Alicante to Madrid - 450 Kms

As usual a lazy morning, this time though the church bells in the vicinity started breaking our dreams early in the morning. Abhi was slumbering in the bed and I was constantly trying to get him to go and take a shower. I cannot understand why I would not do the same instead. It is better to push the other person to get to do things and then follow suit.

Had our favourite holiday food, Kebab, which in Spanish is ‘Kebap’. To be followed by an English style tea with milk and sugar. Though the fella behind the counter did not understand what milk was, so in a friendly fashion made us put the words in his mouth ‘You don’t have milk’. He happily agreed, though my Indian friend who only likes his tea the English style, made him open cupboards and find a huge jug of milk sitting pretty. This made him jump to ‘leche’ (milk for spanish) and reminded me from my trip to Barcelona earlier this year about café con leche, which as you would have already guessed is coffee with milk.

The weather in Alicante was chilly with a dominant cloud cover in the sky. Took some photographs and bought myself some shades off the road from an African Spanish bloke who spoke decent English but did not know his numbers and had to tell me the price by typing it on his mobile. Luckily the shades I liked had a small insignificant scratch on one corner and I managed to pull his selling price down to 9 Euros instead of 15. According to him they are originals nicked off from some weird warehouse and to be sold at the streets of Spain. Not plausible, but then you can take these stories on their face value and enjoy them. Most of these street vendors are illegal and are often chased by the police. To counter, these guys have their merchandise displayed on a big piece of cloth with diagonal ropes tied at the four ends. This way if the cops come they can pull everything together in a matter of seconds and run. As is always the story with immigration, the local authorities cannot do without a certain number of people who are willing to do odd jobs. So all these Africans are an integral part of Spain doing their bit.

The beach in Alicante reminds me of a plan that a girl once had. She wanted to go the beach in the night with her boyfriend and have a quiet relaxing time under the moon with the waves of the sea in the foreground. They were in Alicante at the festival time and after walking around for sometime they decided to head to the beach at about 11 in the evening. As they headed to the beach, they found the place full of people, everyone partying like crazy. The novel idea that she had was already taken up by loads of other people and possibly they do it all the time. The expression on her face was remarkable.

It was a cold day and definitely not the most conducive one for a dip. So after some clicking it was time to head back to the Golf and start our penultimate journey, this time to the capital, Madrid. Sometimes these motorways can be boring, they are smooth and clean and have nothing but fast moving vehicles on them. The scenery around is more or less the same with greenery at places and buildings at others. When speed cameras come everyone tends to slow down and other times people hit the gas without respecting the speed limits too much. I touched 195 today, which is possibly a personal best and a million miles over the allowed speed of 120. We are about 200 kms from Madrid now and can see lots of windmills around, generating energy using ever present resource of wind and helping us get a bit away from oil. The most interesting part of the trip is when we make a stop over a the gas station for a cigarette and a café. Stopping at a Respol Service station, gave the Golf a face uplift, I.e. a car wash. There was no tea available and Abhi was almost convinced to go on to the next gas station, but something changed his mind and he settled for café con leche.

One of my favourite hindi movies is ‘Bollywood Calling’. Om Puri has done a genuinely masterpiece of a role in that flick. I am reminded when they are shooting a song in some park, and ‘Manu Ji’ is dressed up in a colourful dress with a blue ribbon tied around his massive waist. He is 60 years old and acting as a hero, with a 25 year old chick playing the actress and dancing around the trees with him. Om Puri is the director and is shouting ‘Balls, Balls, I want more balls’. ‘That bastard on the third tree is not shaking the flag… arre baba shake shake’. It is absolutely hilarious and a must see.

I am getting a bit tired now of sitting here and typing away my weird thoughts. Abi seems to be in a mood to talk (as usual), in all possibility we are going to talk about the Germans again. Adios amigos!