Thursday, March 28, 2002 16:58
Weather: Cool and overcast
Location: Train from Algeciras to Madrid

So: Holy Week is a Big Deal in Spain. Buses and trains run on reduced holiday schedules. At the same time, all the hostels seem to be full, with all these travellers getting around on fewer transport options. This is not helpful to the last minute traveller I´ve become.

When I got to the train station in Algeciras yesterday, I found that the only remaining train out that day was the overnight to Madrid, but that all the couchettes and sleeper beds were booked.

Plan B, made on the spot, was to reserve the train as far as Ronda, the first stop mentioned in the guide book, and resume the trip the following morning. This plan fell apart when one of the two hostels listed in the guide book turned out to be full, and the other was not willing to stay open for my arrival at 11:30pm.

Plan C was to go back to Tarifa, which had been cheap, warm and friendly the first time I´d passed through. Back at the bus station, I got a 6pm ticket. Then I went back to the train station (fortunately they were basically next door to each other) to reserve a spot on today´s 3pm train to Madrid.

In Tarifa, it was windy, cloudy, cold and damp. The Hostal Africa, where I had stayed before, was full. By this point I´d been travelling for 26 hours and badly needed to dump my stuff, have a bath, and get some food. I checked a map of the town posted outside the tourist office, and headed towards a couple of possible hotels.

The first one I came to had no single rooms, but my this point I wasn´t prepared to be fussy. The double was a bit over my budget at €49.50, but it was clean, comfortable, and had a modern bathroom, so I took it.

The next day, this morning, was dark, very windy, and gloomy. Light drizzle made it all the less pleasant. Since I wasn´t scheduled to get on the train until 3, I had some time, but also an important deadline: with a 9 pm arrival time in Madrid, I needed to book myself somewhere to stay before I left. The first couple of calls I made from the hotel room using Canada Direct, but the phone was set on pulse dialling (instead of tone) so I had to use the verbal recognition approach, which was slow and frustrating. I decided it would be faster to get a phone card and use the public phones.

I´ll spare you the gory details of my fumbling with the Spanish phone system, but it took much longer than it should have to find anywhere in Madrid with any rooms at all. Finally I managed to secure a single room for at least one night, with the possibility of another room (for Paul) tomorrow... Not perfect, but the best I could do. I left the phone booth to the two teenagers who´d been waiting outside for 15 minutes, picked up my bags, and went to line up for the bus.

It started to rain, quite hard. I huddled in a doorway, almost out of the rain, from 12:10 until 1:25, long past when I´d expected the bus to arrive, but then I didn´t realize at first that it was on a holiday schedule. It still should have arrived by 1:15, so at 1:30 I joined five other travellers and split a minivan taxi to Algeciras.

Shortly after getting to Algeciras, one of the other people who had been waiting at the bus stop, an American, came into the train station. Apparently the bus had shown up within a minute of us leaving in the taxi. I guess it was just one of those days.

Since then, the day´s been ok. The train left on time and nothing else has gone wrong. Still, I´ll be happy to get to Madrid and get the day over with. Maybe tomorrow I´ll have better luck again. At least tomorrow Paul will arrive and there´ll be someone to share bad travel days with! :-)
posted by Tom at 6:14 PM | link |