If Carlsberg Made Fiesta's

I've previously bored you all with how much we like Benidorm, so I'll not go into that again, however, being back for the fiesta and the largest fancy dress in the universe is well worth a mention. To start, the weather was amazing, the first week in November and it didn't drop below 85F on any given day. Second, there is a buzz in the town that we hadn't felt before. It was filling up rapid and lots more Spanish were arriving daily in readiness for the week of celebration.

The thing we have loved about this trip is the getting to know all the people on route and returning to Camping Villasol meant that we could actually say hello again to some familiar faces from our visit in October. Most of the folk we spoke to were looking forward to the big parade, or the massive firework display and even some of them were going to the fancy dress day.

The week of festivities were great, the Spanish love their big firework explosions and every day at 2 pm, there was a Big Bang display in the Main Street. I've never seen daytime firework explosions before, so Jake and I took our place as near as the police would allow to the display, along with thousands of others and waited expectantly for the off.

I've never witnessed war and have never been in a situation where explosions have been set off in close proximity. Jesus H Christ on a bike. We were both stunned, literally by the impact of these cannons let off in the streets of Benidorm. And, as it is a town of high rise buildings, the noise was magnified over and over by the echoes. Absolutely amazing!

I'll just mention here that the fiesta itself is built around groups of families and friends called Penya's. Each Penya group save money all year and at Fiesta time, spend this cash on hiring shops in the town for four days and turning them into bars and dance places. They eat and drink and party in the streets outside these places, but it really doesn't really get going until after midnight, when the bands and dancing in the streets becomes noisy and raucous.

We stayed in the Old Town of Benidorm several nights until the early hours and watching Jake dancing with the locals and having as much fun as we did, is one of the highlights of the trip. Not many Brits venture into the heart of the fiesta as we did and it's a shame, as they miss what it is really all about.

Days and nights flew by as we partied as hard as age and legs would allow. Even our fellow campmates passed comment about 'are you two going out again?' It's why we were here after all.

The night before the parade we decided to be sensible and take it easy on the partying. We went for a walk early in the evening and wandered back to the van just before 9 pm. As we approached our camper, Jake's attention was drawn to another van along side us and her eyes and head were focused on the awning at the side of the van. Suddenly her feet hit a speed bump in the road and she fell face first to the ground. I managed to get a hand onto her shoulder, which gave her time to put her hands out. Instead of landing face first on the gravelly road, both hands and knees took full force. Blood everywhere, top of her finger almost sheared off on one hand, scraped fingers on the other, knees bloodied, muscles twisted and pulled!
All the other nights we staggered home just about holding each other up nothing happens and the night we decide to take it easy.......

There's a moral there somewhere!

The final day parade was wonderful. Each of the Penya's build a float and fill it with people and millions of sweets and confetti to throw to the crowds of people that line the streets. We got a couple of street side seats to watch it all go past and sat next to another Scots couple who were great fun. He was celebrating his 70th birthday and his patter was straight from 'Still Game'. Jake had great fun collecting armfuls of sweets and passing them back to the aged Spanish ladies behind us, who were almost crying with gratitude every time Jake showered them with sweeties.

No sooner had the parade finished, then we were off, along with countless tens of thousands of others to the beach at Poniente, to witness the closing fireworks display of the fiesta. And what a display it was. Pictures would just not do it justice, it must be seen once in a lifetime. The BEST display we have ever seen.

And then it was over for another year. But not quite...............although the Spanish Fiesta was done, there still remained the little matter of the 'British Day'. We had no idea what this would be like, other than it was fancy dress. OK, It's the largest fancy dress in Europe, but hey, how big can that be?

It was MASSIVE!!!!!!!!!

To say there were 20,000 people in the streets could be accurate, but who knows. I've never seen so many people dressed up in one place. The day started at 12 midday and ended, well it ended when the last person left, whenever that was.

We bade our farewell to the masses around the 8pm mark and wandered back to the van with laughs and smiles and a touch of sadness. After all, we go back to Orkney tomorrow.

Could the three months have gone by so fast? We had seen and been to so many places and done so much. Life on the road, albeit in a certain amount of comfort, is better than we ever thought it would be. So back to Orkney for Christmas and New Year, refresh, play snowballs, do Hogmanay and then come back and do it all again for longer.

The Road Trip hasn't ended, it's just begun.......................

End Stats

So we are at the final point of this trip. Journey's end, Benidorm again for the Fiesta. It's been amazing from start to finish. Some stats for the record.

