Baza: Caveman and Cavewoman

Shane and I stayed one night at Al Jatib's Cave hotel. The hotel is located in a rural area outside Baza which is northeast of Granada in the Andalucia region.

By rural, I mean like really rural. Like the kind of rural that doesn't have a street address. Or at least not the kind of address that Val (the name I have nicknamed our GPS system in honour of one of the charming barkeeps we met in the only English-speaking bar in Baza) could understand. The website just listed a number, and then the town, but no street.

I assumed that the town had one main drag, and obviously the hotel was on it.

Nope, not the case. The hotel was about 15 minutes out of town, down a dirt road, that is literally unnamed. There are actually quite a few cave hotels around this area. I know this because I got all excited about the first sign I saw that said "Cueva" and so we wound up 10 minutes down another dirt road at another cave hotel. When we were "off-roading" on the dirt road I was feeling quite pleased with myself for coughing up the extra dough for the no-deductible insurance on the rental car.

Eventually we made it our cave hotel. Beautiful white caves built into the hillside. Complete with a pool and a beautiful patio for viewing the rolling Andalucian hills and fields.

It was hot, hot, hot outside. But our cave stayed cool all day. Our cave was fully equipped with a kitchen, bedroom, bathroom - and even a washing machine. All the appliances were "hidden" behind textiles so I actually didn't even know we had a washing machine until after I had hand washed most of our clothes in the bathroom sink. It even had 2 fireplaces - outdoor and indoor, but when we asked about the free firewood they mentioned on the website they said no fires. I guess most people don't want to light fires when it's been 30-ish degrees that day. Imagine that.

This cave hotel is also known for its Haman Bath. The bath is in a pair of caves (duh). One of them is hot and one is ice cold. The cave bath rooms have holes punched through them forming a crude lattice that allows the sun to stream in a way that almost made want to risk bringing our camera into a steamy water-filled room to capture it.

Cave Sweet Cave:

Shane is actually sitting in the fireplace in the above photo.

Alicante: Light my Fire

When we left Valencia, we decided to rent a car. Over the last few days the conversation about renting a car had gone like this. Shane would suggest we rent a car. I would refuse. Shane would suggest it again. I would try and talk him out of it. Then Shane suggested it again, and finally, I agreed. I knew it would give us more freedom and allow us to visit some more rural locations. But that’s not to say I wasn’t nervous about driving in Spain.

I was nervous for two reasons.

First reason: Driving. Seeing the way the Spanish navigate the four lane roundabouts and streets so narrow that you have to turn in your side mirrors is enough to make my whole body cringe and tense muscles I didn’t even know I had.

Second reason: Parking. Cars are crammed in blocks like sardines. People tend to do things like this:



My informal poll found the percentage of cars with bangs and dents on them was about 60%. We’re talking some serious scrapes. If we were renting a car, we were definitely buying all the insurance we could get.

We headed south down the coast. We decided to bed down for the night in Alicante, and as we rolled into town we realized we had hit another festival. We saw temporary food stands set up, road blockades, and many people milling about.

Great! Our uniformed traveller’s luck had struck again and we learned we had arrived for Hogueras de San Juan. During the festival various artists are commissioned to build giant paper mache statues, one for each of Alicante’s 86 barrios (neighbourhoods). We strolled through the streets, eating churros, and looking at the different colorful statues. The statues are massive. Shane wondered aloud where they could be kept all year round.



Since we were bagged from the previous night’s excursion we decided to head to bed early. We were cosy in bed and flipping through the various channels on the tv when we caught a news station. The station was showing footage of one of the statues we had seen earlier…in flames! The news broadcaster didn’t seem shocked by the flames at all, instead, the whole thing seemed planned, the flames joyous, and the party seemed far from over.

A quick google search revealed that starting at midnight the organizers begin to burn down the statues as firemen move from neighbourhood to neighbourhood to orchestrate the blaze.

We could see a statue from our hotel room and decided we needed to see the burning for ourselves.

I think it was around 2am when a crowd started to form around the statue. The firemen arrived and set up all the firehoses so they could control the burning.

We could see the statue was wrapped with strings of firecrackers. Suddenly, the street lights were turned off, and the crowd began to cheer. The firecrackers (loudly) started to ignite the statue, and when the smoke dissipated enough, you could see the flames begin to engulf it.






