Chapter 3 - Day 3: Bordeaux to San Sebastian (150 miles)

Day 3 Bordeaux to San Sebastian

By the time we awoke the next morning, our drivers had already shopped for our day's food supplies.  

Though well past 8am, the cold, damp weather showed no signs of abating, causing some of us to remain horizontal in our warm sleeping bags. The inviting aroma of coffee and a campsite egg and bacon breakfast lured us to our feet and set us up for the day.

Overnight a fine mist had blanketed everything in sight, including us.  More rain was expected in the area. So right after breakfast, we packed our things and ourselves into the Love Bus, and were on the road by 10am.

Aquitaine photo by kind courtesy of www.bookdrum.com

From Bordeaux, we again travelled south, this time through the picturesque Aquitaine region, across the Pyrenees and into northern Spain.  

The mountainous area that separates France from Spain was the site of much unrest at that time as The Basque people were fighting for their right to their own homeland.

Rather than risk becoming unwittingly embroiled in a political skirmish, our drivers skirted the western edge of the Pyrenees, staying close to the coastline.  

Trial by Water

We had hoped that the coast road would be safer than the higher mountain passes.  But, the further we drove, the more heavily the rain seemed to fall. Dangerously swollen streams and a couple of collapsed bridges that necessitated sudden detours, also impeded our progress. And conditions seemed to become increasingly more treacherous with each passing hour.

The drivers did their best to maintain morale, even bending Tour Company rules by allowing us to eat lunch in the bus.  They were afraid to let us out of the Love Bus for fear we would lose our footing on the slick ground and slide down the mountainside, never to be seen again...

Eventually, the sprawling seaside city of San Sebastian, on the Bay of Biscay, lay before us, much of its physical beauty obscured by a thick cloud cover that shrouded it that evening.

By the time we reached our campsite, several hours of cramped quarters and slow driving, had dampened everyone's enthusiasm.  Yet despite being emotionally wrung out, we were all very grateful to have finally arrived somewhere!

We were about to learn that our 'trial by falling water' had actually been a blessing in disguise. 

Trial by Earth

The heavy rains had swollen underground streams, which had destabilized and dislodged a sizable chunk of the mountain, that very afternoon. The ensuing landslide had deposited tons of mountain debris upon the very same site in which we were booked.
 

Weather related detours had saved our lives that day. 

Sobering thought!!! 

Ours was the only campsite in the area that was available in April 1972, and there were no practical alternatives. 

Maybe our longing to be anywhere but inside our Love Bus had drowned out any whisper of common sense. Or maybe the euphoria of our escape from a 'trial by falling earth' had addled our collective brain.  Whatever the reason, we managed to convince ourselves that remaining on this site would be safe. 

After all, the mountain had already 'done it's thing'!  

Oh ignorance, thy name is bliss!

So, when the campsite owner offered us free use of whichever of his sixteen cabins remained unscathed, we unanimously accepted his offer. 

Our two drivers inspected the six remaining ramshackle buildings, and discovered that four of them had varying degrees of damaged walls, leaky roofs or severely broken windows.  Happily, two cabins were both dry and habitable, if not exactly cosy.

cabin photo by kind courtesy of rosecityastronomers.org

The floor of each A-framed single-roomed cabin measured about eight foot square.  A 3ft wide bed was tucked under each shallow eave of the roof. Those "beds" had no mattresses, only wooden slats, upon which to rest our weary bodies.  

 

With our drivers sleeping in the van, the rest of us would have to share the 4 available "beds". It was not likely to be comfortable. And sleeping 5 or 6 to a cabin was going to be a challenge. But, at that time, we were just grateful to be out of the rain and off the ground for the night. 

We took the news stoically.  We'd made our decision and had to resign ourselves to the situation and get on with enduring, if not exactly enjoying, the experience.  The way I saw it, these unexpected twists and turns, no matter how bizarre, were all part of the adventure. 

Wasn't it Lenny Bruce who said that 
humour = pain plus time?

