What I'm Watching: Andalucia, the Best of Southern Spain

I have it on very good authority that sunny Andalu-SEE-ya is the place to be when you're retired and carefree.  Plenty of fun in the sun, wine that flows like water, and so many, uh, cheeky young men to wait on you hand and foot in countless beach bars that cater to the mature expat population.  See what you think.

 

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Rick Steves: England's Cornwall

Cornwall.  Why not?  Anywhere to get away from the ghastly U. S. news for a little while.

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What I'm Watching: Rick Steves

Forty-four years ago today, your Head Trucker first set foot on the soil of merry old England, owing to the grace of a little unexpected windfall that came into my hands - though I really had no business gallivanting off to foreign parts when money was so hard to come by.

Owing to assorted family tragedies and financial reverses, too dreary to relate here, by the time I finished high school my mom and I were deep in poverty.  It took me ten long years of perseverance to finally get through college, meanwhile learning the value of a dollar the hard way, by working all sorts of ill-paid, bottom-drawer jobs with no future:  construction worker, apartment cleaner, warehouseman, delivery truck driver, retail clerk, night auditor, and so forth.

But to see Europe and its history, art, and culture with my own eyes - ah, now that was like a dream come true!  I decided there was no better way to use that little sum than to treat myself to a two-week tour of London and Paris - at the time it cost around $800 (about three months' minimum-wage pay then) for a hotel-and-airfare package deal via TWA.  It might have been more prudent to save that money or apply it to necessities; but I thought to myself at the time, what if I never get another chance to go? 

And in point of fact, no other chance ever did present itself, so I'm glad I went when I could:  a poor man's Grand Tour.  The memories are lovely.  It would have been even nicer if I'd had a travel companion to share the experience with, but none of my blue-collar friends could afford it, or were even interested in seeing them furrin places over yonder.  Why bother with all that boring old stuff when you could just stay home, pop another Bud, and watch the Bicentennial Minutes?

Fate being a rather capricious tour guide on the road of life, I am still struggling to make ends meet in retirement, but I'm sure that many Americans are by now familiar with the travel books and videos of Rick Steves, a lively, extroverted fellow who thinks travel is not only fun but educational as well.  Pick just about any European country you please, and you will easily find one or several Rick Steves videos on YouTube telling you just how to get there, and what to see and do.

But though Rick presents himself as a laid-back, happy-go-lucky type, he has a lot more on the ball than you might expect.  He has written a book whose title is self-explanatory:  Travel as a Political Act, which I have not read, but I believe he expresses some of the same views in this video I'm watching this week.  If you want to hear the philosophy of travel from someone who has spent a third of his life in Europe every year for the last forty years, give it a whirl; I'm about halfway through it myself, and find it very thought-provoking.




Or if you'd rather just imagine yourself soaking up some rays and cruising through the blue Mediterranean, here's a you-are-there video. Enjoy!

Getting There Is Half the Fun (1950)

Cunard offers you a gay, luxurious voyage you'll never forget!

Paris to Milan by TGV

It's not the Orient Express, but Mark Smith, the Man in Seat 61, makes it look like a very nice ride - at 186 miles an hour!  A pity we have nothing to match this in the U. S. of A.

National Geographic: Cruise Ship

Now would be a good time to get away to the islands. With five thousand of your closest friends.

Guest Post: Córdoba

Contributed by my truckbuddy Tim from England, now resident in Spain:

Tim’s Take on Spain

Córdoba – Public Treasures, Private Passions?

I do like a nice coccyx, and that one is certainly exceptional. It’s a complex confluence of overlaying muscles that sometimes magically combine to create a wonderfully corrugated set of curves and channels at the base of the spine. I suppose Russ will tell me it’s more properly called the sacrum, but coccyx is the most commonly used term for this part of the torso and it’s such a playful word, why waste it?

Sadly, the coccyx is often overlooked, or hidden, compared to its more well known and up-front counterpart, the abdominal muscles. We all like the look of a six-pack, even if most of us have drunk ours by now! Every model worth his salt must be able to display at least a four-pack; some even have eight, goddammit! Nowadays I manage with just the one and cherish the memories of plurality!

