Basque country trials and tribulations
Trip Start
Jun 19, 2008
1
7
29
Trip End
Oct 11, 2008
Pamplona,
Navarra,
Spain and Canary Islands
Thursday, July 10, 2008
WHAT WE HAVE LEARNED IN FRANCE (North and West):
1. Pizza "Calabraise" is delicious sounding, but is actually pizza with tuna and artichokes. However, it is edible if you have been starving for long enough.
2. Breakfast is not free at the Hotel les Recollets, despite what they tell you in check-in. When the time comes to check out, one learns that the little bread basket eaten each morning is actually a humongous 14 euro a pop. At a bakery, the measly bread would have cost about 3 euro.
3. Do not lock your key in your hotel room if your hotel does not have 24 hour reception.
a. Even when I am on Ryan's shoulders when he is standing on a chair, I am not tall enough to crawl into a 2nd story window (This is terrifying. I don't advise trying it. You will also get many strange looks.)
b. Do not push the generic "emergency" button outside of your French hotel if you do not speak French. You will not know who you are talking to, and they will not know what you are talking about, no matter how slowly or loudly you speak English.
The conversation went something like this:
Voice: Bon Soir. French French French French French.....
Patti: Bon Soir. Inglais?
V: Eh?
P: DO YOU SPEAK ENGLISH PLEASE? INGLAIS???
V: French French French French French....
P: We locked our KEYS in our HOTEL ROOM.
V: French French French French French....
P: We locked our KEYS in our HOTEL ROOM (slower this time)
V: French French French French French...
P: DO YOU SPEAK ENGLISH PLEASE?
V: No, tu?
P: What? Yes of course I speak English! Nevermind. Merci. Bon Soir.
V: Eh...no English....
P: Uh huh. Ok. Merci. Bon Soir.
c. Drunk French people are much friendlier than sober ones (although that isn't hard). Sometimes, they will even translate your emergency into the generic "emergency" speaker so you do not have to sleep on the streets of Sarlat.
4. Wine is really really cheap in France!!! Very good wines are made in the area (Bordeaux, Toulouse, Loire Valley, etc.) and sell from 79 cents to 3 euro! Cheese is also pretty cheap, and that combo makes for some very enjoyable meals and snacks.
5. In times of great need and great smelliness, bathtubs can double as washing machines. However, in order to clean all of your clothes, it may take 3 hours and lots of clothesline hanging out your hotel window.
THINGS WE LEARNED IN SPAIN (so far)...and will hopefully always remember and thus never repeat...
1. Camping is not always girl-scout-camp-sing-along fun. Spain seems to be lacking atmosphere. It's 90 degrees in the day and around 40 at night. The ground seems extra hard here, and bugs love yellow tents.
2. Spanish cities are very hard to drive in, and no matter how many hours you spend wheeling around the confusing streets, it is nearly impossible to find a blanket to keep you warm in your tent at night.
3. Everyone seems to think "blanket" means "pillow," and the Walmart-esque superstore called "Garberra" does not exist on Avenida de Tolosa. This store does not appear no matter how many times you drive up and down the street.
4. European beach-goers do not like to cover up. Children are allowed to run around naked until puberty practically. Women insist on wearing bikinis (often sans top) no matter what their age or body type. Men love tiny little swimsuits too, no matter how old, how hairy, etc. they happen to be.
5. MOST IMPORTANTLY: Sometimes GPS units will lead you onto scary unpaved mountain roads even though your camp is in the opposite direction (on a nicely paved, non-mountainous road). When this happens:
1. STOP, turn around, and ignore your GPS after you nearly break your girlfriend's neck and the drive shaft on your front-wheel drive station wagon on a rocky road (The Renault Laguna is not an off-roading vehicle by any stretch).
2. Just because there are tire tracks in a giant slimy mud pit, it does NOT mean that you should yell, "Oh no Patti. This isn't good!" and floor the gas into the middle of the pit. Before this point, turning around was still an option...
3. You cannot get a giant station wagon out of a mud pit by digging and placing sticks under the tires. No matter how insistently you tell your girlfriend it will work, how muddy you get (very), or how long you try (2.5 hours at least).
