Salamanca

It’s hard not to think about cost comparisons and to wonder how they can be so different across our two countries. On the face of it UK - Spain we are the same. It appears that we have the same standard of living. The cars people drive and the clothes they wear look the same here as at home. Yet prices are lower. The Camping Gaz 907 cylinder was barely €20 whereas in the UK they are now £40.  A bottle of lager, served in a glass at a bar, is €1.20, coffee served at café are <€2. We have been buying diesel at €1.69 although that is after a government discount of 25c. 

How does this happen? Supply and demand? Labour rates? Other costs of doing business? Tax rates? I wonder what the net margins are. Maybe if I’d studied Economics I would be better prepared and able to answer.

We left the lovely riverside position with the Geese Man and drove towards Salamanca.

Now the scenery becomes flat, arable and almost monotonous. Rapeseed is well in flower and what will be cornfields, are deep green with calf-length shoots. It’s dry but cold; the temperature is struggling again to get into double figures.

We see our first castle, there will no doubt be many more. Then we arrive at Salamanca and head to Lidl for fresh food, before arriving at a recommended campsite a few minutes out of the city, Camping Don Quixote.

The Lidl fish is cooked and we have a shower. It’s another chilly night and it rains a little but tomorrow promises to be sunny and we check on the bus times so that we can spend the day in the city.

Salamanca is built around the University which is the third oldest in the world. I suppose that’s after Oxford and Cambridge, or is it Cambridge and Oxford? No, Oxford first I think.

I could rant about how cheap the bus fare is but I won’t. We jump off and it’s a quick walk to Piaza Mayor, an 18C beautiful grand square.

The ‘New’ Cathedral is stupendous and we walked around craning our necks to see the cupola high above us, as we listened to the narrative on our phone - triggered from a QR code.

We had a coffee in the square, it cost no more than anywhere else and then wandered around the university buildings which seem to be open for anyone. It’s beautiful.

Spanish lunches can be big affairs and we ate Menu del Dia at a place on the square and finally went Frog Hunting. Dawn was happy to finally spot it in the sculptures over a university entrance and she’s now able to relax in the knowledge that she should do ok in her exams!

The wandering starts…

The village with the garage that fixed the leak is only a few miles south of Santander in a deep valley. Once back on the road, we had a great drive into the hills to the south. As soon as possible we turned off the main road and meandered along a river valley and then turned steeply up, out of the trees and into proper hill country. In spite of a late Spring, the verges and leaves lower down are almost ‘out’ but up here the trees are bare.

There are field barns everywhere with really heavy stone skates on them. It’s all ‘hill farming’ that looks small scale. When you stop, the air is full of the sound of bells. The animals are unseen though. 

Some people wave but most stand and look. I think I would too. A mobile shop was open at a stop near a few houses and a group of oldies were chatting. We drove higher and then up a small road to get a view with our lunch.

From here you can see snow to the north east. This isn’t the Pyrenees, just the mountains behind Santander/ Bilbao.

A little further and we could see north west to the Cordillera Cantabria, of which the Picos mountains are part. Spring is definitely late over there. Had the weather forecast been a little warmer and stable, I think we might have gone for some walking, although there’s maybe too much snow.

At the top of another hill is a mirador with expansive views. It’s a tempting ‘wild camp’ but the forecast is for cooler weather and some rain in the next 24 hours so we chickened out.

We continued south, not very quickly, marvelling at the scenery and total lack of cars and people. As happened last time in Spain, we were often surprised. Rounding a corner there was a rock bridge across a valley and we realised that the road skirted it so that we could park and walk back to it along the side of a field on the top side.

We arrived at another village with its own ‘aire’, this time no barriers, just a guy who lives opposite and looks out to greet travellers. This is Villadiego, west of Burgos and the old fella gave us so much literature about the place we could have stayed for a week.

The aire has a set of water taps in hydrant style and chem and grey water drains. These sort of facilities put the UK to shame.

The old guy looks after a gaggle of geese in a pen and housing, next to the river and each evening walks them from their cage, round the corner and into the ford and back.

 

We drank an Estrella in the village square. What beautiful buildings they are.

“Sometimes my brother does good work”

Someone called across from the other line as we were queuing to go through ‘passports’ on arrival at Santander. “Those blue and yellow ribbons are really effective up on your roof”. I had to think for a moment. What was she referring to? Then I realised she could see the ratchet straps holding the waste tank onto the rack. That reminded us that the war in Ukraine goes on and that all is not well in the world, even as we begin another trip.

  

Santander is one of those places where instead of driving through, one should stay and enjoy the place. It looks especially nice in the sun but we had a plan, of sorts and drove on!

We arrived at a village previously discovered by the Head of Stopovers and drove to their new aire by the river. Here you can gain access through the barrier and connect to the electricity supply, as long as you can understand the plentiful instructions on the informacion board. The English ones didn’t present much of a problem and so we paid €7 to be able to open a little compartment to obtain a pass in a box, for the barrier.

All we then had to do, was try to ignore the driving advice from two English motorhomers who warned again and again about the 10% hill we would encounter if we decided to drive the (main) road south. They had descended this hill and their brakes had got very hot. One of them had apparently chucked a load of water on his hubs to cool them down. I tried to discuss engine braking but didn’t get far.

