There is this guy Mark Pearson who publishes the “_______ from a Backpack” series. I got into Europe from a Backpack a year or so ago and I submitted this the other day for “Spain from a Backpack”, due out in a year or so.
It isn’t my most favorite thing I’ve ever written, but I don’t have much energy left for creativity these days…and it is a good story anyway.
I would attach some pictures of the trip…but you’ll see why that isn’t really possible.
I feel certain there is no book entitled “Spain without a Backpack”, so I am going to tell my story here.
Peter picked up two hitchhikers…probably just to make Heather mad. I remember sitting in the backseat pressed against the window chewing on chrorizo and wishing I had a bottle of wine. Two sweaty hitchhikers, two old friends, and one whiney chick all packed in a rented subcompact barreling south down the Costa Del Sol.
We stopped for gas and Heather told Pete to ditch the hitchhikers. I didn’t really want them either. We were three abreast in the backseat. I was pressed against the window and they needed a bath.
So we dropped them on the side of the road in the dark. In retrospect, that wasn’t a nice thing to do. I have no idea where they could’ve gone. I am certain they weren’t picked up again that night.
But they seemed happy, even though I wasn’t. I sat in the back seat trying to imagine what was to become of the two hitchhikers from Scandinavia to distract myself from….well, myself.
I was tired, cranky and we still didn’t have anywhere to sleep for the night. I should’ve picked up a bottle of wine. In retrospect I could’ve spared the two bucks.
Our plan was to rent a car and travel down the coast of Spain from Barcelona to Granada. We would park in the evenings at the most beautiful spot and camp under the stars, cooking over a small fire and sipping cheap red wine until we’d solved the ills of the world. Then the next day we’d do it again. It was a good and noble plan.
It just didn’t work out quite that well. The first night the highway didn’t run next to the ocean. We could see it off in the distance reflecting the moonlight but there was never a connecting road. So we turned down a farm road that led us on a wild goose chase that left us sleeping in a farmer’s field. At least I had a bottle of wine that night.
The next night we got drunk with a group of travelers from Germany at very cute and remote bar right on the coast. The bar owner told us to leave the car at his place and go camp on the beach. That was a terrific stroke of luck until we woke up at 5:00 in morning in the rain with a river running under our tent. I wasn’t happy, but I was very wet.
Heather was always grumpy in the morning and said she couldn’t function without an espresso and croissant. I was grumpy that morning too, but it had everything to do with too much alcohol, no sleep, and the fact that everything I owned was wet.
So we were due a good night I figured. We passed Alicante and the coastline rose to a cliff overlooking the sea at La Villa Joyosa (The Joyous Village). The weather was crisp and dry, the sky cloudless and under full moon. My stomach was empty and I felt a far off romantic stillness.
Peter found a great spot that night. We watched the moon rise over the Mediterranean like an evening sun making currents like silver hair over the water. We drank wine and ate embutidos and felt very good about ourselves.
We were suddenly best friends despite everything. Our whole lives melted away and the food settled and the wine warmed us and the moon rose. I still think of that evening now….disconnected from what happened next…as a lone perfect moment that no one can take away.
In the movies there is always a warning when danger approaches, but we woke as if it were any other day. Heather went to the beach to be beautiful and Peter and I cleaned-up camp. We took our stuff to the car, and went back to finish up….to gather what was left and sit and look out at the sea. We came back, just a few minutes later, and everything was gone.
I remember getting all sweaty and nervous. Maybe Heather had taken everything to the beach to keep it safe?? Looking back, that was a fantasy…but so was traveling down the Costa Del Sol. We thought everyone that passed had stolen our stuff. Everyone was a suspect, the old man with a cane, the little boy in the speedo. You freeze up and act like a kid who has been caught in a lie. We didn’t make any sense…even to ourselves. We thought maybe Heather had been stolen too.
Travel is not the international exhibit at Disney World. It has an element of danger to it that makes it real. Real things have consequences and that is part of what makes it great: It is no real accomplishment if there is no real risk.
At that point, understandably, traveling took a backseat to practicality. We filed a report at a dirty police station a half hour away in Alicante. The officer pointed out the irony of being robbed in a place called The Joyous Village. I didn’t think it was funny.
