Wine Stains

The Spanish it seems can throw a wicked party. Here in Haro once a year they have a party unlike any other. Yes, I know, live music and alcohol until late aren't exactly rarities, but the atmosphere, the friendliness, the anticipation, I've never seen it matched. And as for the ridiculous wine fight the following day... Brilliant !

Haro is a pretty town in northern Spain that attracts people from all over the world. People who are there to have a great laugh. Sitting in the main square listening to the live music from the stage and also from the occasional wandering bands, we found ourselves shaking hands and talking to citizens from all over the World. No politics, no barriers. Everyone was friendly. 

The majority are dressed in white as they prepare for the following days activities. It may be 12 hours away but there is a fair bit of socialising, singing and dancing to be done. 

Pacing myself was key. Difficult when bottles of Rioja wine are only 7 euros and the party is rocking. 

Silliness levels rising as night falls. Further increases in silliness as the clock approaches midnight...

Cheesy music keeps the die hards going through the early hours with Grease, Nelly the Elephant and Abba. 

Whilst some drifted off to grab a few hours sleep, those of a more determined nature soldiered on as dawn broke. 

Finally, at 8am, with many returning bleary eyed to link up once more with the party, it stopped. Brass bands led the crowd down the hill. A fleet of tractors, trailers, people dressed in white hanging out of cars and a fleet of coaches. With horns blazing and raucous Spanish singing people filed on to the coaches for a short trip through the vineyards. 

There was a short walk up the road, a steady stream of excited people and vehicles. 

At the top of the hill, a group of white robes people with buckets, back packs and liquid sprayers. White t shirts immediately ruined in the name of fun. 

Many had water pistols. Some just picked up plastic containers and emptied them over complete strangers. Rioja stings the eyes when somebody empties a bucket load over your head. 

As we walked away, drenched in Rioja, there was still crowds winding their way up the hill to be doused themselves. The fight goes on for several hours. 

I was broken. No sleep, a steady flow of wine all night and now squelching my way down the hill in soggy clothing. 

John provided the lift back. His poor mini struggling with 4 large males and sodden clothing. The tyres rubbed on the wheel arches. 

Bed. In the heat of midday I slept. Perhaps I should have drunk water first, I was very dehydrated. Too tired though. A brilliant, brilliant event but I was going to regret it...

Blessed are the meek...

On the morning after another feeble capitulation by the England football team, we are on our way again, this time to Haro for the annual wine festival. 

What has happened to this once great country ? From conquering great swathes of the World, taming the wild and belligerent Scots, standing firm against German invasion....We are now a country where the men think it's cool to wear aprons when cooking. The country that invented the crumpet. Where scrambled egg is considered acceptable as a meal. Truly a weak and wishy-washy nation, reflected in the performance of the football team. 

Iceland. Plundering and pillaging is in their blood. They live on the sides of volcanoes and eat fermented shark. They can listen to Bjork without wincing. Didn't really stand a chance, did we ? 

With Eileen driving, we fell foul of the authorities not once, but twice. Firstly as we tried to escape from Andorra, Eileen looked dodgy enough to get pulled over by a customs officer. 

As we sat there answering his questions and showing him my ferocious mother-in-law in the back, all manner of far dodgier vehicles were able to sneek through without being stopped. 

Further on we can to some sort of accident. Police had coned off one lane. Two vehicles had stopped in a queue. Eileen crossed the solid white line to jump to the front of the queue. This earned him a severe verbal spanking from the grumpy Spanish police officer. We apologised profusely and narrowly escaped a fine. 

We had opted for the longer, less windy route. Partly to spare the gearbox and partly because the sat nav wasn't in an adventurous mood today. I'm led to believe the mountain road was truly spectacular, as was Ainsa, the suggested lunchtime destination. A picturesque mediaeval Spanish town with stunning views of the river. We settled for a squalid bar in an uninspiring town instead. 

Oto, our home for the night is a tiny little place. In fact, the campsite is probably bigger. The pool was large and inviting, not just to weary travellers but also to thousands of suicidal flies. 

With not one, but two football matches lined up, we settled down with some cheap, cold beers to watch Spain go out of the competition. 

With England up next, we watched on with rising uncertainty as Spanish TV continued to dissect the Spanish loss. With rising panic as 9pm came and went we appealed to the bar staff, who flicked through a couple of channels and shrugged his shoulders. No football ! 

