Dearest readers,
For those of you who aren't yet up to date on the latest movements of Wrong Way Adventures, we're here to tell you that we've been moving very, very fast... We're in Spain!!
We stayed nearly two weeks in our lovely retreat on the hillside above Mili San Marco, reigning over the straight of Sicily below, between orange and lemon trees, broad beans and rabbits, sand and cement, with lots of calm moments and quick-changing weather.
After the experience of the week before, several weekdays in a row of rather unsuccessful busking in nearby Messina, we decided to give it a rest and hope that on the weekend, which happened to be Carnaval, the Messinians would be more receptive to our lively little show. Meanwhile, we took advantage of our "time off" to experiment in the kitchen: pumkin bread, Kenyan "chapati", quick-rising bread, goat organs and goat head slow-cooked with lentils, various dishes made with nettles... It was a week for sewing, playing music, sewing more things, and making bicycles out of wire... something we hope that Colleen will have down pat in a couple of weeks.
However, our favorite American had to return to Spain to continue with her therapy course and our favorite Spaniard would have a good chunk of time alone, without plans. He could go or he could stay. This indecision, added to the desire to set out on a new adventure, visit family and friends, and attend to a number of medical revisions, was all it took for our two adventurers decide to set out together, destination Spain.
We decided that the depature date would be Monday, 16 February, and we set about preparing to leave. Ahead of us lay two days of hard work, though we were quite unaware of what was in store. Friday night, we made a new friend in Hervé, a french man also traveling by bike... but at a much different pace. He had just done Lyon-Sicily in 1 month and he had 1 month to make the return trip. We're talking about some 70-80km a day with only one day of rest. He arrived quite fatigued, but even so it was apparent that he is a very energetic man. He busked with us in Messina, playing guitar and rhythms, on both Saturday and Sunday. And later, at home, more music playing with Colleen, playing with the loop station, and sharing travel adventure stories... We enjoyed our last two days in Sicily to the max.
The Saturday before our departure was a pretty good day as far as busking in wintertime goes, but Sunday was pure mayhem. We placed ourselves square in the middle of "Piazza Cairoli" where there were a good number of kids and families scattered about the rather large square. There must have been some sort of "click" between our music, the place, the people and the bubbles because everything began to move at a frenetic pace. In 5 minutes, we were completely surrounded by princesses, spidermen, zoros, fairies, and witches...and it continued like this for 3 hours straight. There was confetti everywhere, over excited boys and girls fought to be the one whose finger exploded each bubble, a tricky 2-year-old continuously came over to close the top of the violin case to "protect" our money, other tricksters who dedicated themselves to spraying silly string everywhere, even on our bike panniers... total chaos. It was a scene of raw, lawless emotion...the "step back a bit, please, so the bubble has a chance to form" was not at all respected. Instead, there was pushing and elbowing, laughter and tears...but all in all, a very good day. The most incredible part was when lunchtime came around and the three of us found ourselves in the middle of an empty square. We thought it would never end...
The morning left us exhausted but the adventure had only just begun. We had to return to the house, prepare the things we planned to leave in Sicily, prepare the rest of the things that we wanted to take with us, clean and organize the house, and leave the place looking like we'd never even been there. We slept a measly 3 hours before getting up to eat breakfast, shower, and get out the door. At 5:30 am, we were walking towards the main road to Messina and had already begun to wave our thumbs at the passing cars.
The idea was to reach Spain by hitch-hiking and the second person we asked that first morning brought us directly to the docks where we would catch the ferry to Calabria. Never again in our entire Spain-ward journey was it so easy.
In the beginning we were carried little by little, from one town to the next. Teachers on their way to school, recent graduates returning home after the spending weekend of Carnaval with their girlfriends in Sicily, a telecomunications worker in the company truck. Sincerely nice people all who picked us up in Calabria, inviting us to "chiaccheri" (a traditional pastry made during Carnaval), coffees and sandwiches...until we had to start turning down such succulent offers because we were stuffed...
