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16 Spanish Frontier Jail break! Yep, sometime during the night someone snapped the padlock at the campground's entrance shut. After we stopped laughing at our predicament, we discovered the campground, surrounded by a seven foot fence, resembled a stronghold. At the other end of the campground another gate led to a park. But as well as bolted solid, it had the added feature of being lined with vicious spikes. We checked the perimeter with no success and went back to the main gate. On one side, a hill led to a stone fence. Sharon climbed over and dropped elephantinelike to the ground. I unloaded our bikes. Standing on tip toes, I bench pressed everything over the gate. Splendid camping indeed. Under our first blue sky in ages we followed the coast. In an ancient church at Saint Jean du Luz gleaming saints lined the back of the altar. Stair railings ran to four levels of balconies. I stood admiring the stained glass. A ragged boy, praying in a back pew, reached over and fingered my fuzzy pullover. "Polyester?" he asked. "Fleece," I told him. He nodded, then rose silently and left. A few moments later he was back. He wanted to trade his grubby cutoff sweatshirt for my new jacket. I told him I still needed it. We climbed hills to Hendaye. Along the ocean a scene for a tv movie was being filmed. A flagman halted traffic. He spoke to us, but he didn't know English. In French he asked, "Do you speak French? Spanish? Italian? What do you know?" "Just English." Just English. He could not believe it. He looked at us like: How can you live being so retarded? I felt like a linguistic midget. Sitting on the sea wall at Hendaye we watched a wetsuit clad surfer test large surf. Cyclists and strollers plied the sidewalk. Two men in swimsuits plucked their courage and plunged into the cold Atlantic. The afternoon of November 14, we crossed the frontier into Spain. The border crossing consisted of a guard shack holding three policemen who waved to us. We stopped. They laughed and motioned for us to continue. They didn't request our passports or ask questions about our business in Spain. It was no comparison to crossing between the United States and Canada. Buenos Dias! We were in Spain! It was mucho different compared to France. In Hendaye, we immediately noticed people eating in public, ambling down streets munching sandwiches or junk food. We never once saw that sacrilege in France. Kids were everywhere. They swarmed us when we stopped, giggling in Spanish and a few English words. They checked us out, poking and prodding Sharon, our equipment and me. The Pyrenees surrounded us. There were few country villages. The towns and cities were crowded with smog, pollution and tons of factories. Row after row of grungy apartment highrises with laundry hanging out every window. The change was so rapid I felt disoriented. We never saw anything like that in France. Cranes, road building frenzy and construction was everywhere. Bridges and overpasses sat in the middle of nowhere with nothing connected to them. Spain scooped mountains apart, crushing them into gravel for more roads. The amount of traffic was incredible. I bought a map showing small roads. They were as busy as the main roads, but had only two narrow lanes. There were few roads through the mountains and fewer route signs. We followed N1 till after dark. The freeway lights came on. We decided we should find a place for the night and took an exit into Tolosa. Industry and apartment complexes enveloped us. At the edge of town a man told us there was no camping for forty kilometers. He directed us to a hotel a kilometer away. We arrived downtown. Swarms of citizens walked the streets arm in arm. Passersby gave us directions to a hotel. The desk clerk wanted 6000 pesetas plus tax-more than we had paid in Paris. One hundred pesetas equalled a Canadian dollar. I went outside and told Sharon. She agreed it was too much for a piddly room. I went back in and the clerk quoted a lower price for a room without a bath. I asked him if we could camp out back. He showed me I couldn't camp there because of the natural gas containers. "The fumes wouldn't be good for you," he said, "and they may explode." He pointed up the hill and said we could find somewhere up there. The freeway was on one side. Highrise apartments encircled us. Drab clothes waved from apartment windows and balconies. At the top stood a small cementblock shed with a rose garden in front and vegetable garden and round haystack out back. Looking around we decided no one could live in that dilapidated tiny shed. Leaning our bikes against the crumbling rock fence, we set the tent in front of the doorway. Mucho gracious |
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