Day 78...Spain sucks the proverbial part 2 - 12 September

Woke up, grabbed some fruit and yoghurt from the supermarket next door and ate it in our car with the doors locked! Worried about eating Spanish unwashed fruit after seeing the town yesterday. Nathan said the meat section in the supermarket was odd, with massive pigs legs hanging from the ceiling with their hoofs still on. Cool.

We started driving into Madrid and got promptly trapped in bumper to bumper traffic outside the city. Got chatting and discovered that each thought the other wanted to see something in particular in Madrid. Neither of us did. Discussed the pro’s/con’s of fighting to get into the city and park, try and find accommodation and get to it…when we weren’t that fussed about it. Particularly as we were nearly gridlocked and still 30km away from the city centre. OR we could spend more time at the beach! Obviously – the beach won.

Pulled off the highway and ran away from Madrid. Went via windy back roads of empty, dusty farmland. Hills were dotted with ghost dead empty, dusty little towns. We stopped in Chinchon, as (according to Lonely Planet) they do a good suckling pig. They were closed. The town had a small dodgy Mexican feel to it. They must have been having a midday siesta as there was no one on the roads except a man with a bike. Small plaster and stone houses were squished together, the streets were cobbled. We had to try and find lunch somewhere else but all the other towns were scary. We got on a major highway and headed for Valencia city and ended up eating servo food. Worried about salmonella. No shits for us!

We drove all day and got into Valencia in the afternoon. The drive involved more red dirt, some untidy looking herb and olive plantations, and occasionally a huge black billboard cut into the shape of a bull. Valencia city is the third largest city in Spain, and famed for its beaches. We were hoping for 3 days, 2 nights relaxing there, before meandering up the coast. We negotiated crazy traffic and parked near the train station TIC. The lady there didn’t want to hear at all what I wanted, and kept trying to push some $60 hotel on me in the city and away from the beach. I saw an accommodation list, stole it and ran away from her. Hah!

We went to stay near the beach, the Playa de la Malvarrosa which has the Pasco Maritimo promenade running along it. The hotels that we found were only on the beachfront, which was pretty cool. We walked along and found the cheapest one. The girl there was sour as we had interrupted her soaps. She refused to let us see the room (but the next hotel was 17 more expensive so we took it anyway), then slammed down the key and trudged off. We checked the floorplan and it turned out she gave us the smallest one on the floor – probably out of revenge for missing her soaps. It was an ok room though, with bed and a TV that didn’t work. So we sat up and relaxed. The town was dead, and it was overcast and raining at times. The buildings were all worn down, and everywhere there were the sounds of construction. We assumed everyone was siesta-ing, so did that to. At that point, I tried to eat the cheese from the day before, but it had sweated so we ended up throwing it out. Bummer!

Later on, I tried to have a shower and it was freezing! It didn’t warm up, so we were forced to go down and face sour girl to fix it. Instead of her, the owner (most prolly her dad) was there and didn’t speak English. We were gesturing “cold shower” and flapping our arms around but he kept trying to snatch our key and was yelling at us. It seemed that he thought we were leaving and he would take the key. After this went on for a while he turned and screeched for his son “ROOBEEEERRROOOOO!” I could see said Roberto sitting in the TV room, but it took a couple of yells from his Dad to rouse him! He had massive bottle-thick glasses and didn’t blink. He bobbed his head like a pigeon but spoke a smattering of English. He spoke strangely and with difficulty – there weren’t too many sparks firing in that head I don’t think.

He explained the situation to his dad. The dad looked furiously at us, snatched the key from my hands and stalked away down an employee passage. We weren’t sure what to do! Assuming he was headed for our room, we took the lift and arrived to hear him muttering around in there. It was very rude and invasive. He was obviously half crazy and so over his job. Another guest saw him in there and asked him in Spanish about a problem in her room. He muttered something to himself then started yelling at her. I was angry but I was laughing in his face when he was yelling at me. The guest however, could understand what he was going on about – and looked positively aghast at what he said! She began gesticulating furiously behind his back to me indicating that he was rude, nasty and completely bonkers. I concurred.

It eventually transpired that our crazy guy was a tightass as well and had turned the hot water system off for electrical reasons. We had to turn a switch on and wait for it to heat up. He tried to stomp off with our key, which was eventually finagled back. He completed the whole sorry story by flapping a hand at us, which was not dissimilar to a ‘fuck you’ and then exited. What a laugh. We spent the next hour lying upstairs waiting for the water to heat up.

For the whole hour we could hear him yelling and shouting at customers, with occasional bellows of “ROOBBEEERRRTTTOOO!” and we held onto each other giggling furiously. It had started to pour with rain, so after our shower we scurried along the promenade. The Lonely Planet book had boasted an array of beachfront restaurants and nightlife. After walking for a while in the sand and wet we realized they were alluding to a small row of 6 restaurants that were right in front of our hotel. We slept above them. It was dead – but we were early at 8pm. Things don’t get rockin in Spain till 9 and later.

We found a bar that was open which was the busiest there. We shook off the rain droplets, eager to have some Spanish tapas of tomato and other stuff. Maybe some eggplants or something. We read the list and picked ‘small tomato bites’, ‘fresh salmon pieces’ and ‘assorted savories’. We ordered this from the waiter – unlike the French who laugh when you butcher their language, from the Spanish all you get is a sour look and a “ke” or “komo”. This we promptly got from our sour waiter, so we just meekly pointed at the menu and he stomped out. He got our drinks and came back way way later and threw a packet of smiths chips at us. Apparently we had just received our ‘assorted savories’. Hmmm. This was followed some time later by the ‘tomato bite sized pieces’. It turned out to be a blackened hamburger bun with a limp piece of tomato on top. Not bite sized either. The salmon ‘pieces’ was the same, blacked hamburger bun with salmon slapped on top. The salmon was grey/brown on one end and looked slimy. We did not eat it. (surprise surprise).

Feeling shitty we left and found a restaurant further down that actually looked ok! We ordered Paella (our first ever!) and were delighted when the waiter said that we were to order only one, not two as it was a huge serve. “right on!” we thought, and ordered a bottle of wine to celebrate. The Paella was quite nice and we had a great time with the big pan of paella and the wine wasn’t a bad drop either. We thought maybe Spain was beginning to redeem itself. The punchline came when we got the bill. He had charged us for two, as it was suddenly a price ‘per person’, not per dish (although the rest of the menu was per dish. The paella section didn’t speculate any different). So we got stabbed twice as much. And not only that but we also got stabbed a ‘share’ price of 6 euro! Dirty bastards!!!

* That’s the thing too! Spain is dodgy and poxy – but is more expensive than France which is a much better quality. If Spain was dirt cheap (which it should be it’s a shit hole) then we wouldn’t mind crap service or crap food half so much. But to pay more and get less rubs you wrong! So we left feeling pretty dirty and went home to bed. We got our key back form the weird guy to get in – the rules are in Spain that you have to leave your key at the front desk. Otherwise if you get rolled in the street they can get into your hotel room and steal all your shit. Lovely.

There are warning signs everywhere about muggers and bag snatchers and pickpockets. There’s translations for “hey! Give me back my bag!” go spain!

Also too, the moment we crossed the border into Spain, everyone has had an unusual interest in the red temporary number plates of our car! The ALL stare at it, when no one else in any other country has. If the Peugot disappears on us during the trip, it will be here…