We have decided to use real electricity on this trip as more and more places bundle a hook-up in the fee. So for the first time in several years we brought a cable and the necessary adapter from Euro two pin to the big macho 16A UK blue plug. We also needed a kettle which the Head Quartermaster had added to the stores list. Anyway as we are being ‘fleeced’ in the UK over 907 Camping Gaz prices, it seemed like the good idea was being confirmed.

The new leak was located, although this smelly, recent one was diesel, there was still the original one from the power steering. Anyone would think that I don’t maintain this Landy.

Under the bonnet diesel had sprayed everywhere. It was dripping down to the steering and off onto the tarmac which is #neveragoodthing. The main leak off pipe had decided to split at one end so I was able to cut it back and push it onto to #1 injector. I then had to cleanup and the Head Assistant was able to hold a rubbish bag, as many diesel covered rags were generated.

The immediate scene here is pastoral but from the 1950s. We watched as a farmer with a 21C tractor repeatedly filled a small slurry spreader and then took it to a nearby field whereupon it was emptied in a flash.

His daughter was there to open an electric fence for each journey and this happened all late afternoon and early evening before he then got the cows in for milking.

The ‘parlour’ is an old fashioned low ceiling ‘barn’ with the cows in stalls and the clusters moved by hand to each. So he is walking behind them which is never a good thing. The flies were horrible and he was still doing at dusk, which is already 9:30pm here ( CET and longitude combined - latitude isn’t really relevant still as it only April

The next morning we drove into the village and dropped power steering oil (ATF) all around. It was time to do something. First though I swapped an empty 907 for a full one and was charged a little under €20. That’s better and was also in ‘The Plan’.

After some Googling and searching on the Main Street, we located el mechanico and after some explanation using Google translate, a guy was quickly under the very drippy power steering pipe.

After getting a very oily arm and even more oily floor and two attempts to find a suitable seal, everyone stood back as I exercised the steering which finally didn’t leak.

One guy who has been watching the job then said in his best English, “ sometimes my brother does good work”

What a great place and so accommodating they were too. We had literally stopped outside and asked for help. Ahora? Si 

 

Back to Spain - post Covid-19 trip

The first leg on our third tour of Spain would be home to Plymouth on 24th April for a 16:45 sailing on the 20 hour crossing to Santander.

All went well save for a continued annoying leak of power steering oil from a previously replaced O ring. We made good time sitting at 65mph without the overdrive fitted, as it still needs to be rebuilt.

The first stop was at Gloucester services which was developed by the Tebay people and so is completely different to all other services except Tebay. It’s like walking into an artisan market with crusty breads and pastries in front of the main doorway. We bought live yogurts for later.

Just before reaching Plymouth we stopped for picnic lunch at a parking spot in a village school sports field.

At the Brittany Ferries terminal we already felt ‘late’ even though we were early. It’s amazing to see the varied vehicles and people all ‘off to Spain’. There was a small group travelling in Aston Martin DBs, a new Defender (Pretender) towing a nice RIB on a trailer, an empty minibus (maybe the passengers needed to walk on). One vehicle was towing an empty transporter trailer. Of course there were plenty of bikers, caravans, motorhomes and campervans. The majority of people  seemed to be all around our age. Certainly there were no kids.

Rather surprisingly, just in front was another Defender 110 with the same Icarus roof as us. They had driven from north of Loch Lomond and were planning to swing east and then spend a month in France. That’s before they drive, in August when the 90 days restriction has elapsed, to the north of Denmark to get the ferry to Iceland. “it’s our third trip there”.

Check-in was easy for us but not for two bikers in front. I realised they had a problem when one eventually started to make a phone call. Somehow you just knew that they were going to be turned around. We presented our printed Covid-19 vaccination record, much easier for them to glance at than handing a phone over. They didn’t scan the QR codes.

Inevitably we were selected by ‘security’ for a customs check. A nice guy and gal asked questions that they had rehearsed, “are you carrying any drugs that aren’t medically prescribed?” “have you anything explosive?” and “can we look in the roof box?”. I climbed (impressively) up my side steps to open it and the guy used a stick with a tiny mirror to look inside. I’m sorry but that isn’t very thorough. Good job I’m not a smuggler. Meanwhile the gal looked in the back saying “ooh it’s so comfy in there”.

In the chat that ensued the guy said he likes Land Rovers and was “brought up around them” before then asking, “ is this a 110?” 🙄 I honestly think they just wanted to look at in interesting vehicle.

Then we boarded and I think, in all the years of using ferries, this was as tight as it gets.

It doesn’t look much but they wanted me to drive along the second lane to the left but all the vehicle doors were open and so I moved over until we were nearly in the right place. By the time we were loaded you could hardly walk between the vehicles.

Then we were off and accelerated to 22 knots. What an awesome ship this is. We soon passed the Eddystone Rocks with the fourth lighthouse to be built there. This one is surviving far longer than the others.

What a great smooth crossing was had, the sea was calm and it was hard to discern any roll. Also 20 hours from Plymouth is much shorter than 30 from Portsmouth. Tomorrow came quickly and we were soon getting our passports stamped - what a treat!

Unfortunately a smelly Land Rover meant for a distracted drive south to a suitable aire where I could have a look at what I thought was oil but decided would be diesel. It was. Lots of it coming from a leak-off pipe.

I hope I have fixed it!