And now for something completely different

Date: Apr 22, 2010

Sometimes things just don’t fit. For whatever reason a place just doesn’t float the boat, as they say. So it was with Granada with us. I’m not saying it’s not a worthy destination or that one should avoid going there, but when things just don’t mesh, it’s time to get out of dodge. I’ve always adhered to that adage when traveling. I’m not going to give a litany of the negatives. That’s not what this is all about, but let’s just say that many things didn’t work for us in Granada and so even with the hotel paid for tonight we bailed and headed south.

Since we now had two days to get to our ferry in Algeciras we took the slow road rather than the hell-bent-for-leather freeway where if you’re doing 75, you’d better get out of the way. There is a national forest/part outside Granada which leads you in the general direction we wanted to go and so we went up and over the mountains. Talk about the road less traveled, in the three hours it took us to go 60 miles, we met six oncoming cars and a bicyclist who obviously had more time than sense. It was like going out the back way of Yosemite, or over Carson pass on Highway 88 in California. Rocky crags loomed upward and the road curved continuously. Clio nearly croaked on the ascent, and her brakes complained mightily on the way down, even though I was in second gear to help slow her down. Finally we met the sea and a totally different world opened up.

We hit sea level Just east of Malaga where the blue-green waters meets the pasty white skin of the northern Europeans who come here searching for their own version of the bronze age. Walking down the streets in their bikini tops and shorts we knew we were not in Kansas anymore. Carol didn’t help. I’m trying to watch out for those terrors of the towns and cities, the motor scooters, and keep an eye on drivers who think if you look one direction for traffic you’ve fulfilled your karmic necessities, and she’s saying things like: “Oh look, she’s got her bikini top tied with two strings.” This is not helpful at all.

Greetings from the Costa del Sol. No more Moorish citadels rising on the hillsides. Now it’s all condos. Apartment houses grow to dizzying heights next to the sea and block out the views of all those who thought they bought that ultimate come-on: “Ocean Views.” The hillsides are dotted with long strings of Condos to the extent they looked like they just kept adding on to them until the hill stopped and they ran out of room. Signs everywhere remind you that you can buy or rent. If they sold them all out, I’m quite sure the atomic clock would change just by the shear number of people all being in the same place at the same time. And yet, cranes operate all up and down the coast building even more. If they ever have a housing crash here like we had at home the collective weeping will be heard on the moon.

As we dropped out of out of the mountains Carol just said, “Historic cities have been replaced by the coastal playground.” No more narrow alleys. Here it’s broad promenades for walking the shoreline, not to mention the dogs. Carol wanted to stop for lunch at a small town she remembered reading about. That small town is now home to a half a million people on a given Sunday, and that’s not counting tourists. We had a lovely lunch at a restaurant where we could see the water, hear the waves washing ashore, and see the ominous clouds warning us that things could and would change in a hurry. We were the only customers in the restaurant, and it was a great place. The cook, waiter, table boy all had time to talk to us about the ills of the times for the area. The global economy has hurt them badly (so why are they still building) and the weather has been atrocious. Except for Easter week, it has rained almost continuously since January.

We got to Algeciras and again what a different feeling. It’s a port city, gritty, busy in commerce, and has a whole different look and feel to it. I think port towns do by their very nature. It’s a very earthy feeling, not cultured, not sophisticated, just blue collar and more down to earth. Of course, after Malaga and that area, almost everything would feel more down to earth. Davits are like ants all around the port. They lift and lower cargo into ships while dock vehicles which look like the machines they use in vineyards on steroids or, something out of Star Wars, run around the thousands upon thousands of containers finding the right ones to load. It boggles the mind. The port is a virtual bee hive of international commerce.

I love Spain. I love it for so many different reasons. I love it because it was really my introduction to the world. When I left home at 19, only to defy my mother, it was the first place I stopped to look around and to realize it was a different world from anything I could have imagined. I had landed in cold, drizzly London in January of 1961 and after recovering from jet lag, I headed south to find warm weather. I even stopped in Bordeaux and didn’t have a clue I was surrounded by the worlds greatest wines. How stupid is that. But Spain, it was here that I took time and began what has been my lifelong passion, to see, to learn, to soak in all that the world has to offer my simple soul.

I love Spain because it was the place where I began to know that all the things I had been taught in school and heard obliquely while daydreaming about Judy Kroeger weren’t the one true version of the world. Hooray for the English when they defeated the horrible Spanish Armada it seemed to me that they were teaching me. I mean was Carlos V any worse than Henry VIII. Was Elizabeth condoning the virtual pirates any better for the fact that they enriched her treasury rather than the Spanish court. It all started here for me.

I love Spain because I get to experience it with Carol, who loves it probably more than I do. She, who can talk to anybody she wants to and can express herself in ways I’m too lazy to learn for myself, brings me an insight that would be missing otherwise. I say things like: “I think this might be my last time in Spain, There’s so many other places I want to see.” She retorts: “Oh well, then I guess I’ll come back with somebody else.” Now that’s sobering conversation to be sure.

But mostly I love Spain because of the Spaniards. They are just one big bear-hug of a people. Loud, boisterous, outgoing, and affectionate, all at the same time. They don’t say: “Say hello to Carol for me.” It’s always, “Give Carol and hug and a kiss for me.” They can be annoying when they are in a crowd all trying to be overheard over the already too loud group. As Carol says, “they aren’t going to change just because I don’t like something about them. They’re indomitable.” It’s really hard not to be sucked into the whole atmosphere and become one with them.

So tomorrow we go to Gibraltar, that last little bastion of British imperialism on the continent, and then Saturday to Morocco. As I say often to people here: “It’s a great day to be alive.” And hopefully, more tomorrows to come.

Carol and Jim