Córdoba is a bit like a coccyx, when compared to the more well known abdominals of Granada. The beautiful red sandstone Alhambra Palace and terraced water gardens of the Generalife are justifiably considered some of the most beautiful monuments in the world, and put Granada at the top of the tourist trail in Spain. The small provincial city of Córdoba, however, stands somewhat in the shadow of its more illustrious cousin, yet the magnificent Moorish mosque, La Mezquita, and the tranquil pools and ponds of the Alcázar gardens are, to my mind, equally deserving of exploration and admiration, just like this coccyx!

When I started Tim’s Take at Russ’ behest, I decided straight away that I didn’t want to write about the ‘touristy’ side of Spain. It’s so much more than beaches and bullfights, flamenco and fiestas. Plenty of travel writers have been before me and done that. Ernest Hemingway and Orson Welles got a lot closer than most, so I’m in illustrious company!

For me it’s quite simple; in order to get to know Spain, you first have to understand its people, not its cultural symbols. And to get to know the Spanish people, you have to understand their passions: their extraordinary passion for life, death, and everything in between. This is the key to understanding the never-ending illogical actions, the seemingly endless contradictions that even everyday life throws up. It’s taken me almost ten years to appreciate this, slowly at first, but I now believe I’ve found that holy grail, the unifying theory that explains everything! It didn’t help being British; we are more used to keeping our emotions under control and our passions secret.

In Spain the view is just the opposite. How can you keep quiet about something you love? If you feel it, show it! But whilst Spanish emotions are always on display, their passions are harder to discern: you have to learn what to look for, and where to look for it. Not everything in Spain is obvious – to a foreigner’s eye. So in this post I want to make a contrast between some of the very public treasures on view, and the more private passions hidden behind some of Spain’s cultural icons, just like comparing the abdominals to the coccyx. And obviously I am going to talk about bullfighting and flamenco – see, that’s Spanish logic!

Partner and I act as key holders for some of our absent neighbours, looking after their gardens, letting tradesmen in, etc. This brings in some useful pocket money that Partner likes to spend on our garden, new plants, fertiliser for the lawn, and such. Last year we made a decent surplus, and he suggested we take a short break in Córdoba during October. Now I’m not usually one for cities, but Córdoba is quite small and has many wonderful historical monuments, a rich local cuisine, and hotels that accept dogs. We tacked on a few days in Zuheros after Córdoba, so I could get my fix of the countryside, and set off for the Hotel Selou, located right in the middle of the city and next to some parks, very useful when you have a dog in tow!

Córdoba lies in the north of Andalucia, about two and a half hours’ drive away. It sits on the right bank of the broad and fast-flowing Rio Guadalquivir, still crossed by one of the original Roman bridges.

Continued after the jump . . . 

Guest Post: Trains and Butts and Plains, Part 2

From my English truckbuddy Tim, continuing the tale of his recent journey through the Spanish region of La Subbetica:

The alternative title for this post is ‘There’s no room at the Inn, try the Jail!’ Read on and you will discover why.

As promised in Part 1, our guide for this post is young Martiño Rivas. Part 1 also has a map of La Subbética if you want to follow my route.

One of the things I find interesting about him is his colouring. It’s not the typical Spanish look, his eyes are green and his hair is light brown and straight rather than dark and curly. He comes from Galicia, in the north-west of Spain. Never controlled by the moors, the region has a strong seafaring tradition, and sailors from northern Europe would have been regular visitors and eventual settlers, even 2000 years ago. This fairer colouring is therefore more common in the north, and I hope you’ll agree, makes for a nice contrast. 

Here he is with friend and fellow Galician, actor Yon Gonzalez, whom you might consider more Spanish in looks.