Police reports are hard to get done in Spanish. None of us spoke any past “Donde esta el bano” and none of us were well able to guess what our stuff was worth while exchanging currency in our heads.
I guessed on the high side just in case. I didn’t think any insurance company in its right mind would accept a police report in a foreign language. If they were crazy enough to do that, they were crazy enough to pay out my outlandish “estimates”. At that point I was sick with worry anyway. One day on top of the world….they next in the gutter. I do love travel.
Next we needed to get new passports, so we went back to Barcelona to the US consulate. Needless to say, spirits were not high. Peter still had most of his stuff though. He’d kept it with him, didn’t put it in the car. I learned a lesson from that. Now I travel with a hip belt, which I take everywhere, even to the shower.
Screw him anyway. I hate it when being prudent pays off. Peter fooled around Barcelona while Heather and I went to the Consulate. Bear in mind at this point I’d been wearing the same clothes for 3 days, with no shower, and was carrying around what belongings I had left in a plastic grocery bag. Great fun.
You’d think the US consulate would be an easy place to get a passport, a haven for distressed Americans in a foreign land. You’d think at least that they spoke English.
It went like this:
Me: I need a new passport.
Them (in bad English): We need to see some ID.
Me: I don’t have any ID. I just got everything stolen.
Them: Do you have a birth certificate?
Me: No. I just got everything stolen.
Them: You know the government suggests that you always keep a photocopy of your birth certificate separate from your passport for cases like these.
Me: (My temper is exploding. I didn’t think the “I told you so” was really appropriate at that moment.) Can I speak to someone else? MAYBE AN AMERICAN?
Them: There is no one else here.
Me: (Great. No Americans at the American Consulate. My tax dollars hard at work!!) I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. I’ll give you all the information I know about myself. And then I’m gonna go get something to eat. When I come back I want a fucking passport!! Call the Embassy, call Washington, call my 6th grade math teacher if you need to….I’ll be back in 3 hours.
So we left and ate churros, and then we got our new passports…thankfully. But the trip wasn’t over; we were still 4000 miles from home with no money and no one to call for help. “Let’s Go Europe” isn’t really designed for situations like this. I was still wearing the same clothes…unshowered. We’d been sleeping in the car for 3 days.
On that note, when we took the car back to the rental agency in Barcelona it had closed, with a small note on the window telling the new location. That made us late bringing the car back. So not only did they charge us an extra day for being late when they’d moved their location…they charged us for the damage done to the car while we were being robbed. They even managed to charge us for the gas we’d used while wandering the city looking for their new location.
I’d never felt better about being far from home for no good reason.
Heather informed us shortly thereafter that she was leaving to stay with an ex-boyfriend in Rome. We took her to the airport early the next morning.
I thought that was great and classic. The pretty girl goes to stay with some tall dark handsome Italian she doesn’t even like when things get rough. It was safe and likely she had a better time doing that than she’d have had with us the rest of the trip. That part worked out fine and now she and I are great friends about the whole thing. Disasters have a way of bringing people together….in the long run.
So Peter and I were left with the wreckage of our trip. I didn’t really know what to do. I was tired and low. Pete came up with the only logical solution (which I’m sorry I didn’t think of): a vacation from our vacation.
And that was the brilliant stroke: If halfway around the world traveling down the Costa Del Sol camping on the beach every night isn’t far enough away…you need a vacation….from your vacation.
So we bought two plane tickets to Mallorca.
In Mallorca I was stressed too….at first. Spain without a backpack isn’t the stereotypical travel experience. But you ease into it….and that is a great redeeming quality of travel: stick with it and it will show you all the undiscovered corners of yourself that you’d never have known otherwise.
We rented scooters and rode around the whole island. We slept on beaches, met locals, and wore the same clothes everyday. But this time it was good. Each day was its own. Each place was as random as the next. I loved the sun, my scooter, my plastic grocery bag, and travel.
I had everything stolen and was living like a hobo…and it was the best thing I ever did.
Someone asked me the other day….how do you deal with novel situations? How do you do under pressure? Tell me about a time when you overcame a significant obstacle.
People speak of travel as if it were some kind of permanent vacation. It isn’t…you’ll learn more and do more in 6 months of travel than you are likely to experience in the rest of your long and average life.
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Your tax dollars??? That’s funny.