Wanderung 14

The Plane to Spain replaced by the Bounding Main!

April-May 2007

Day 27: Thursday May 12 2007, Drive to Madrid, Spain

Noon Position: On the A-1 Autovia on the way to Madrid

Bob:

This was a day when things went according to plan, up to a point, and then the wheels came off. We took A-67 South from Santander and although it was not completely finished, the two-lane section only delayed us a little bit. The scenery was beautiful coastal mountains, which made the drive pleasant. We turned left on N-627 to head for Burgos and although that was a two-lane highway, there were very few towns along the way to slow us up so we made good time. I followed a tour bus much of the way to Burgos and he kept a nice, steady, safe pace. The mountains became rolling hills and plains as we traveled to Burgos, where we joined the A-1 interstate that would take us due South to Madrid.

I was feeling curiously tired, so Monika took a turn with the driving as we headed for Madrid. The rolling plains became quite flat in places and the mosaic of fertile fields and small towns reminded me of the Great Plains of the U.S. Although the scenery was getting boring, we made good time since the speed limit on the interstates in Spain is 120 kph (68 mph), so we decided to drive to the hotel we had reserved for Monday and Tuesday nights to see if they could take us in a couple of days early (Plan A).

Near Madrid we crossed two low ranges of mountains and then shifted drivers so that Monika could do the navigating while I was doing the driving for the final approach into the city. Although we had bought a detailed street map of Madrid and located the street with our hotel on it, our troubles began as soon as we got off the interstate. We immediately entered a maze of one-way streets with no markings whatsoever; it took us well over half an hour to drive just a couple of miles because streets would suddenly become 1-way the wrong way or just be closed off for no indiscernible reason. All that effort was for naught because when we reached the hotel they were booked up for the night.

Monika:

Today we were moving our base of operations south. Depending on the length of the drive we were either going to stay just north of Madrid or if the the drive went OK, follow the cunning plan of trying to book a couple days early into the hotel in Madrid where we had reservations for the last two days and make it our base of operations. Well the drive went like a breeze. I actually drove 1 1/2 hours on the Autovia. The first part went through mountains and then on a high (3000 foot) plateau before we went down into the "plains of Spain" where it was NOT raining.

I had the address of the hotel but no map. So we bought a map of Madrid and it even had the one way streets marked. We found the hotel, after driving in a few one way circles even with a map. Unfortunately, they did not have a room for the night.

Bob:

Plan B was to just find some hotel near the airport and stay there for a couple of nights, but putting Plan B into action proved to be unbelievably difficult. Every time we would try to exit the interstate we would be frustrated by the total lack of signage for the hotels or anything else, for that matter. We spent the next couple of hours exploring different parts of the labyrinth of streets on the South side of the airport, but we never managed to get to the hotels although we could clearly see them in the distance. Truly Madrid seemed to be a city where the phrase "you can't get there from here" was true, at least for out-of-town drivers. The driving was very strenuous because of the narrow size of the one-way streets and the charming Spanish habit of simply double-parking their cars with blinkers on wherever they felt like it, which turned the driving almost into some kind of video arcade game except one in which the stakes of a crunched car were very real.

I was finally so tired of getting lost in the mazes of little one-way cul-de-sacs that we gave up on Plan B and went to Plan C, which was to drive out of Madrid in the direction of Toledo on A-42 and find a hotel along the way where we could stay two nights and hopefully see Toledo. After yet another case of a street unexpectedly dead-ending at a major intersection right in front of a hospital (buses were allowed to get through to the major cross street but not cars!), we temporarily threw in the towel and backtracked to a McDonalds for a much belated lunch. It's not that either of us really likes McDonalds fast food, by the way. Monika was starved and getting a headache from lack of food, so she really needed to eat. For myself, I just wanted a piece of good ole' American normalcy after coping unsuccessfully with the Madrid road system for several hours. For those of you on low-fat diets, the Spanish McDonalds does not offer grilled chicken, only the deep fat fried version is available on sandwiches or, as in my case, on the salads.

As unhealthy as it might have been, the meal gave us renewed energy to try to get to the Ibis Hotel we earlier passed on A-42. The appropriate exit in the southern direction was simply blocked off, for no discernable reason, and when we finally managed to turn around and try to get to it going North we off course took the wrong exit, since it wasn't marked at all, and got lost one more time in a maze of one-way streets. Using the GPS, we ultimately guessed our way out of that mess, got back to the A-42, and managed to find the (unmarked) exit that led to the hotel. Fortunately they had a room for two nights, because I was really exhausted. When I started running a fever, it became clear that I was sick with some kind of intestinal bug, possibly Salmonellosis. In any case, my high fever created a very odd and fixated dream theme. I was convinced that we had a choice of two different bus tours with different possible sets of pictures, and I simply couldn't decide on which one to take so I repeatedly ran over the pros and cons of each (imaginary) trip for the whole dratted night. All in all, fever, intestinal attacks every hour or so, and weird repetitive dreaming made for a miserable night.

Monika:

Now what to do? We decided to drive around the airport trying to find a hotel. Getting back to the interstate was our first challenge and we managed to get back after a little while. From there it was nothing but frustration. We saw hotels, but couldn't get to them or followed hotel signs that didn't seem to lead to anywhere. After an hour of this we decided to drive south towards Toledo, where we finally saw an IBIS hotel on the other side of the road. We took the next exit and a road back. But this road did not connect with the road that would have gotten us across the interstate to the hotel. It just stopped half a block short at a hospital parking lot. So we went back tried to get back to the interstate. Again there was no way from here to there.

By now I was starving. A slice of toast at 8 a.m. just doesn't last very long and it was about 2 p.m.--we had gotten to Madrid around 12 noon. When I saw a McDonalds in a shopping mall, we pulled into the parking lot and had lunch. Unfortunately they did not have grilled chicken, so Bob made do with a salad while I had a hamburger and fries. After leaving McDonalds the road luckily led us into the correct direction for the IBIS and with only one more detour through one way streets we made it to the IBIS and booked a room for two nights. Bob collapsed onto the bed. I thought it was the rather strenuous driving, but it was more than that. He seemed to have caught a bug and had diarrhea and a fever. Fortunately there was an Aldi next to the IBIS. So I bought bread and meat for our evening meal. Bob barely dragged himself up to put the car into the parking garage and then went to bed.

Copyright 2007 by R. W. Holt and E. M. Holt
Prolog Map of Cruise Map of Spain Epilog

April 2007
Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
8 9 10 11 12 13 14
15 16 17 18 19 20 21
22 23 24 25 26 27 28
29 30
May 2007
Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9 10 11 12
13 14 15 16 17 18 19
20 21 22 23 24 25 26
27 28 29 30 31

Return to the Wanderungs Homepage.
Sign the Guestbook or Read the Guestbook.
Comments about this site? Email the Webmaster.
Contact Bob and Monika at bob_monika@hotmail.com.