Since our last update we have done a little sidetrip inland to Madrid. It is only about 3 hours from the Costa Blanca coast and very easy to find. Just zip up the motorway sitting on whatever speed you like as they don´t seem to care (don´t worry, Deb was on Ed´s case the entire way to keep his speed DOWN!). It was easy to find Madrid, but kind of a nightmare to drive in once we hit the city. To say the city is bustling is an understatement. It is full on, busy, honking horns, cars darting in and out, huge roundabouts etc. Add to this, two naive Aussies without a street map, and you´ll get the picture. But we were pretty impressed with ourselves as we managed to find our way to our friends hotel, as well as do a getaway on the police. The cops were directing us away from the road we needed to take and Ed decided we would get lost if we didn´t go down it so he eye-balled the police officer and then turned the exact direction we were not supposed to go and gunned it. Police chick screamed abuse at him waving her hands in disgust. Luckily Ed has very selective Spanish hearing and choose not to translate that to English! Ed proceeded on his merry way darting in and out of cars disguising his number plate, jumping red lights, going down one way streets until he thought he was in the clear. Ok, that was a slight exageration, we didn´t go through red lights or one way streets! By pure fluke we found our friend Mario´s hotel and even more of a fluke we found parking on the street nearby. Parking in Madrid is virtually impossible we found out later. We arranged with Mario to meet up with him the next day and we then went off to find a youth hostel or cheap hotel. This was also a bit of a nightmare because everything was completely booked out, even expensive hotels. We managed to find a really nice one though and even though it was abit more than we wanted to pay, it was very flash (by our standards) and it was convenient to everything.
The following morning we walked back to Mario´s hotel and met him for a walking tour of Madrid. Mario was an exceptional guide, taking us to all the main sights of Madrid. We walked for hours, wandering past the old palace, statues, famous art galleries, shopping squares, the new and old towns. In the evening we went back to our hotel to meet up with our new mates Phil and Kris who we met in Benidorm. They had trouble finding the hotel due to only copying down half the directions! Here is a hint for anyone travelling...when turning up to a massive city, where you do not speak the local lingo, chapter one of Ed´s guide says "Copy the full address down Dumb Dumb!". Anyway, we both thought Madrid was a lovely city and then the sun went down. Madrid basically turned into New Years Eve. We were told by our Spanish teacher that Madrid is a city that doesn´t sleep and we can confirm, 100%, that this is true. These guys drink beer, eat pizza and tappas all night long. Even when you get up for breakkie in the morning at 9am there is still loads of people out on the streets drinking. Just a side note on that, we have noticed at every single meal it is very common for people to have a beer. Even McDonalds serves beer. These Spaniards drink so much it is not funny. Anyway back to Madrid. The nightlife is mainly in the old town of Madrid, down rabbit warren cobblestone streets. It is dirty and grungy but man, what an atmosphere. Every second door was a nightclub or tappas bar. We recommend Madrid to anyone who wants a good week to destroy their livers. We did a little pub crawl and only went 100 metres from our hotel! We have everything from Australian bars, to flash restaurant bars, to smokey jazz bars.
After our night out, we all felt surprisingly well the next day. We went for another walk round the shops before heading back to the Coast. We managed to get lost on the way out of Madrid but while we got lost we found a Spanish Super Crag. We were driving along a gorge with cliffs getting bigger and bigger each side. We thought there had to be climbing there. 2kms down the road, bingo! If the rock is high enough, the Spanish will bolt it. We had a great few hours climbing that day. It was actually abit cold to start with and dare we say it, threatening to rain, but it held off and ended up being a perfect day. Ed came down off one climb and told Deb that this would be the climb of her holiday. He was right. It was magnificant. Beautiful limestone features, huge juggy pockets, very overhanging rock, awesome moves.
The last week we have been camping in the bush. We just drive round after the sun goes down until we find a suitable spot where we won´t get disturbed or asked to move on. We have found this to be great as it forces us to get our bums out of bed at a reasonable hour instead of lazing around all day like we did at the Orange House. Sometimes we screwed up though, our campsite that we thought was very remote and nobody would see us for miles, turned out to be someones backyard!! Whoops! Another morning we woke up with an awful lot of frost covering our tent and our car windows were frozen solid. The last few days have been cold at night and only getting up to 14degs during the day, and we haven´t seen the sun for about 3 days. Disappointing as we are only here for another few days, but since we have had 6 weeks of brilliant sunshine we are certainly not complaining. We actually want the rain to come to water the lovely Spanish countryside and fill their dams.
After a week or so of bushcamping we started smelling like homeless people and decided we better find a hotel and have a shower. We drove round for bl00dy hours looking for a hotel in a big city, but couldn´t find one anywhere. We finally came across a little campground which is very close to climbing areas and was super cheap in comparison to other campsites. It has a kickarse shower...luxury after the showers we have had to date. We have booked ourselves in for the next 6 nights before heading back to the UK.
.