4. If you do manage to get stuck in a giant mud pit (this may only happen to Ryan though...), do not do it on top of a mountain. You will have to hike down in the heat (3km), your GPS may die, Ryan may make you hike back UP to the car, plug in the GPS, and then make you hike back down, saying "Oh yeah. I guess we were going the right way..." - all at very high temperatures, with backpacks on.
5. Spanish tow truck drivers probably do not speak English, and they are not amused with your lack of common sense. Your girlfriend won't be amused either.
6. Somehow, cars don't drive like they are brand new after you take them offroading and get them stuck in the mud, even if they do have less than 2000 km on the odometer.
Other than the car "incident," we have been having a great time. In San Sebastian, Spain, we worked on relaxing and getting some of our Maui tans back. We spent a day lounging on the beach - walking the long, scenic boardwalk and sipping frozen lemonade.We finished the day with Pinxtos, basque country´s version of tapas. Pinxtos bars are amazing and we hope the trend makes it over to the states soon. You enter a bar, graze on delicious little appetizers, and wash them all down with a good cheap wine. When you are satisfied with your mini-meal, you pay for whatever you ate and walk nextdoor to the next pinxtos bar, repeating the whole process until you are pleasantly full and a little tipsy.
Today, we went to the San Fermin Festival!! The running of the bulls! We woke up at 5am and took a taxi from our extremely crowded, dirty, and overpriced campsite to nearby Pamplona. We wedged ourselves onto a small piece of wooden fence near "Dead Man's Corner" (a place where the road turns, and runners have nowhere to escape from the charging bulls), and waited for 2 hours. We were entertained as the local Policia manhandled and threw out the drunkest of the drunks who wanted to take on the bulls. Once the festivities began, there was a parade of people who walked the course without bulls. Then, runners chose their places and the bulls were released. At first, we saw people jogging and walking quickly, looking over their shoulders. Soon, everyone was sprinting, and fast, angry bulls came into sight. It was over quickly (1 minute?), but hey, not everyone can say they have seen the running of the bulls, right?
As for Pamplona as a city...well...I guess we expected too much. We witnessed the 5th day of the San Fermin festival, and let me tell you, the merry-makers had taken their toll on the city. Pamplona smelled like stale beer, body odor, and vomit. We couldn't walk more than 5 feet without a) stepping through shards of glass b) stepping in a vile "mystery puddle" or c) tripping over unidentifiable garbage. At one point after the running was over, we thought we would take a stroll in a supposedly beautiful little park in the city. We arrived to find trash everywhere. Where there was no trash, it was only because drunken revelers had cleared it away and were sleeping on the ground. Needless to say, Pamplona lost its appeal after the race, and we didn't want to spend the day at our campsite: it is jam packed with drunken eurotrashy tourists, all wielding megaphones that chant "ole ole ole oooooole" every 30 seconds. We decided to escape the camp and day trip to Haro.
Haro is a small town that is the home of Rioja wine. We arrived around 3:30pm, and we soon remembered that this was right in the middle of siesta time. Almost everything was closed, but we found a little café overlooking a deserted plaza, and there we sat for over 2 hours. We washed French fries and yummy pintxos (like tapas) down with delicious Rioja wine (Dads, we got each of you a bottle of Reserva Rioja wine by the way). Ryan practiced his Spanish with the friendly waiter, and we thoroughly enjoyed our brief but memorable stay in Haro. Soon, we will be off to Bilbao, and we are almost drooling at the thought of the real beds, real showers, and four solid walls that await us there. More soon. Adios.
More pictures to come... our connection is weak here and it is taking way too long.
Comments
Trials and Errors
Hi you two. Sounds like you have had your fair share of snafus along the way. Be patient with one another and try to see the humorous side of whatever you face and it should help you through. Easy on the wine consumption and have a good time. Ryan, all your cousins sure missed you at the lake. A good time here - hope you are doing similar despite the setbacks. Please call home a little more often - miss hearing from you. Love, Mom