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December 2 Friday Bicycle touring Spain from a farmer's field in Spain to Seville Spain The long bicycle touring day from hell. We woke to a slight pattering of raindrops
against the fly. Packed up our bicycling gear and little bicycle
touring tent. I saw people working in a field. Assuming them
to be our amiable hosts, I rode a bumpy, dusty, wiggly kilometre
to thank them for letting us free camp the night on their property.
It was cold as we got underway for our second day of bicycle touring in Spain. It was 8º C according to an electronic sign in a town we cycled to. Instead of freezing outside, we decided to go to a cafe to eat breakfast. When the going gets tough, the tough eat breakfast. It was 11:30 AM. Breakfast finished serving at 10. Lunch didn't start until 1. We had a café-o-lait. Usually one orders while standing at the bar counter. We came in and sat down at a table to decipher the menu. A fellow came over to take our order. We picked something off the menu board. It turned out to be toast with gooey, greasy, slimy cheese melted on it. We returned to our touring bikes and headed off into the rain. The rain continued all day. Susan was bitterly lamenting why it had to rain on her holiday. It hasn't rained here in three weeks; on the coast it hasn't rained for five months. Spain is in a severe drought. That is why the river beds are dry. It is windy. The cold rain is being driven into our faces as we wearily pedal our fully loaded touring bicycles. My feet are soaked. Susan says she can't feel hers. The scenery is nondescript. It is fairly flat. Nothing exciting. We had one steep long hill. I have diarrhea now, so I have to be careful on the exertion quotient. As I reached the top of a hill on my loaded touring bike, I spotted a bar and quickly dropped my bike to hustle in there. The toilets were alongside. I opened the men's and was greeted with only a urinal and a washbasin. What? Don't men give a shit here? The women's was locked. Sharon and Susan are not thrilled when I make them traipse into this hole of a bar to ask for the key to the women's room. I go into the hole of a bar and order cafe-o-laits. The bartender has difficulty finding three clean glasses ... then he can't find milk. Sharon succeeds in getting the key and I go out to use the women's toilet. Crap. Once I am inside, I discover it is so small that I can't even turn around once, so I open the door, go back outside, turn myself around and re-enter -- this time backwards. Sharon and Susan are the only women in the bar -- the same as this morning. Women in rural Spain apparently don't go into bars -- it's not that they are not allowed -- they just don't go in them. Each time Sharon and Susan venture in to one, i tell them they are doing a lot to promote women's liberation. On the way out of the bar a guy accosts them and gives each a whisker burn with a kiss on the cheek. Lucky I'm ugly. We cycle on down the road in the rain to Seville. We find the train station after many stops for directions. It is cold, dark, and pouring rain. Excellent conditions for bicycle touring, I must say. When we enquire about taking a train and our touring bicycles to Malaga, the person at the information desk tells us that no bikes are allowed on any train in Spain. Disheartened, we phone the bus. Same sad story, we learn, but we find out a bus ticket costs three times as much as the train. I notice a young guy sitting in a chair waiting for his train to arrive. Hoping he speaks English, I go over to him and ask for assistance in translating what the info desk has written on a slip of paper about transporting bikes. He goes and talks to the info clerk. Then he takes me to the baggage handler area a few floors down in the station. The info clerk has told him we can only send our bikes as freight, and they will cost extra and will arrive after about three days after we reach our destination. If we're lucky. He talks to the baggage handlers. Then, leaving them, he takes me into the hallway to explain what they have said. "First," he says, "in Spain you will learn that 'No' doesn't mean 'never'." We apparently have two options. PakExpress will ship the bikes for us -- there is an extra fee for this, and who knows when they will arrive. Second, we can ask the Director, the train's conductor, when the train arrives if he will allow us to take our bikes on his train. He tells me to come at least an hour early to ask. "The only trouble with that," he says, "is that sometimes the train only arrives fifteen minutes before it is scheduled to depart." I return to tell Sharon and Susan the great news. Susan is bummed out. There is a definite possibility that we may not be able to get our bikes on the train. Susan plane departs from Malaga in a couple of days. With or without her or her bike. The next trains are not due till tomorrow at 8 AM, 12:20 PM, and 5:30 PM. We decide to try the morning train as it will give us more time during the day to figure out what to do if they won't let us take our bikes and we can always try the next two trains if the first refuses to take our loaded bicycles. I have been telling Sharon that I have no intention of taking the train. I came here to cycle. It'll only take me a couple of days to reach Malaga. I thought we could just take Susan to the train depot, buy a ticket for her and wave good-bye. Doesn't seem like this plan is so simple any more. There is a travel agent in the station. I decide to ask there for bus info. Susan decides it may be a good time to confirm her flight home. She hunts through her handlebar bag and discovers she has everything in her now soggy waterlogged little airline envelope except ... you guessed it ... her plane ticket. Major panic and anxiety stricken her sullen cheeks. We tell the travel agent our