UK to Portugal the long way

2/19/2008 2:21:18 PM	UK to Portugal the long way
footloose_bored Tienen Belgium age: 59	1991 and as there was not a lot of work to be found above the north/south divide in England I decided to go South only I went a bit further south than originally planned I went to Portugal. Well why not. I'ts sunny there in March and my tan from the South of France had long since faded to a normal English sickly off white. So I threw every thing I could get into my car , which , owing to the fact , that a Fiat 127 is not exactly a limosine , was not a lot. There was no room left inside for the wife though , which meant the journey would be free from the normal ear bashing I got. Don't you love it when they think they can drive better than you, and if you used the interior mirror more your hair could be as tidy as theirs. Yeah , right. Ear bashings from a woman who wrote off one of my prized automobiles? Well you can imagine how I was looking forward to thirteen hundred miles of silent , peaceful motoring. Now when I say thirteen hundred miles , that is if you take the right roads because if you don't you can add half of Western France to that thirteen hundred OK , so I saw half of Western France. Anyway , before I got to see all that country side , I kissed the wife goodbye and off I went. The drive down to Dover was uneventful and I arrived at the port and bought a one way ticket across ' La Manche ' as the kermits call the English Channel I have to say though , I was a little worse for wear on arriving in France , owing to the fact that , the two bottles of Malibu that I'd bought in the duty free shop on the ferry , had mysteriously diminished to half a bottle but this was no problem as Malibu is made from coconuts ,just like most suntan lotions ,so my breath smelled like a beach in the South of France , and , while this probably made the French customs officer remenisce about his last vacation , it did nothing to lessen his dislike of anything English. Especially a long haired English man with a guitar in his car. Oh joy!!! "Bonjour" I said , hoping to impress him with my French "Descend de la voiture" he replied with an expressionless face such as only the French and Chinese are capable of. So I descended de la voiture , or to put it another way , I got out of my car and the faceless kermit stuck his head inside the car and gave it the once over Well that was easy I thought , only I thought it just a tiny bit prematurely. Two minutes later every thing that was carefully and lovingly stowed in my car wasn't. It was spread on the tarmac all round it After half an hour of opening this and looking through that I was informed that I could resume my journey, and could I please load my car as quick as possible because people were waiting That's when I lost all presence of mind and told the guy what a stupid kermit he was and if he was looking for drugs wouldn't it make more sense to search vehicles going the other way as in my experience most people smuggled drugs INTO the U.K. AND NOT OUT OF IT. I was polite though as I was pulling away I said " merci pour votre temps Monsieur le jackass" thank you for your time Mr. Jackass Ah well , time to get lost in France and it's still only day one Now as I knew that to get to Portugal I had to go through Spain , and as Spain lies to the south , all I had to do was turn right and keep going , right. Right, and if I kept the sun on my right hand side I'd have no trouble , right. What a shame it was pissing down with rain on the end of a northerly gale. OK , turn right and hope for the best Well , I got the little Fiat pointed in roughly the right direction and set off somewhere in between southwest and southeast Hey , in my time I've been a scout and a soldier so I'd have no problems and being the tight sod that I am I wasn't going to take the motorway and pay all those tolls, no way No , I was going to go down the ordinary roads , get lost , and pay double the cost of the tolls in fuel All was OK till I came to go round Bordeaux and couldn't find a sign for Bieritz I must have seen more of Bordeaux than a Moroccan taxi driver on New Years eve and I got to know all the ways to go in and out of the city except the road to Bieritz I finally found it and realised it was the road I'd already been down and turned back after sixty kilometers. The road I'd tried first I did make it to Bieritz but I didn't stay long . in the dark it seemed quite a small seaside town with a steep hill all the way round it Well not all the way round it , or it wouldn't have had a seaside Besides it looked pretty dead and I didn't see any bright lights so off I drove again and not so long down the road I crossed the border and into the Spanish town of San Sebastian , which brought another dilemma I had no Spanish readies and there was nowhere open to change money Mmmmm. What to do , and my sum knowledge of Spanish ( learned from italics in western novels ) wasn't a great deal of help Buenas dias ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,good day , it was late in the evening Buenas noches,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,good evening or good night was at least a little more useful Hasta la vista,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,if I had no pesetas to leave , come back soon made no sense Vaya con Diaz,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,if I had no pesetas to leave , I wouldn't be going with anyone , least of all , God Mucho malo hombre con caballo,,,,I was not about to ask for a very bad man with a horse, thank you very nicely Senorita,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,That could have got me in all sorts of trouble Then I remembered the one word that could help Dinero,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,money , but how to ask where to change said dinero was something else
