk so I got my phone out, switched to Afrikaans, and pretended to show Colleen something on the phone. No problem, he just sat there looking at us until we were finished and continued telling us about his career as a $500 a plate chef. When he kicked off his sandals, we asked for the bill.
I’m counting the five sleeps until we take the Channel Tunnel to the UK. To hell with Zen, I just want to be somewhere less hot.