Finally, when the flames were low enough, the fireman extinguished them. You’d think that would be enough excitement for the day, but not for the Spanish!

At this point, as is customary, the crowd began to shout insults at the firemen, taunting them and provoking them until finally they turned the hose on the crowd. And we’re not talking a light sprinkling here folks, we’re talking full super soaker action!



As the spray began to near us Shane covered our camera with a scarf hoping to shield it from errant droplets and shouted “RUN”!.

And run we did, back to our hotel, exhausted from another night of fire.

Valencia: Beach Party Madness

After Figueres we took the train further down the coast to Valencia.

We spent a few nights in an apartment we rented in the lively Barrio del Carmen district and then spent our last night in a cute hostel we found on one of our evening strolls.

Thank goodness for the Germans staying a few doors down from us at this hostel because they told us that June 23, was the infamous Festival de San Juan, a festival to celebrate the coming of summer, and also a crazy night time beach party!

We made fast friends with a charming couple from Montreal in our dorm room and we all headed down to Malvarrosa - the city's most popular beach around 12:30 am.

The place was nuts. The streets surrounding it and the beach itself was thick with 140,000 people. The kind of thick where you need to hold hands with everyone in your party so you don't lose each other (think kindergarten field-trip).

There was a huge stage with dancers(speedo-clad men and women or possibly drag queens? in elaborate costumes). They were blasting some kind of techno/house music and the back drop of the stage was a giant set of inflatable lips with two fishnetted legs protruding out of it. Kind of like those giant gorillas they have on the top of used car lots back home but way kinkier.

Eventually we made our way down to a part of the beach that was slightly (I use that turn loosely) less crowded and we were able to actually get to the water.

The massive beach was filled with bonfires. People go swimming and then huddle around the bonfires drinking and then drinking some more.

We settled in and went for a quick swim. After, while shivering, we started to edge our way closer and closer to a nearby bonfire. One of the bonfire "owners" kept jumping over the tall flames. I read later that if you jump over the flames it is supposed to make your wish come true.

We made our way back to the hostel around 5am-ish. Happy, damp and dusted with sand.

Unfortunately we didn't take our camera to the beach that night but here are a few highlights of some of the amazing street art we've seen so far on our trip and few others from our time in Valencia.





The Hemispheric at the Arts and Science Centre. Much to our dismay, all that blue water around this building is not a swimming pool.

Below is Shane is doing his Spiderman imitation at the superheroes exhibit at the Valencia Science Centre.

Don't Dilly Dali or Surrealist Arcade!

When we were in Figueres, I visited the most popular attraction, the Salvador Dali Museum. Figueres is the birthplace of Dali and where he bought an old theatre and turned it into a museum - about himself (not many people have the gumption to build their own museum, do they? And if they do, all the power to you if you can get lineups as long as the ones at this one).

The building itself is amazing. Figueres looks like any other small town until you turn a corner and all of sudden you are standing in front of a pink building with eggs on the roof.



The museum is 20-odd rooms and you're told at the beginning to go through the rooms in any order you want, treating the entire museum as a surrealist object.

Wandering from room to room there are many well known (and also lesser known) Dali works, and then a bathtub on the ceiling over here, a giant mural over there, artwork installed in the stairwells, stereoscopic images, red velvet walls, and work by other surrealists artists. A really surrealist mish-mash which I enjoyed.

A handful of the works have arcade-like coin slots. If you drop in a Euro the sculpture comes to life.

Like this one:



This sculpture is based on a dream Dali had about his wife. She was driving in a car and it was raining inside the car. Drop in a coin and it starts "raining" inside the car (where a mannequin of his wife Gala is). The passenger window of the car has an artfully smashed hole in it so you can view this. There are plants growing inside the car as well. At the top of the tower (higher than the photo shows) is an umbrella that starts opening and closing.

More art:




They also had a large collection of Dali jewellery (I had no idea he did jewellery) which includes a stunning bedazzled heart pin with a crown AND the pin is animated so that the heart is always “beating.”

Let me tell you…that piece was a real gem. Har-Har.

Love from Espana.

p.s. A special shout out to Nina-bean who is one today!