For those of you who aren't yet up to date on the latest movements of Wrong Way Adventures, we're here to tell you that we've been moving very, very fast... We're in Spain!!
We stayed nearly two weeks in our lovely retreat on the hillside above Mili San Marco, reigning over the straight of Sicily below, between orange and lemon trees, broad beans and rabbits, sand and cement, with lots of calm moments and quick-changing weather.
After the experience of the week before, several weekdays in a row of rather unsuccessful busking in nearby Messina, we decided to give it a rest and hope that on the weekend, which happened to be Carnaval, the Messinians would be more receptive to our lively little show. Meanwhile, we took advantage of our "time off" to experiment in the kitchen: pumkin bread, Kenyan "chapati", quick-rising bread, goat organs and goat head slow-cooked with lentils, various dishes made with nettles... It was a week for sewing, playing music, sewing more things, and making bicycles out of wire... something we hope that Colleen will have down pat in a couple of weeks.
However, our favorite American had to return to Spain to continue with her therapy course and our favorite Spaniard would have a good chunk of time alone, without plans. He could go or he could stay. This indecision, added to the desire to set out on a new adventure, visit family and friends, and attend to a number of medical revisions, was all it took for our two adventurers decide to set out together, destination Spain.
We decided that the depature date would be Monday, 16 February, and we set about preparing to leave. Ahead of us lay two days of hard work, though we were quite unaware of what was in store. Friday night, we made a new friend in Hervé, a french man also traveling by bike... but at a much different pace. He had just done Lyon-Sicily in 1 month and he had 1 month to make the return trip. We're talking about some 70-80km a day with only one day of rest. He arrived quite fatigued, but even so it was apparent that he is a very energetic man. He busked with us in Messina, playing guitar and rhythms, on both Saturday and Sunday. And later, at home, more music playing with Colleen, playing with the loop station, and sharing travel adventure stories... We enjoyed our last two days in Sicily to the max.
The Saturday before our departure was a pretty good day as far as busking in wintertime goes, but Sunday was pure mayhem. We placed ourselves square in the middle of "Piazza Cairoli" where there were a good number of kids and families scattered about the rather large square. There must have been some sort of "click" between our music, the place, the people and the bubbles because everything began to move at a frenetic pace. In 5 minutes, we were completely surrounded by princesses, spidermen, zoros, fairies, and witches...and it continued like this for 3 hours straight. There was confetti everywhere, over excited boys and girls fought to be the one whose finger exploded each bubble, a tricky 2-year-old continuously came over to close the top of the violin case to "protect" our money, other tricksters who dedicated themselves to spraying silly string everywhere, even on our bike panniers... total chaos. It was a scene of raw, lawless emotion...the "step back a bit, please, so the bubble has a chance to form" was not at all respected. Instead, there was pushing and elbowing, laughter and tears...but all in all, a very good day. The most incredible part was when lunchtime came around and the three of us found ourselves in the middle of an empty square. We thought it would never end...
The morning left us exhausted but the adventure had only just begun. We had to return to the house, prepare the things we planned to leave in Sicily, prepare the rest of the things that we wanted to take with us, clean and organize the house, and leave the place looking like we'd never even been there. We slept a measly 3 hours before getting up to eat breakfast, shower, and get out the door. At 5:30 am, we were walking towards the main road to Messina and had already begun to wave our thumbs at the passing cars.
The idea was to reach Spain by hitch-hiking and the second person we asked that first morning brought us directly to the docks where we would catch the ferry to Calabria. Never again in our entire Spain-ward journey was it so easy.
In the beginning we were carried little by little, from one town to the next. Teachers on their way to school, recent graduates returning home after the spending weekend of Carnaval with their girlfriends in Sicily, a telecomunications worker in the company truck. Sincerely nice people all who picked us up in Calabria, inviting us to "chiaccheri" (a traditional pastry made during Carnaval), coffees and sandwiches...until we had to start turning down such succulent offers because we were stuffed...
