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El Prat de Llobregat, Spain and Canary Islands

My 50th birthday is celebrated with friends in Spain. A feast of culture, food, music and friendship. To end off our time together, Victor and I spend a week in a quiet village on the coast, before he heads back to South Africa and start my Portuguese Caminho.
So the minute Victor leaves, things go pear shaped. I make it back to Castelldefels and decide to have another Doner Kebab, as the one we had at lunch was wonderful. I make it to the bus, get on, want to pay and the driver refuses to take a 50 Euro note. He duly tells me to get off at the next stop! Of course I now try to get change, even trying to buy a chocolate. Everyone bloody refuses the 50 Euro note. Austerity??? Eventually I buy an ice cream and sit waiting at the bus stop to go to the hotel, all hot and bothered and feeling sorry for myself.
I wait, and wait and wait. Alone. Feeling more sorry for myself. A bright moment tells me to look at the time table – only to see that the bus I was so politely told to get off from, was the bloody last bus!!! Well, taxi it was, also not without some difficulty trying to explain the name of the hotel…
This morning I sleep late, treat myself to coffee and a beautiful croissant, and make for the airport. All goes according to plan, and even though my backpack feels as if it weighs 800 kg’s, it actually only weighs 8. Vuelling is like being transported in a cattle truck, with absolutely no leg room, and because I was too schnoep to pay for an allocated seat, I end up in a middle seat. Serves me right I suppose.
After a four year stint of doing my Master’s Degree in Dementia Studies, I have one final assignment to hand in before I can start walking. This has been hanging over my head like a sword, carrying a stack of research papers and handbooks with all the way through Australia and Spain. I will get it done – even if it kills me. (Famous last words…). I have two days in Lisbon to sit my ass down, concentrate, write, submit!
Lisbon is a heaving 27 degrees, and so completely different from Barcelona. The city is loud, much much more cosmopolitan that Barcelona, and alive with sounds of hooters and scooters. I figure out the metro, and realise how much easier it is to travel with someone.,.. Now suddenly, I have no one to blame when things go wrong, or to stand back and let someone else figure it out. The instructions on how to get to the air b&amp;b are not very clear, and considering the heat I decide to take a cab. Only 6 euros, but for the life of me I cannot find the street name that I am supposed to be in. Eventually, now very hot and bothered, I get someone who speaks English, to tell me that I am on the wrong side of the mountain. (Well, their idea of the mountain). Another taxi – this time with better instructions off the email – drops me in what looks like lower Salt River in the days before the Inner City Improvement District was thought of. I scramble up a very dodge staircase, knock and wait. Eventually Ratata (yes, that is his name) opens the door. Very friendly, lots of dreads with a soft sweaty hand I am welcomed. The apartment is a dump. Ratata leaves me in the welcome company of Zeaonor (I think it is the name of an anti-depressant at home) who has more dreads than Ratata, and comes out of his bedroom in a vapour of smelly shoes. (I do notice that his room has no window, in his defense). The place is really disgusting – something from the movie “Witnail and I”. Ten minutes later I depart back into the heat of the Lisbon day. (I think the bedsheets did it – they were not ironed. JOKE!!!! The bathroom was just too bloody awful, disgustingly dirty. mouldy and damp. The kitchen looked as if the last time someone did dishes was when Vasgo de Gama left Portugal to travel to Mosselbay).
On the spur of the moment, and with the dreaded assignment lurking in the back of my head, I decide to skip Lisbon and make for Azambuja, from where I will actually start the caminho. Plan is that I will book into a hotel, write the assignment the whole day tomorrow and start walking on Monday morning. Good plan. Only problem, I get off at what looks like Azambuja, but is actually a truck stop on the way to Azambuja. Yes, trucks. And trucks only. In the spirit of the Caminho I sit quietly, no swearing, and decide to wait for the next train that will come in an hour. I did think for a moment I should hitch-hike, but changed my mind when I stood next to the highway for a few minutes, looking at the cars (more the drivers) and was to petrified to put my hand up.
Twenty minutes later the next train arrives – and in another ten minutes we are in Azambuja. Where there is as much as at the truck stop – a few bars with men screaming at a soccer game, and for the rest the town is just about boarded up. Season is over. Not that anything could have a season in Azambuja. On the way in I saw a sign for a hotel. I ask – yes it is the only hotel. Yes, it is three kilometers out of town. No, there are no taxis, Yes, I am walking the caminho.
The hotel is dead quiet, not a soul in sight. A few huge trucks outside the door…. I get a room – 35 Euro breakfast included. The room is HUGE – two tiny single beds and a BATH!!! And aircon. It is like something from a 60’s thriller movie – who on earth stays in a place like this? But, it has wifi, it is clean, and they have cold beer. I go for dinner – a man that reminds me of James from “dinner for one” who speaks no english, patiently waits for me to translate the very elaborate 7 euro menu with about seven choices, only to tell me once I have laboured through every option on google translate, that they only have the pork leg left. God knows what Spain and Portugal and Italy would have done if pigs did not have legs. Well, it turns out to be delicious, especially the smidgen of a side salad (the only bit of fresh greenery in what seems like months) even thought it is drenched in oil, not even olive.
A full tummy, a hot bath, clothes on the washing line that I bought in Melbourne courtesy of the good advice of my friend Sally, and I am ready to end this day. Tomorrow will be a mini caminho all by itself, trying to write a decent assignment on my ipad. With little help from stacks of books and articles.
Let the journey begin. Good night!

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