Oh yes, back to the trip: Lulu and I have spent the morning shopping in Doña Mencia, and then enjoy a leisurely brunch at La Cantina, just watching the world come and go, which is a favourite Spanish occupation everywhere. Although the little bar is on the edge of town, it is a popular meeting place for the locals. Reps from the agricultural equipment companies whose factories lie to the west, business men closing a deal over a glass of Rioja, the many hikers and cyclists of course, and the local boys, sadly mostly unemployed, but always with enough money for a coke and some cigarettes, raising clouds of dust with their cars as they race around the gravel-strewn car park for fun. The swallows are busy racing around too, they are building nests on the air-conditioning units hung on the outside walls.

Below them two colourful posters advertise a dog show and farm equipment. This is a very different Spain from the cosmopolitan coast. Reluctantly, we set off along the Via Verde and head back to the hotel.

It’s early spring here in the Subbética, and following the winter harvest, the olive trees are being pruned, and the diseased ones cut down. All over the rolling hills, little pillars of smoke rise high into the still air as the cuttings and old trunks are burnt. Lulu and I take our time, both of us enjoying the sights and sounds of the countryside. On the way I say ‘Hola’ to an old boy who has stopped his labours amidst the olive groves, and is busy whittling walking sticks from the cut-down branches whilst he takes a leisurely lunch. I say ‘old’ because from a distance I would say he is approaching 60, but as I near him I can see he is younger, late 40’s perhaps, but his face is tanned and cracked by the sun: it has a patina just like the gnarled trunks of the trees he tends.

His name is Juanma, and he makes a fuss of Lulu, who has designs on his mixta, a ham and cheese roll. We talk in a mixture of Spanish and schoolboy French, for like most Spaniards away from the tourist areas he has no English (and why should he?). We chatted about walking sticks and the benefits of certain types of wood over others. Then I ask him about his work, and the hunting I had seen going on in the area when I had visited before one Christmas. Mainly rabbits and partridge, he says, but sometimes hares too. I tell him about the Harris hawk I had for hunting back in England. He hadn’t seen one, but he knew someone who kept them, and he knew about Red Tailed Hawks and Falcons too. I told him about the birds I had seen at Zuheros, and he was able to answer a question that had been bothering me for the last couple of nights, indeed it had been keeping me awake. By day the olive groves ring to the cuckoo like call of the brightly coloured Hoopoe . . . hoop-hoop, hoop-hoop.



But at night, all night, there was this strange, incessant, sonar-like ping echoing through the tress and over the hills. Every 2 to 3 seconds, ping, ping, ping . . . it was keeping me awake and driving me mad. At least knowing its source would give it a name. He told me it was a little owl, a Scops Owl to be precise.

Here it is, listen to the little bugger! (I discovered that if you shine your torch out of the bedroom window at 2am you will frighten away the Scops Owl that is perched on the pine tree outside your room. You will also trip over the dog, and probably wake the French couple in the room next door!) If it had had a neck, I would have cheerfully wrung it!



As I went to leave, Juanma gave me one of the walking sticks he had finished. I offered him some money, but he waved it away - ‘I have plenty here’ - and he gestured to the trees with outstretched arms. What a lovely guy. The Spanish are often reserved with foreigners, but if you try and speak the language more often than not they will open up. I’d spent an hour chatting to him, and for that experience alone, the trip was worth it.

As I walked back to the hotel, there was a smell in the air that I could not identify, there was heat to it, it had weight. Only later did I realise that it was the land, the very soil itself. It was the great grey mountain behind me, eroded by wind and rain and time, brought down over the millennia by the tiny streams and rivulets that still flow towards the low hills stretching away before me. It was the smell of the olive trees that grew in it, and, as the old boughs crackled and burned on their funeral pyres, returned to it once more. What a magical day!

 

Continued after the jump . . .

 

Guest Post: Trains and Butts and Plains, Part 1

Just in time for Columbus Day, a trip to La Subbética, from my English truckbuddy Tim, now resident in Spain:

My apologies to Burt Bacharach for the punning title, but I couldn’t resist it. By way of recompense let me introduce you to the extremely studly Miguel Ángel Silvestre. I think you’ll agree he’s very easy on the eye, more about him soon!