The journey got complicated near Pizzo where we waited some 5 hours before finding our German savior, a trucker who was on his way back to Germany with an empty truck after unloading his freight in Malta. According to the professionals of the trade, it's quite difficult to leave Italy with a loaded truck. He accepted us into his home (the cabin of his truck) and after many hours of great conversation, exchanging ideas and listening to good music, dropped us off just outside of Florence, 800 km closer to our destination. We slept one night inside his empty truck and, being a bit out of the habit of sleeping outdoors, we didn't sleep with as much warm clothing as we should have. It was a cold night. This didn't do much to help fight off the "bad spirits" that Jose had been incubating since before the trip began, which quickly converted into an intensely sore throat that threatened to take away his voice, and the following days brought on fever and fatigue. It's true that we didn't get nearly enough sleep during the trip but we were focused on running the long distance race to reach Zaragoza before Jose's parents took the car to Jaén in south of Spain, passing through Madrid on the way...
But it wasn't to be. We missed that "bus" on Thursday, though we didn't find out until the following day, when we were already crossing the border into Spain.
After we were left off in Florence, we were picked up by another kind soul who brought us as far as Genova. We've never had very good luck in Genova (we were hit by a mega-rainstorm in November while camping in the forest which left us soaking wet and forced us to pay for a hotel room while we set to the task of drying all of our equipment), and this time was no different... We spent many, many hours in and around the city, the majority spent right at the entrance to the freeway to make things easy...but to no avail.
We decided that the best thing to do was spend the 20 euros that one of our kind chauffeurs had given us to use to buy a train ticket if need be. Which is exactly what we did, paying 23.80€ to reach Ventimiglia by train, the last town before France. We managed to get back on the freeway, going from Nice to Aix-en-Provence without too much trouble thanks to a man on his way to go salsa dancing and a family taking advantage of the long weekend to visit relatives (check out the amazing felt hats that Emilie makes!).
After we were left off in Florence, we were picked up by another kind soul who brought us as far as Genova. We've never had very good luck in Genova (we were hit by a mega-rainstorm in November while camping in the forest which left us soaking wet and forced us to pay for a hotel room while we set to the task of drying all of our equipment), and this time was no different... We spent many, many hours in and around the city, the majority spent right at the entrance to the freeway to make things easy...but to no avail.
We decided that the best thing to do was spend the 20 euros that one of our kind chauffeurs had given us to use to buy a train ticket if need be. Which is exactly what we did, paying 23.80€ to reach Ventimiglia by train, the last town before France. We managed to get back on the freeway, going from Nice to Aix-en-Provence without too much trouble thanks to a man on his way to go salsa dancing and a family taking advantage of the long weekend to visit relatives (check out the amazing felt hats that Emilie makes!).
We thought that France was going to be easier, that the people would be a bit more open as far as picking up hitch-hikers goes, but the reality was not what we'd imagined. We packed up our tent before dawn in the "campsite" we found in the middle of a roundabout at the end of the parking lot, and we set to the task of writing signs and thumbing down drivers. No one stopped. We passed another 5 or 6 hours in yet another "Autogrill", this time digging out our French from the depths of our brains, thoroughly buried beneath our nearly-fluent Italian: "Bonjour, escusez moi, es que vous allez a Montpellier?"
Just when it seemed like we could easily pass the entire day with no success, the godess of luck pushed us into the path of a Serbian trucker and within minutes we were flying down the freeway in his cosy home. He brought us about 600km, from Aix to Lérida. He was quite the character and we became fast friends. A totally different energy from our German trucker friend, but equally enjoyable.
He introduced us, with very basic English, into his life. His recounted his various trips and adventures throughout Europe and was surprised and perplexed by our way of life, without a fixed place to call home, far from our families, in constant movement... But he accepted it with joy, humor, and an open heart.
Just when it seemed like we could easily pass the entire day with no success, the godess of luck pushed us into the path of a Serbian trucker and within minutes we were flying down the freeway in his cosy home. He brought us about 600km, from Aix to Lérida. He was quite the character and we became fast friends. A totally different energy from our German trucker friend, but equally enjoyable.