We surveyed the technology to hand and came up with a mobile phone to watch it on. 

Surely some sort of fault, it was suggesting the score was already 1-1. It got worse. The small screen failed to show a single England shot on goal all match. I think we had gone to more effort to get the game on than that bunch of spineless gits in the white shirts. 

Bed was calling. 

Eggs

Well that should see off any signs of Delhi belly for a while. The odd pickled egg or two is good for your constitution. Three or four is probably starting to get excessive. Ten ? Now that's just silly. 

Near Err there is a spa. We made a swift visit first thing, leaving towels in the van. Won't need them. I also left the van keys hanging out of the drivers door. Won't need them either. 

We dried ourselves under the hand dryer as we hadn't brought towels and fortunately my keys were still where I left them in the door when we got back.

Andorra is a land in the clouds. We wound our way up the hairpins to Pas De La Casa. It's a bit like a cross between Las Vegas and a ski resort. A real frontier town with many hyper markets and tax free shops. We fuelled (1.04 euros/litre !)

then found the winding mountain road called the Col De Ordino, infested with Lycra clad, skinny people. One of them overtook us coming down the other side. 

The campsite restaurant had a special offer on food. Eileen translated it as "all you can eat" for 13 euros. It was actually all you can eat, as long as you pay the going rate for it. We massively over ordered tapas and beer. 

Evening arrived, as did most of the teams     Tonight was going to be the nail game. 

A shot of something before you were allowed a go, then another shot forfeit if you took over 10 hits. 

I may have had a few goes. Quite a few goes. 

It was at this point in proceedings that I spotted that the lid of my pickled eggs was damaged. There was no way we could take the eggs any further. There was nothing for it but to declare this as Cool Hand Luke night. With a full bowl of eggs in front of us, Nik and I sized each other up and commenced the celebrations. 

In the end I claimed a convincing victory. My prize ? The prospect of probably needing stitches when I finally go to the toilet again. 

Substitution

Well my wife Jo and her sister Vicky have flown home, only to be replaced by their mother Kath, or Dwarf Mumsie as she likes to be called. Well I assume she likes it anyway. 

With teams departing early and heading back towards France to our destination of Err, we had a more leisurely start. It gave me an opportunity to look at our gearbox issue. It also gave Jo an opportunity to fix the skylight that she broke. 

It is now taped up and (hopefully) waterproof. It'll do until we get home. 

I need that damn tool to get in to the gearbox. Really annoyed I took it out of the van now. 

We headed off to find a suitable beach for snorkelling. Their flight wasn't until the late afternoon so we had time. We failed to find a beach, it was more of a rocky cove with sharp rocks and crystal clear water. Pleasant to look at but painful to walk on. 

They even let me borrow one of the masks and snorkels. Grey fish and many sea urchins. 

Cap De Creus is a protected marine area just north of Roses. Allegedly there are whales and dolphins out there but with all of the speed boats zapping past, they've probably all been turned in to mincemeat. 

Girona was nice. Olde worlde narrow cobbled streets and restaurants aplenty. 

It's somewhere I'd be happy to return to for a weekend. 

Kath failed to turn up on time. I guess this is where her daughters get their abysmal timekeeping from. She blamed the pilot. As a result we trailed in to camp at about 11pm, only to find a raucous bunch of reprobates still up drinking and socialising. I grabbed a lump of cheese and a cold beer and joined them. That gear box will just have to wait another day.  

Bungee Running

So, we need a specific type of gearbox oil for an elderly campervan in France on a bank holiday. It was never going to happen. In a filling station I eyed up a bottle of transmission fluid but put it back again. No good, wrong spec. 

We popped in to the Pont Du Gard, the Roman triple layered aqueduct just after we left Arles. 

Impressive architecture from the Italians, but why three layers ? Hot and cold water I can understand but what is the third ? 

We found the knack of dealing with the gearbox issue. It was crude and rudimentary, but it worked. A bungee cord tied around the gear stick when traveling in 4th gear. 

It'll do the job until we can find some of this special gearbox oil that we need. 

This heat is draining. I constantly feel sleepy when I've been driving for a while. But it's too hot to sleep in the van, even with our extra air conditioning. 