My enlightened Mother had long ago taught me that what happens to us, along  life's highway, is less important than how we respond to it.  If we choose to act like victims, we become wrapped up in our own misery and a pain to ourselves and everyone else.

So here, in this impossible place, I was determined to look on the bright side of life. And in so doing, I was about to discover that opportunity often comes wrapped in a crisis.

Happy to finally stretch our legs away from the cramped quarters of our van, our weary group quickly regrouped in the relative warmth and safety of a spacious common area adjacent to our tiny encampment.  Miraculously, this building had survived the slide completely unscathed.

While enormous, this gathering area was also unheated, though it did have bare electric light bulbs hanging from the ceiling. So there was light!  The kitchen was closed for the season, but, happily, the bar had remained open. It wasn't long before someone purchased bottles of wine for the group and we all prepared a simple supper of canned tuna and lettuce sandwiches. 

 photo by kind courtesy of http://www.the60sofficialsite.com/jukebox

In the corner of the cavernous room, I spied a juke box . Someone gave me a handful of pesetas,  and soon music - courtesy of the Beatles, Little Richard and Elvis - filled the room.

 

I began dancing, like a crazy lady, not caring one jot that I was the only one dancing. My mission was to be warm before falling asleep that night.

O-bla-di! O-bla-da!

will forever remind me of that 

perilous campsite in the Pyrenees

When the drivers said goodnight and adjourned to sleep, stretched across the relatively comfortable plastic seats of the bus, I admit to feeling more than a little twinge of envy.  Soon, the rest of us, by now somewhat inebriated, also spilled out of the gathering area and lurched  towards our meagre lodgings.  

The four nurses and the two New Zealand brothers disappeared into one cabin; while Anton, the three remaining men and I shared the other room.  

So there I was, entombed for the night, 
in a cold, dark space, with 4 strangers
- and all of them were male !

 How delightfully quirky life can be

Anton had thoughtfully placed his own body between me and Len, the man occupying the outside strip of our narrow wooden bed. George and the other businessman, shared the bed across the even narrower aisle.

I was sleeping on the inside, closest to the wall, where ceiling rafters met bed. And though I was grateful for the proximity of Anton man-sized hot-water bottle, when I turned over, my hip became firmly wedged between two of the rafters holding up sloped roof!  And try as I may, it just would not budge!

I grumbled that we had signed up for this trip because we were fed up with being confined in cold, dark, damp places in London. Yet here we were in Spain, still confined in a cold, dark, damp place.  Only the location had changed!

The sheer idiocy of our situation then started me giggling, and we could hear the girls in the neighbouring cabin giggling too. As I relaxed, my hip magically freed itself, and the relief of escaping my wooden chastity girdle transformed my giggles into full blown laughter. 

Pretty soon, everyone was laughing - so hard I am sure there were tears streaming down our faces.  Not that anyone could see faces in that pitch darkness! 

Our laughter had broken the tension that we were all feeling about our predicament.  We were able to share our experiences of the day as well as our near escape. And in that sharing, we were better able to face our fears for our safety that night

We had all sustained quite a shock!  But the simple act of "talking it out" reassured us that we could handle this night and anything else that came our way on this trip.  The various crises of this, our 3rd day of travel, had given us an unique opportunity to bond!  

Each of us were keenly aware that, should the mountain shift again, we might achieve our ‘15 minutes of fame’ posthumously, in a small headline on page 4 of a British newspaper that could read: 

"Hippie tour bus and all 13 travellers

perish in freak landslide in San Sebastian"

We'd not expected to look death in the face on this trip.  But we had to play the cards we'd been dealt.  And, once we decided that we would, absolutely, get out of this situation alive, our fears of being buried by the mountain abated. 
We were then able to relax and, despite the supremely uncomfortable 'beds', fall asleep.  

That night, my dreams focused on my youthful hopes and wishes for the adventures that awaited us, further along "My" Road to Morocco - some of which were to prove delightfully prophetic!

Section 3 - Chapter 4

From San Sebastian to Granada
via Madrid and Toledo in

My Road to Morocco - Day 4 - Day 5