He introduced us, with very basic English, into his life. His recounted his various trips and adventures throughout Europe and was surprised and perplexed by our way of life, without a fixed place to call home, far from our families, in constant movement... But he accepted it with joy, humor, and an open heart.
And that is how we found ourselves in Lérida, late Thursday night, with the possibility of reaching Jose's parents house the following day. We camped in a bare corn field, just a few yards from the road and when we woke up the tent was frozen stiff. But this time we knew better and slept with all of our warm layers on.
The next morning, we tried to hitch a ride to Zaragoza but it was impossible. The only ones who stopped to help us were two Africans on their way to work who offered to take us to the bus station in the next town. "In Catalunya," they told us, "don't expect to get picked up by anyone". And so it was.
We arrived in Zaragoza by bus, and Colleen hopped on another bus to Madrid where she was picked up by friends, just in time for her course the following day.
Jose, thanks to his brother Antonio (thanks Toñetee!!), was able to get the keys to the house from his neighbor "el Gonxo" (Javier Gonzalez) since his parents wouldn't be back until Sunday evening. Javier's mother, Pili, was waiting for him when he arrived and he was greeted not only by the precious keys but by meatballs, eggs, fruit and a warm welcome.
The next morning, we tried to hitch a ride to Zaragoza but it was impossible. The only ones who stopped to help us were two Africans on their way to work who offered to take us to the bus station in the next town. "In Catalunya," they told us, "don't expect to get picked up by anyone". And so it was.
We arrived in Zaragoza by bus, and Colleen hopped on another bus to Madrid where she was picked up by friends, just in time for her course the following day.
Jose, thanks to his brother Antonio (thanks Toñetee!!), was able to get the keys to the house from his neighbor "el Gonxo" (Javier Gonzalez) since his parents wouldn't be back until Sunday evening. Javier's mother, Pili, was waiting for him when he arrived and he was greeted not only by the precious keys but by meatballs, eggs, fruit and a warm welcome.
Jose spent two days in Zaragoza, resting very little between visits to old friends, waiting to surprise his parents upon their return. They walked in the door and heard a genial "hello" from the living room sofa...it was met by a frightened yelp, followed by laughter, hugs and kisses!
After a week at home, completing all necessary errands and dentist appointments, Jose set out towards Huelva to meet up with Colleen who, after her course, had traveled south to Calabacino where she found some much needed peace and relax, allowing her the time and space to recuperate from the inevitably transmited flu she'd caught from her travel partner.
We're finding our stay in Calabacino to be more than agreeable, working hard and relaxing hard, learning from new experiences and new friends, continously inspired by the mountain lifestyle. The desire to keep traveling and discovering is still strong but, for the moment, we are content to travel into ourselves and discover new trails through familiar forests. We're not sure what our next move will be, but we plan to be on the Iberian Penisula for about a month, visiting places known and unknown, seeing old friends and making new ones. We're sure that we'll have many new stories to tell. Until then, thththththat's all folks!
Greetings to all from the beautiful and mysterious Calabacino!!!
José and Colleen
After a week at home, completing all necessary errands and dentist appointments, Jose set out towards Huelva to meet up with Colleen who, after her course, had traveled south to Calabacino where she found some much needed peace and relax, allowing her the time and space to recuperate from the inevitably transmited flu she'd caught from her travel partner.
We're finding our stay in Calabacino to be more than agreeable, working hard and relaxing hard, learning from new experiences and new friends, continously inspired by the mountain lifestyle. The desire to keep traveling and discovering is still strong but, for the moment, we are content to travel into ourselves and discover new trails through familiar forests. We're not sure what our next move will be, but we plan to be on the Iberian Penisula for about a month, visiting places known and unknown, seeing old friends and making new ones. We're sure that we'll have many new stories to tell. Until then, thththththat's all folks!
Greetings to all from the beautiful and mysterious Calabacino!!!
José and Colleen