We arrived safely in Roses on the Costa Brava. Most of the teams were already there, lounging around the pool, drinking beer. How could we resist ? It was Eileen's birthday after all. Jo was certainly on a mission. Cava country, last night of her holiday, she was throwing them back. Then she hit a wall after 3 drinks. It was 8pm after all and her eyelids were drooping. We bullied her in to coming out though. 

Tapas ! Sangria ! Much merriment and laughter. Well, apart from the birthday boy who was suffering from throat problems and snoozy in the corner.

 

Roses is a standard touristy seaside resort, I'm guessing like many others in the Costa Brava. Many camp sites, many lobster coloured British tourists, restaurants and a bustling beach front. Time to move on I think...

Oh, found out from John that whilst we were looking so hard for this specific gearbox oil, we needn't have. In an emergency you can use normal engine oil, or even olive oil. Now he tells us, when we have looked in several shops, it's dark and I am full of sangria. Ahhh, mañana....

Grand Prix

Monaco is a nightmare to park in. Very much like Lewis Hamilton and chums, we drove around and around the town.

I was on temporary loan to Team 22 as Marc was assisting with the driving on Team 27. It does get a bit complicated and even incestuous on the Windy at times. 

The Monaco Grand Prix was last month apparently. How they run it in this sort of traffic I really don't know. It must have the drivers tearing their hair out. 

It was a brief stop. Just enough time to link up with an ex-colleague Adam for a cold drink. 

Having left Eileen and Jo in charge of Jezebel in Monaco, reports started filtering through of an error of judgement. They blamed the parking attendant who waved them under a low barrier. Jezebel is now a convertible with open top and a skylight in a number of pieces. 

Back on the road soon after on our way to Arles. It was hot. Beyond comfortable for me. 

Arles boasts the second highest number of Roman buildings in the World, after Rome obviously. So it's knocking on a bit. The campsite with swimming pool I'm assuming is a little more modern though. 

We found many of the gang already in the pool, playing on the water slides and demanding more information sheets. 

We are off to Spain next. 

Sarah has a serious issue. Her fridge is misbehaving. No cold wine is a dreadful reality to face. 

Jezebel also has another issue, to go with dodgy inverter, locked battery gauge, dashboard that falls apart, smashed skylight and cupboard full of broken pretzels. She is jumping out of gear whilst driving. John couldn't spot anything obvious. I Googled it. Probably low gearbox oil levels. The experts suggest bungees to hold the gear stick in 4th. Oh, and possibly topping up your gearbox oil levels. Tomorrow we'll try. It's too hot and I want to play on the water slide. 

Speyside

"You can definitely taste the peat in this one", I was informed by Fraser as we tasted his single malt whisky. It was dark. We were drinking from plastic beakers. Even so, I couldn't see any peat in it. I nodded knowingly. "Hmmm. It's not a Speyside, is it ? ". I had a 50:50 chance. I picked right. I left a bit in the bottom in case someone had put some peat in it. 

They know their whiskys these Scots. I expect I could do the same with pasties mind you. "Oh yes, you can taste the granite in that one. It's a Cornish..."

We were sat at the campsite at Isolabona. It's in Italy but near the French border. They don't sell baguettes here, so I was told in the same way as if I had asked if they sold soiled nappies. Nice pool though. 

We had got up early with the plan to get to Vernazza in the Cinque Terre by train. We missed the train. The next one was an hour later. Our second train was delayed for an hour. We got to Vernazza finally, just in time for lunch. 

Lovely place and they did Italian food, unsurprisingly. 

We were one of the later teams to roll in to camp but we had had a dip in the Med and we brought Italian beer, sparkling wine and apricots. Ok, I had eaten the apricots. 

It seems the member of staff had misunderstood me earlier when I had phoned. She sounded convincing too. I had told her to expect 35 people, she had assumed it was just a campervan full. They shoehorned us in though. 

I had a few minor nightly issues on Jezebel to sort out, but the pool won. Then the beer came second, another beer came third and sausages fourth. The van could wait until tomorrow. 

So, to the chorus of randy frogs in the background, watching the fireflies and talking Scottish politics we settled in for the evening. I think I'll stick to wine tonight though. 

So, Arles up next. The Feux de St Jean. Their midsummer celebration involving a bonfire and drinking copious amounts of wine. I'm sure John the Baptist would approve. 

Ian and Ann of Team 50 are already in Arles. Team Flo still having issues in Monza. Hope to see them soon.