Russ has long thought it would be a good idea for me to tell you about my life here in Spain, here’s his brief:

Most people who read the Blue Truck have never been to Spain - though they might like the music, kinda. (Hmm, there's a song in that somewhere.) It's always interesting to read a vivid description of a faraway place. Even if they have been there, it's likewise interesting to hear someone else's take on a place you already know well.

What color are the houses? How tall are Spaniards? Do they have discos, bowling alleys, freeways, pizza, fortune-tellers? You mentioned the other day the cubos or something, a small case of beer and its cost - now that was very interesting to know. Do you get a refund if you bring the box back to the store? And what does the beer taste like? Do you drink it cold or hot? Is it easy to be gay there, or do you have to hide it? I'm sure there are many everyday sights and sounds and things that are right in front of your nose, ordinary and familiar to you but strange and exotic to the rest of us that would make good reading.

. . . Next time get a yen to write, perhaps you will give us some descriptions of the place and say what led you to settle there, so far away from the Scepter'd Isle and a proper dish of tay?

So welcome to the first of what will hopefully be a series, a personal take on Spain and things Spanish, and perhaps along the way, we might look at some of my reasons for living here, so far away from that Scepter’d Isle . . . and get to answer some of Russ’ questions . . . bowling alleys, Bubba??

Partner and I first visited southern Spain some 35 years ago, and we determined then that it was the place we both wanted to retire to, which is exactly what we did 9 years ago this November. Undoubtedly one of the attractions all those years ago was that classic ‘Latin’ look of the young men, of which the aforementioned actor Miguel Ángel Silvestre is a perfect example.

Although I’m a sucker for the blond, blue-eyed beach-boy look, who can resist smouldering brown eyes, framed by thick black hair, olive-brown skin and a permanent five o’clock shadow to die for? Well not me obviously! Miguel Ángel is a very popular film and TV actor over here, made famous by his role as ‘El Duque’, a tale about the life of a drugs and crime baron, set in contemporary Madrid. But just like James Gandolfini’s characterisation of mobster Tony Soprano, he makes this monster a very human and believable person. He’s recently completed filming “I’m So Excited!” with Pedro Almodovar, so perhaps international stardom beckons, but for now he remains one of our better kept secrets. I noticed that in the interviews he gave in LA he used the word ‘adrenalin’ a lot; personally I think ‘testosterone’ would be better – woof!

It was April, and Partner had gone back to visit friends in the UK, so I decided to take a break too. The car was packed and with Lulu to keep me company, we headed for our favourite country retreat, a lovely rural hotel in the Subbética region of Andalucía.  

La Subbética lies at the heart of Andalucía - you can use this second map to follow my travels.

My drive is not a long one, a leisurely 3 hours if you take a long coffee stop, but it covers a wealth of differing landscapes and lifestyles within a short distance, and that is very typical of Spain itself, always something different. In Spain you soon learn to expect the unexpected; there is an anarchistic streak in the land and its people! I leave our home on the cosmopolitan coastal strip, the tourist trap that is known as the Costa del Sol, and soon I’m driving up through the steeply ridged mountains behind Malaga City. The road is a new one, it soars over the valleys on beautiful arched bridges and plunges deep through the mountains in sinuous tunnels.

And I’m completely alone. Not another car in sight. And why? Because this new road is a toll road, and Spanish drivers do not pay toll fees. They prefer to take the old road across the mountains, the one that follows the ancient sheep and goat trails. It’s tried, it’s trusted, and it’s free!

However, being alone on a Spanish road is no bad thing, for they are arguably the worst drivers in Europe. They have no fundamental rule of the road, no left and right, they simply drive down the middle, added to which they look no further than the end of their bonnet, if they are looking and not using their mobile phone that is! It’s the responsibility of other road users to guess where they are going, and act accordingly, not theirs. Providing you have enough rosaries, crucifixes and blessed virgins hanging from your driving mirror no harm will befall you, however badly you drive! Not being especially religious, partner and I have a fluffy stork hanging from the mirror in our Jag. We bought it in Extramadura, where the storks go to breed in the summer, and it seems to work almost as well as the religious icons! We call it ‘Storkie’.