2/19/2008 2:21:56 PM	UK to Portugal the long way
footloose_bored Tienen Belgium age: 59	After accosting quite a few bemused Spaniards and waving my arms , and trying different signs, and saying dinero over and over again , one guy spoke to me in heavily accented English saying "You are needing of the dinero to exchange , si " "Si , si , senor " I replied He then proceeded with a long winded explanation that if I went up onto the autoesrtrada I could change a small amout of cash at the toll booth "Grasias , muchas grasias " He allowed me to lavish heaps of thanks upon him and then with a huge grin said "That's alright mate. I 'ad the same bovver meself a few years back" Of all the ex pats in all of Spain , I get the one with a sense of humour like mine Mind you he did buy me a couple of beers and shared a few laughs before I took his advice and headed up to the toll booth where I got a few french francs changed into a few pesetas If I'd waited a few years before going on this road trip we would be on Euros and I wouldn't have had the bother Not wishing to lose these few pesetas in motorway tolls I exited the autoestrada and headed southwest and to what was a real climb from San Sebastian on the road to Vittoria and Valladolid After what seemed like a lifetime to me and the fiat we arrived at a bar/ motel somewhere close to the ozone layer and I figured now would be a good time for a beer and sandwich break , which would stretch my Spanish vocabulary further than Tessy O'Shea's corset After parking the car , I strolled into the bar with that condescending feeling that all Brits know exactly what to do in any given situation Luckily for me there were two French truckers propping up the bar and even more lucky , they also spoke Spanish , so I joined them Whether they liked it or not they had a French speaking Brit for company Actually they were a couple of good guys and extremely helpful so I guessed they were not related to any one in the Customs sevice I'll tell you how good these guys were They asked if I was going to sleep in the motel or was I carrying on with my journey , and when I said I was going to go a bit further and then sleep in my car, they said no way must I do that This is Basque territory they told me and already several truckers had been murdered and some lucky tourists had got away with just being robbed but they came up with a good suggestion When I was ready to go to sleep I parked my car tight against one of their trucks and the other truck was then parked tight against the other side of my car making it difficult to be attacked. You never know but maybe they saved my life Just goes to show that not all French truckers are striking , port blockading morons After a resonable nights sleep I ook my leave of the two truck drivers and headed south west across the high plateau of northern Spain with the rising sun casting long shadows off my starboard quarter I still had the double dilemma of not a lot of fuel and very few pesetas to overcome and one other problem soon came to light This was the Thursday before Easter weekend and the Spanish naturally , being good catholics , start their Easteer break on the Wednesday night , so every where I passed was closed , and with your's truly not being of a religious nature I was not expecting a miracle , nor indeed an angel to fly in out of the blue Ha , but I did find a sort of angel , only she wasn't flying No , this angel was hitch hiking I'd just come around a roundabout and I saw young women at the side of the road hitching , and out of a combination of friendliness and a need to ask for a place to change money , I pulled over After a couple of moments of being confused by the steering wheel not being where she expected it to be she found the passenger door and climbed in. Conversation was a little stilted but through various signs and utterances she let me know she was going to Vittoria , which was on my way Through the same means I managed to convey my desperate need for some readies and fuel Well , on arriving in Vittoria , I parked the car and she proceeded to drag me from one hotel to another until we found one willing to exchange money. Job done I did the ' adios ' thing , tanked up the car and off I went again It was a long days driving southwest across some of the most stark scenery I had ever travelled through , but at times it was absolutely breathtaking Plus in that one day I saw so many different birds of prey it was unbelievable . Birds of prey , or raptors , are my passion and I saw eagles , buzzards , hawks and falcons soaring and swooping and hovering on the wind, by the dozens I finally crossed into Portugal somewhere near the Spanish town of Badahos early in the evening , in the dark I stopped at a bar , more to phone the wife than to satisfy a thirst I couldn't get a connection for love nor money , so I continued my journey to Elvira , where I turned south for the Algarve , arriving in Faro about 04,00 and promptly fell asleep till somewhere around 09,30 One final note From Faro I drove west along the coast to Albufeira , where I met a Liverpudlian who told me why I couldn't get a connection on the phone the night before You have to drop the zero from your local code. Well I didn't know that OK Very Happy So there you have it . UK to Portugal but the return journey some nine months later was nowhere near as much fun

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