Road Trip!

[April 19-26]

In the past seven months abroad, we haven't once driven our own car. Sometimes, like in India, our preference for buses and trains instead of self-directed automobiles has more to do with survival than convenience. Other times, the thought of dealing with parking scared us away from the wheel, and besides, the public transportation usually gets us where we need to be anyway. There are plenty of reasons to leave the driving to someone else.

But we're Americans. Our nation was built on highways, our own Henry Ford created the automobile for the everyman, and cheap gasoline pumps through our veins (unleaded, of course). A car then, was rented in Spain, one of the most affordable places for a bit of driving. We dubbed our little Citroen "El Torito," and we were off for a journey on the roads of Andalucia.



A country looks different from the driver's seat. For one, you see a lot more road. Cities become more than a collection of sights tacked onto a tram network map; rather, they're more obviously connected to their neighbors and the countryside around them, part of a huge system that keeps expanding beyond where the tourist map cuts off. Watching the road unfold in front of you, you're more attuned to the changes in landscape and industry than in a train.

You also feel a bit like a local, at least more so than when you have to watch a BMW or Mercedes tear by your tour bus in the left lane. Our foreign identity was exposed however, when we failed to observe the supremacy of those speed machines, cutting them off from their 180 kph cruise. It was then that we exposed ourselves to a little local culture, receiving a honk and a hand gesture that could only be interpreted as negative. Here, I demonstrate the symbol that means something akin to "Rock On" in America (demonstrated here by Beavis and Butthead), and something like "Your wife is sleeping around on you" in Spain.



Driving wasn't easy, either. Navigation in the cities, even with map in hand, was definitely a chore for tag-team driving, and we had a particularly bad experience in Grenada. The distance between our hotel and where we first located ourselves on the map was no more than two kilometers, and yet the profusion of one-way streets kept us driving in loops for an hour. Success came when we stopped trying to find our own way, and instead tailed a local driving in approximately the direction we were headed. Thankfully, he got us close enough for our trial and error method to bear fruit. This kind of driving most certainly led to bouts of road rage.



Another problem is that we drove during the day, meaning that much of our sightseeing had to be done from the vehicle, and major sights were often near closing time when we pulled into town. Given that we spent only one night in most places in order to make the most of our car, we had to manage our schedule closely if we were to do anything but drive. It wasn't uncommon for us to end up in town late in the day, after seeing the sights on the road.



The greatest benefit of the car, aside from having infinite flexibility to adjust our traveling schedule, was the ability to get to some more remote spots. On the southern tip of Spain, we stopped off at the border to Gibralar, still home to a British colony and a dash of political strain between London and Madrid. Here's a place we would never bother to visit usually, but hey, it was on the way.



Also on the way along the Atlantic coast was the minor beach town of Conil, where we stopped for a lunch break. Our meal coincided with a large crowd gathering around a film crew. They'd taped off a portion of beach and water to film a shipwrecked sailor being saved by a brave-looking chap with a sword. Marita wanted to play Godzilla in the film, but her efforts to attract the director's attention by pretending to eat the film crew went unrewarded.



Given the number of terrific places we saw while touring the region in El Torito, it was a pity that we couldn't stay longer. The car let us get to remote spots off the main tourist paths, but our schedule didn't allow us to invest time in them. Our appetite was whet, but not satisfied. The biggest and perhaps most absurd example of this could be seen for miles along the southern coast roadway. Across the waters of the Mediterranean Sea, we watched the looming coastline of north Africa, teasing us as only a short journey by boat. It'll have to wait until the next time around.