A Life in Waiting

Hmm, final chapter might not be the proper phrase as everywhere I have traveled to so far in Spain I’ve thought those same words above (except for Valdepeñas, but I’ll get to that later).  But for now, I am still referring to Madrid.  It is now Sunday morning and Kris and I part ways.  Well actually I part ways, she stays right there.  See her mother was returning to Madrid for the night and well let’s just say she has more of a right to the spare bed than I.  So as it another beautiful sunny day, we head to a local café with an outside terrace and have the Spanish delicacy of Chocolate con Churros, which is basically fried strips of dough that you dip into a cup of hot milk chocolate.  Not the healthiest start to the day, but certainly a good one.  We say goodbye and I head into the city once again to do a bit more exploration on foot.

I do really enjoy this city.  However it doesn’t hurt that it’s the beginning of spring and the sun is shining brightly with a nice cool breeze rolling through, and everyone seems to be happier as a result.  Following the advice given to me, I grab the bike after walking the city for a few hours and head over to Parque del Retiro as previously mentioned.  I spend the rest of my afternoon enjoying the afternoon sun with a mixture of writing, napping and people watching. 

That evening I head back over to the Plaza de Santa Ana where I have my old room waiting for me at the Hostal Lucense.  Debating over how I should spend my final night in Madrid, I remember that a friend of mine who was a fellow Anglo in the Pueblo Inglís program was back in Madrid and is always up for a night out.  As it turns out Nick was already meeting with a few other friends and invited me along to join them.  Turns out that his friends were from the most recent Pueblo Inglís class of which Nick was training to be one of the MC’s for future classes.  The group consisted of three Canadians, one of their cousins from Germany, a Brit looking to live in Spain and me.  Ended up out for a nice dinner followed with a bit of traditional Spanish tapas bar hopping.

Monday morning.  I pack up my bike and decide to get an early start on my departure from Madrid.  It is only a 2+ hour drive to my next destination, but I figure I would take a slower route and perhaps enjoy some of the scenery on my way there.  But of course, I would get lost first…

Ok as mentioned before, Madrid has been an adventure for me driving wise.  Well this day was no different.  Apparently there are some massive tunnels deep underneath the city.  I had a glimpse of them during my last trip into the city, but nothing like this time.  When I say I spent a good ten minutes at a time under the city in these tunnels, I am not exaggerating.  First they are huge.  Larger than any other tunnel I have driven inside before.  Four or five lanes wide, they split off into dozens of different directions burrowing deeper and deeper underground.  I was quite amazed.  Well at least during my first trip through.  Yes, that is correct, it took me a grand total of three passes within the tunnels before I found the correct way out.  Including one complete circle underground.

So being I lost so much time navigating through the Madrid underground, I decide to stay on the Autovia to Valdepeñas.  It actually turned out for the better as the area directly south of Madrid, including my destination city of Valdepeñas, was far from beautiful.  Very flat, dry and not much vegetation.  Valdepeñas was not a destination of mine because it was a noteworthy city, however it is a very large wine producing area, but because the ride to Cordoba and Sevilla was longer than I had wanted to travel from Madrid I decided to spend a day or two in the area.  The only real highlight to my time in Valdepeñas, was the brother and sister from So Cal that I ended up staying with for one night.  They were in the area on a English teaching contract and enjoyed the small climbing community in the area.

As the area was such a disappointment, I decided to hightail it out of there and shoot off to Cordoba and Sevilla a day early.  I inform my hosts, pack up my gear and head out.  Now this little city is a true definition of a sleepy town.  So when I walked outside to load up the bike, I was quite surprised to find out some bastard stole my bike cover!  I mean come on!  I left my bike unattended in an undefined parking area for SIX WEEKS at one of the most major airports in Europe and not one issue.  One night in a tiny ass village in the middle of nowhere and they steal something.  I was pissed!  Didn’t touch my tankbag or anything inside it and no scratches on my saddlebags, so it was somebody who just wanted the cover.  So I did what any rational person would, drove around the city looking for it!  It wasn’t vandalism or a major theft, so I figured there was a good chance it was already in use somewhere.  But no luck.  The bastard got away with it.

With such a bad start to my morning, I just take off out of town towards Cordoba.  A little over an hour later I roll into Cordoba.  Now I know very little of this city, except that it’s on my way to Sevilla.  So I look around as I enter the city and see a huge Mosque in the center.  Figuring that’s a good place to start, I aim for it and park outside.  Super paranoid now, I lock it down tight and make sure it’s in a good trafficked area.  Turns out the Mosque in nestled inside an old Moorish walled city.  So I take a walk through.  As I enter the walled city within a city, I’m thinking how beautiful it is and well taken care of.  This thought is still lingering as I make another turn down a small path that dumps me out into tourist central!  A medium sized square filled completely with a mixture of American tourists with their cameras, beggars, scam artists and plenty of neon lights and tourist trap shops.  I quickly exit the area and find out that almost all of this inner city is like this.  As I wrestle my hand away from one of the street woman who was trying to get me to buy some crap from her, I get overrun with a busload worth of tourists and can’t navigate my way back to the street.

Utterly frustrated still (I’m sure the morning didn’t help with my shortened fuse), I try to walk around the city a bit and determine that it has zero to offer me.  Ignoring my need to pee and my ever growing hunger, I set a course for Sevilla.

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.