Total driven - 3,683 miles
Average fuel consumption - 26.8 mpg
Average speed - 42 mph
Total driving time - 87 hours
Total fuel bought - 148 gallons
Total cost of fuel - £802 or €955 or $1,282 depending where you live.

For my own record I will at some point put down how much was spent on campsites, but that can wait till later.

On with La Fiesta.

Close Encounter

So we're sitting out front of the van and it's getting late in the afternoon. I've been watching jets fly across the blue sky leaving fluffy contrails in their wake. Jake is on Facebook next to me.

I see a jet high in the sky directly overhead, when from nowhere, a silver orb appears below it and starts to climb vertical towards the plane. I tell Jake to look and we both watch as this ball of light, in bright daylight, move toward the plane. Suddenly, the totally circular ball of silver, accelerates away upwards as the jet fly's East. The UFO glowing against an azure blue sky just blinks away.

We both know what we saw, no idea what it was, but one thing is certain, it wasn't ball lightning. It was silver and had direction. Jake, who is the biggest cynic in the world, now has something to think about. Me, for a brief moment, I felt like Richard Dreyfuss.

And Freddie Came Too

There's a certain amount of bittersweet in reaching Sitges and Barcelona, in that when we first thought about doing this trip, it was in Barcelona that we would turn round and head South and finish our travels. So getting to Sitges, we looked forward to the buzz of the town and the bars and nightlife that it offered. We were not disappointed either as it's a great place to visit. For the unknowing, Sitges has the unofficial title of Gay capital of Spain, maybe even Europe and has a Joie de Vivre that permeates through the town.

Late night in Sitges

We decided to stay on the site for five days as we wanted to use the buses to get into Barcelona over the weekend.

The shore front.

The weather is still warm and sunny and every day is spent just soaking the rays. We've both lost a fair amount of weight since we left the UK, due to all the walking that we do and the very healthy food that we eat every day. Of course this loss of calories is offset by the volumes of wine and vodka that is consumed, but I count the wine as part of my five a day fruit intake, so no guilt felt there.

The church in Sitges.

We've picked up a few 'war wounds' on the van, mainly due to low trees and adventurous parking. I'm hoping that with a bit of elbow grease and some cleaner I can get rid of the worse of these. When I will get time to do that I just don't know.

There's a song from an old musical which really sums up most of the days we've been travelling.
'We're busy doing nothing working the whole day through,
trying to find lots of things not to do,
we're busy going nowhere isn't it just a crime,
we'd like to be unhappy but, we never can find the time.........'

So the days in Sitges passed and mucho fun was had and then it was Barcelona time. Remember, we wanted to go to Bordeaux but mozzies forced our early departure and then it was gonna be Seville, but the storm put paid to that, so the capital of Catalonia and arguably one of the best cities in the world was not going to be missed.

Friday was spent hunting for Gaudi and cathedrals and good food and better wine. Plus Jake met some of the locals.......

A Gaudi house at the top of La Rambla

I don't know if anyone told him he looked good in Lycra...........

We walked and walked and walked. God knows how many miles, but I felt that we should have had sponsorship. Could have paid for the trip!!

Inside one of the beautiful churches in the city.

The most wonderful building in the world.

Then it was Saturday and El Classico. Barca at home to Madrid, the best football game in the world and we are in the city. Messi versus Ronaldo, would Bale make the team, can Barca defeat their age old enemy and once again rub the noses of the Ruling Spanish into the sand as is their want?

I wish I could do that through the centre of Barcelona.

We decided to go to the official Bar de Barcelona to watch the match on one of the ten large tv screens in the place. We got in early and informed the barman we we're on a five hour marathon. As the game approached, the place became packed with maroon and blue and the singing began. The bar played traditional Barca songs to whip the crowd into a frenzy, all of a sudden, Freddie bloody Mercury and that Caballe woman erupted on every screen and the song 'Barcelona' was blasted throughout the bar.

 Hairs on the back on the neck stuff, tears in old men's eyes, beer waved in the air and then Kick Off.

It's enough to say that Barca won 2-1 and a whole city, nay a region of Spain rejoiced in unison. We had a ball, we witnessed one of the great sporting occasions at first hand and became for a fleeting moment, one of the cules or soci and it was great.

All to soon our time was up and we prepared the van for our journey down to Benidorm for the Fiesta and then our return home. Oh, and it's Jacky birthday too, so something else to celebrate, as if we needed an excuse.