Adventures in Train Station Sitting

“Arrivals” in Spanish is “Llegadas.”

“Departures” in Spanish is “Salidas.”

These are two very different words. With two very different meanings. Being able to recognize the difference between these two words, and of course, their English translations is key. Some of us, however, have come to realize the importance difference between these two words when it was too late.

Take this example. Imagine a sunny day in northern Spain. Pretty much as north as you can get without being in France. You and your husband are waiting at the train station in Figueres, and you have bought a ticket for Barcelona.

So, here you are, ready to catch your train. You dutifully looked it up in the website the night before and know that it will be leaving the station “around 9:45.” Of course you didn’t write the exact information down last night. Pfft….Details, Schm-etails.

You still need to figure out what platform your train leaves from. Easy smeezy right? Just look on the LCD screen. It’s a small station so there is only one screen. And golly-gee, it’s flipping back and forth between screens of information. Those numbers flicker by so quickly…but you catch “BARCELONA-SANTS” and “ 9:48” and proudly announce to your husband that you should be on platform 3. All set!

You head to platform 3 and sit, basking in the Catalonian sun, waiting for your train.

Time passes slowly, and then you hear an announcement in Castillan/Spanish that sounds like this (at least this is what it sounds like if you don’t understand the majority of Castillan/Spanish. “Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, BARCELONA-SANTS, Blah, Blah, Blah, Platform 1.”

“Hmmm,” you think to yourself, “That train must be ARRIVING from BARCELONA-SANTS. I will continue to wait at Platform 3.”

People are getting off the train now.

You exchange nervous looks with your husband.

People are getting on the train now.

You both open your mouths about to say something. …then “WHOOOOOOSH,” the train is gone.

Simultaneously, you both wonder aloud if that was indeed your train, and upon further investigation, you discover that yes, it was your train, and that the screen with the flickering information? The screen you had been looking at was for arrivals, and the screen you should have been looking at was for departures. Those flickering screens of numbers and letters at train stations are important - get to know them. And if not?

Be prepared to spend an extra couple hours at a sunny train station.

Oh my Gaudi, we're in Barcelona!

Highlights from our first three days in Barcelona:

• Fantastically rich drinking chocolate at the Museu De La Xocolata. So thick it's served with a spoon. This isn't your Carnation-brand hot chocolate!
  

• Getting goosebumps at La Sagrada Família, which our generation, the next generation, and the generation after that will never see completed. It is estimated that it will take 500 years total to complete the project. Which makes me think they are little premature in laying some of the floor tile already.

• The terrace at our hotel. This city is filled with beautiful terraces. We are constantly using ours, but we seem to be the only ones. Sure, people hang their laundry out there, but do they ever hang out there for leisure time? *Note we did see one tourist on his terrace today in his bath towel filing his nails - but household chores and personal grooming aside...

• Rock and Roll at the Sidecar Bar. Shane, being his usually observant self, figured out that one of the buildings next to our hotel is a jam space. A few times as we happened pass he'd stop someone coming out and get the names of some bars where we might be able to catch some music. Last night we went to one such bar, the Sidecar, and caught two bands. The second of which were called the Born Losers, a local surf/garage band. Before they took the stage the lights dimmed and the DJ cranked the theme song from Star Wars while the band entered. Each of them wearing a crisp black turtleneck, jean jacket, and black skinny jeans. These boys sounded as slick as they looked!

• We stumbled into a square today that had an orchestra playing on the steps of a cathedral. Large groups of people were dancing to the music in circles. It was beautiful in a way this picture does not quite capture.

• Not sure if this a highlight or a lowlight (only because I am fascinated and repulsed at the same time,) but everyone over here is wearing these weird dropped crotch hammer pants. Today, I even saw a 5-year old wearing them. I once saw Heidi Klum kick a contestant off Project Runway for making pants like these. Here is the shorts version of the dropped crotch pants.

T-2 days

We're almost ready to leave. Bags are packed (okay, not quite). Hotels are booked (well, only in a few places). Our apartment has been left in a reasonable condition for our subleters (not yet, but I have high hopes for the next 48 hours) and we have successfully learned Spanish, Italian and Turkish (I have not even cracked the spine on our phrasebooks yet, but that's what an 11 hour overseas plane ride is for right?).