In Madrid on the gas station we were teken to we were said that this is not very god station to hitch-hike further, and adviced us to go at the station 15 km from the place, which is new and where many trucks stop.
15 km- only 2.5 hours of walk. with our runing over the highway and walking along the highway where people usually don't walk it was 4 hours.
after 3 hours we came to the bridge that we could not cross as cars were driving too fast. we decided to go under and to hope that there won't be a river. there was. It was not deep or wide, but it smelled a bit like shit. we tried to take some boards andto cross it without making our feet wet. We failed. after twenty minutesof going back and forth we simply crossed the river by foot. what we saw later was even more humiliating- another small river but now with literally shit. we were desperate and decided to try to go around. Fortunately, after 30 meters there was a small bridge over that crap-river, moreover, when we looked ack, we discovered that there also was a bridge over the first river. With wet feet and shamed faces we continued our journey.
when we had no water to drink and were quite exhausted- our salvation came. In person of Ali, sanitation car driver, whose responsibilities include driving around and looking for accidents. Here we should mention that this night was night of final game in football Spain Netherlands. He was of course, for Spain. Later you will see his photo. He took us 2-3 km that were left till the gas station, gave us water and told that Spain will win.
He drove away, we met a truck driver who was going next day in our direction, talked to him till for some 2-3 hours till midnight or more.
In spain almost nobody speaks English, so with everybody we were talking in half-gesture-spanio-english language. The sriver eventually went to sleep, but our fun ony started. when talking with driver, some random people came to us, asked for cigarettes, money. Driver said that they are
drugadittos- drug addicts, who live near- on a dump of madrid. Yes, we were going to sleep on a gas stration that is 2 km from Madrid main Dump or just huge garbage mountain.
A. Ants. I hate them. they are everywhere. they were also on this station. I don't know, maybe they smel food or Cola, but they came to us. During half an hour we were building anti-ant system out of scotch and in the end we looked like satanists who made some strange signs on the ground and layed to sleep in the middle of those signs. in the end our system didn't help us.
B. Smell. after 1 AM cars with garbage start to go to the dump with frequency of 1 car per minute, if wind starts to blow from that side (and it actually does), the smell is very disgusting.
C. Drugadittos. with smell and ants one can somehow go to sleep, but when some random people walk around and think to rob you, it' much harder to slep. we did not. Even though Drugadittos were not so many (actually, only one who was comin frequently) and they didn't seem very powerful (thinner and shorter than us), we could not sleep this night. The one addito was always coming and watching if we are asleep, once at some 4 am when the probability of us sleeping was very high, he even came with a bag (most probably for convenience when carrying our stuff).
D: Some good stuff hapenned also. at 5 am Ali came. Spain won, he brought us cold pepsi, some donuts and some more smacks, we sang song for Spain victory and he showed us all the signals he had on his car. Yes. he not only switched on the light signals, he also switched on different sirenas and was talking into the loudspeaker ''Spanja, Spanja!!'' and that at 5 am, when there are some 10 trucks around with sleeping drivers. he aldo woke up some more drugadittos, but that was fun.
Granada- sleeping under olive tree (many ants and first time per trip- mosquitos).
Patrick, that was the name of our lucky driver sait that he goes to Spain, not realy in teh direction that we needed.. We were so desperate that we changed the direction.
It's so cool to see how landscape is changing. From forests of France and Germany to hills, then to mountains- in Pirenees views were so good- small rivers, walleys of yellow flowers, mountains in the fog, some snow on them, klifs... (sadly, no photos).
mountains in Spain
Went to the sea, I cut my hand a bit on the clifs under the water. we decided to screw Gibraltar and start moving back along the shore, maybe, to Barcelona and higher to the countries where it's easier to hitch-hike. (like Austria with Vienna, for instance)) 