dilemma. He says he doesn't have a computer terminal anyway, so he can't check her confirmation. He adds that Iberian Air, the airline is flying part of her flight with, has been on strike for the past week. The railway was on strike till yesterday. Great country. Some of the little things you may wish to keep in mind if you decide to bicycle tour Spain. The travel agent sends us across the street to a department store that has a travel agent and a computer terminal connected for airline confirmations. He tells us the name of the hotel the store is located behind. "Huh?" I say. I didn't understand what the guy said. But Susan says, "Okay." Wow, I figure, her Spanish is improving. We leave Sharon with our loaded touring bicycles and Susan and I get outside the terminal (an appropriate name considering the conditions). It is raining cats and dogs. Water is torrentially running down the streets. A car splooshes through a puddle and throws a wave of muddy water across Susan's back. Luckily, she had turned away just in time when she saw the wall of water heading straight for us. "F---!" she yells. Cycle touring brings out the best in one. Lucky she has her hood up, I think. We walk and we walk and we walk. Finally, Susan says, "I don't see any department store." I think we're actually on the right track though (although I'd be the last person I'd ask for directions if I were lost) as I observe people carrying shopping bags. I consider that a good sign. "What's the name of the hotel the travel agent said?" "I don't know," Susan replies. "I didn't understand him." Oh, terrific. Of all the hotels around us, we don't know the name of the one the department store is behind. We walk some more in the pouring rain. "I don't see any department store," Susan laments. I'm seeing more people carrying shopping bags. "I think that's it by the flashing lights with the Christmas angels on the side." "I don't see any department store," Susan says again. That is definitely a department store with the flashing light, I think. We have to cross the street to get to it. It doesn't look good. In fact, it looks as if we may need to don life jackets to get across the river flowing along the curb. We manage to get across the street without being completely swept away. At the department store, Susan starts to walk around the building. I'm thinking it was like 8:30 PM when we left the terminal and maybe the department store closes at 9 PM. I really don't think we have time to be traipsing along outside. "Let's go inside," I say. "But I don't see any travel agency," she says. "Maybe it's inside the store like Sears," I say. We go inside. Multitudes of people are Christmas shopping. The place is packed. I ask a girl at a perfume counter: "Travel agency?" Apparently she picked up on the travel part because we soon find ourselves in the luggage department. "Maybe we can buy one of these to send you home in." Susan does not think I am being funny. A guy wearing a suit and name tag is nearby. "Travel agency?" I enquire. Blank stare. "Ticket. Aeroplane?" I try. "Ahh," he smiles. He proceeds to lead us around a few corners to the store's travel agency. We arrive a couple of minutes before it closes. The travel agent already has his coat on. Susan still can not find her airplane ticker. She takes out a water-soaked, ink-blotched itinerary, showing where she was supposed to fly to and from if only she had the ticket (she figures a flight attendant must have taken it in Paris). The guy looks at the water soaked mess and utters the phrase we do not want to hear: "Ticket, please." In a whisper Susan meekly says, "I lost it." "Then you have a very beeeg problem," he says. "You must report it to the police." Ah, no. I don't think we're going to go and report a lost airline ticket to the police. "Can I buy another one?" Susan asks. "You must pay for another one," he says. "Of course, I will pay for another one," Susan says. Susan mutters something to me about not liking her bicycle tour in Spain." Oh, dear. We're close to our maximum stress level. I thought bicycle touring was supposed to be relaxing. Not in Spain. At least not when you've lost your plane ticket and are a few hundred miles from the place you're supposed to fly out of in a couple days. From Susan's splotchy itinerary, the agent actually is able to confirm that Susan has a reserved seat on the first leg of her flight out of Malaga. Sound great to me. I figure, we get to Malaga and they'll straighten this mess out. Problem solved. Although I never wanted to take a train to Malaga in the first place, it now looks as though it will be a fun trip to see how this thing concludes. We thank the agent and walk back to the train
station. Sharon is busily writing Christmas letters home. It
is late. A guy in the station comes over to me and helpfully
gives me an address of a downtown hostel. Cycling to the hostel, we pass a pizza place that smells outrageously delicious. We haven't eaten in many hours. We pull our touring bicycles to a stop. At the pizza parlour's entrance, five children engulf me to practice their English. I spend the next half hour telling them our names, our parents' names, our brothers' and sisters' names. Laughing with the children helps to relieve some of the tension. The pizza and Coke are excellent. I glance at my watch. It is now after midnight. Should we continue to the hostel? We decide that rather than try and find a hostel somewhere downtown in the dark and Friday night traffic for a couple of hours sleep before we have to pack up and head back to the train station we may as well go back to the train station and stay there tonight. The hostel is probably closed anyway. We go back outside and get on our touring bikes. It is still raining. We go back inside the pizzeria and stay at the pizza joint until they kick us out at 1 AM. |