This joke about traffic lights sums up the Spanish attitude to driving very well:

In cities they are a provocation, in the countryside they are an irritation, at Christmas time they are a decoration!

Within an hour I am passing the lovely old city of Antequera, with the spires and towers of its many churches reaching towards the sun above the surrounding streets and alleys.

Suddenly the mountains are behind me and the plain of Antequera stretches ahead. This plain – the Hoya de Antequera, is a wonderfully fertile basin surrounded on all sides by mountains. Rich farmland, ideal for cultivating grain, rice, sunflowers, and home to the sheep whose wool is still processed in the old city. But alas not for much longer. The powers that be have decided that this flat basin will make the perfect spot for a huge rail technology centre, a railway test-bed for the latest developments in high-speed rail travel. It will entail the loss of more than a quarter of a million acres of farmland, the expropriation of 712 farmsteads and small businesses.

Spain is justifiably proud of its position as the purveyor of some of the world’s fastest trains and technology. China, Saudi Arabia and the USA are just 3 of it’s customers for high-speed train systems. Undoubtedly the test centre will bring employment and create wealth and business opportunities, but the fertile land and existing economy will be lost. Believe me, there are plenty of flat, worthless areas in central Spain where such a centre could be swallowed up unnoticed, yet still create the jobs and wealth. This scheme, like so much in Spanish politics and big business today, smells of bribery and corruption.

Continued after the jump . . .

All Aboard the Gay Train

This is pretty fucking amazing, as Metroweekly reports:

J.C. Penney did it and now so has Amtrak. It has launched a promotional campaign that includes gay families.

As part of an effort to market its standard discounted family travel program, for the first time, the national passenger rail company included gay families in its materials. In an online ad sent by Instinct magazine to its email subscribers, a photo of same-sex parents with their child is featured.

Two version of the ad, one with a picture of a male couple and another with a female couple, were distributed. Both versions include the headline: Priceless Family Moments Are Now Affordable. The ad goes on to promote Amtrak's 50% off campaign for children age 2 to 15 who are traveling with an adult, and directs readers to its gay travel website, www.AmtrakRideWithPride.com.

Note: the Ride with Pride website is totally lame and mostly blank. Some of you travel queens out there need to complain about that.

I remember when my first husband and I rode Amtrak from the Deep South up to, first, D. C., where the Quilt was being displayed, then on to Boston and back, in 1992. I love train travel - it's the only way to go - and that was quite a trip.

Since the trip to D. C. took all day, from about 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., we took some naps in our seats, pulling a bomber jacket over us so we could hold hands underneath it while we dozed - and often one head rested on the other's one's shoulder. The old hard-bitten conductor gave us the evil eye every time he came down the aisle, but we didn't give a fuck. There were, understandably, a number of other gays making the trip on that same train - and it was a happy surprise to find that most of the passenger service attendants were gay, too.

Amtrak is not what it could be, should be - mainly because it is forever starved of cash by Congress, which won't let it die but won't let it flourish, either. Sometimes there are delays, and some of the non-gay attendants can be surly. Still, if the trains are going where you want to go at the right times, I highly recommend it - doubly so now.

Amtrak routes; click to enlarge.
Note:  Service between New Orleans and Jacksonville
has been suspended since Hurricane Katrina in 2005

Leaving on a Jet Plane: Peter, Paul, and Mary

The classic song of wistful departure and the promise of return. For all of you skying out today, traveling to or from the one you love.

This is my 200th post. Been an interesting experience, this blogging thing. I started it on the spur of the moment, with no particular plan of what to do with it. Hell, I still don't have a particular plan. It's just kinda fun. And saves me deluging my friends and family with tons of emails on various subjects; now I just tell them, go see what I posted on my blog today.

If you like what I'm doing here, drop me a line at bluetruckredstate@gmail.com and let me know. I appreciate the emails and comments I've gotten from you Truckers already.

Here's wishing all of you a very happy Thanksgiving.