Home already for a week, after six months of traveling. It still feels a little strange. Writing this in English is all of a sudden awkward as well: my brain has switched back to Dutch. One thing hasn't changed: I'm still behind with my blog posts: so this (long!) one will cover the last week: Madrid, reminiscing and reflecting on the trip and being back will have to wait for the next post.
So, Madrid. It's been about six years since I've last been here. INTA hosted me for my engineering internship for about 3 months. During the first month my home was in Torrejon de Ardoz, a small town just outside of Madrid, near INTA. The last two months I lived in the city center: Calle de Collegiata: about a stone's throw from Plaza Major. I had a great time in Madrid, so the visit was mainly scheduled to dip into the Madrilenian life again and visit some old friends. The rental company of my flat at the time had a policy to let old renters stay in their vacant rooms for short term stays for free, but when I looked them up they did not appear to exist anymore. As I had seen the touristic sites already when I lived here I opted to stay with couchsurf hosts as much as possible, meeting new people and also giving me an opportunity to keep speaking Spanish.
Juan Carlos was my tutor when I was doing my internship: he's still working for INTA, but in a different department nowadays. He was glad to welcome me for a visit to his home, which we planned for the weekend, since he was working during the week. With me arriving on Thursday afternoon and flying out on wednesday I opted to put two different couchsurfing hosts on either side of the weekend. First up: Isilwen. I was pretty amazed that she would host me: she would arrive back from a holiday on the beaches of Spain on Thursday night, and would fly out to Istanbul on Sunday. With me arriving early on Thursday from a long and jet lagged flight, and also feeling awkward about not letting my host have time to 'come home' after her travel I opted to book a hostel for the first night. Later my host let me know she would be hosting another surfer as well, so we kept in touch on Whatsapp: if they'd be heading into town for a beer I'd be glad to join in, especially with my body being wide awake at night due to the jet lag.
During the day I got installed in the hostel and met with my room mates. One of them was an Algerian PhD student studying Aerodynamics. What a coincidence, my course of study as well! This gave a small glimpse into the Algerian level of education: the guy was doing a promotion that his professor knew nothing about (that was a mechanical guy) and in the third year of his promotion he was still struggling to get to grips with some of the terms of the Navier-Stokes equation. He had designed a wing and calculated it's force characteristics and internal strains. Still quite impressive considering the means he had at his disposal.
During the afternoon a Swiss 18 year old couple joined us: they had just finished high school and had been interrailing Europe for 2,5 months already of a 3 month trip. They had a lot of nice stories to share and I could explain them about round the world travel: a nice one for them after they finish college :-). After this short social interval I dropped my laundry bag at the hostel's laundry service and went to my old neighborhood around 'Tirso de Molina' on foot from the hostel in 'Tribunal'.
Overall feeling: absolutely nothing has changed in Madrid! The only difference I could discern was that there's two or three streets that have been made car-free, and they paved the 'Callao' area. For the rest it was still the same: the terrible summer heat, the 'water spray' arconditioning on terraces, Cien Montaditos, the hookers near Gran Via, the living statues and punters at Sol, the Corte Ingles, Museo de Jamon, Patatas Bravas, the boats in Retiro: wonderful! I didn't bring my camera on this first day, so sadly no pictures yet. After a small bite and a beer I went back to the hostel to get a Siesta: I was knackered after a 12 hour flight and a short night in Lima before.
After Siesta I went back into town for a small bite and a beer (great tradition in Madrid). When I came back to the hostel I was confronted with the 'smartphone generation' once again. At 22:00 at night, in the middle of summer in the center of Madrid there were some 10 youngsters sitting on couches glued to smartphones. Madrileñans all over are outside at this time of day: finally the relentless heat is gone and you can go out for a beer and dinner with friends! I asked the people in the hostel to come out for a beer, but all kind of vague excuses resulted in me leaving them there and going out for a beer myself. Great to see that also here nothing has changed: people are outside sitting on the squares drinking cold beers sold by Chinese people with rolling carts full of ice and beer. I enjoyed the pleasant warmth at this time of day, the boisterous atmosphere of the square and my cold beer, and returned to the hostel about an hour later to get some sleep. I had told Isilwen to keep me up to date on her progress: she would be in Madrid by 02:00. We had some misunderstandings about her address: on the couchsurfing site it was depicted as Atocha: or walking distance from where I was, but in reality she lives at the end of the metro line somewhere west of Madrid. I wouldn't be able to join them for a beer at her home because I could not get back to the hostel then. However, at 03:00, after a couple of hours of sleep, I got a message that she had arrived and that they would be drinking a beer in the city center: near Sol: great! I got dressed and headed into town, what a proper Madrilenan should also be doing at such an hour.
Of course Murphy was also active, so instead of heading for the right bar, I ended up at the wrong bar. When I realized my mistake I smuggled my bear outside and into the proper bar where we had agreed to meet up. I was now quite late, so Isil and Arnaud were already gone... I opted to empty my beer and slowly head home. Serendipity hit and I bumped into the crowd on the street: the party was four people now: Arnaud had also brought another couchsurfing host: a Frenchman living in Madrid. Both are musicians: Arnaud had been traveling South America for six months hitchhiking with his guitar. We had a great night getting to know eachother and I ended up back in the hostel at around 06:00.
Because I had to check out at the hostel I had to get up at 10:30 already. I noticed a message from Isil that they had gone to sleep at around 09:30 and that I'd be welcome at around 14:30. This meant a lazy and hungover afternoon on the hostel couch after checking out from the room. The hostel had done my laundry as well, with one small bummer: I had stored my useless mifi device in a sock, and had forgotten all about it... you can guess what has happened. It did not survive it's trip in the laundry machine, so the T-mobile curse has followed it to the end.
The trip to Isil's place is uneventful: navigating Madrilenan metro is a breeze. A helpful local points me the right way at the station and I can drop my backpack at Isil's apartment. A great little place full of fantasy and dancing memorabilia (she's a dance teacher and role player). Arnaud was still sleeping and I was in a half coma too due to the long night, so the afternoon was slow.
Isil had a friend visiting soon though and she was cooking us lunch. We woke Arnaud up for this and we had a nice chat with this interesting dude over dinner. After that it was into town again: drinks and tapas on a terrace, with Isil's niece and fiancee who would join us later. They were there to bring Isil here marriage invitation: the couple would get married in about a month so we had some fun sharing bachelor party stories and discussing their honeymoon plans. In the middle of things we dropped Arnaud at the bus station for his night bus to Barcelona. Being properly Spanish the couple joined us afterwards for a bar trip into Lavapies.
Parking in Madrid at this hour was an interesting afair. Isil gained our respect by driving like a man beforehand, but this time it was a little more 'interesting'. She was parking in a very small spot, using the 'bump means stop' method (a Dutch saying, of which I know no proper English translation). This meant about 10 back and forths to slowly inch our way into the spot. When we got out we could see that the rear bumper had pressed the grille of the car behind us out of place, so we had to move forward a little bit. When that was done it became clear that the bumpers were touching both in front and at the back....of course Isil was proud of her achievement :-S.
Next destination: coffee! I was falling apart due to lack of sleep at around 01:00am. Another friend of Isil is a Lavapies local and could point us in the right direction: first a nice coffee place, then we picked up his girlfriend who had just finished work (at 02:00am), then a Mexican bar (Mezcal...) and afterwards a artisan beer bar. This last bar was actually supposed be closed, but this being Madrid, we were welcomed in, with the shutters being closed behind us. At daybreak we stopped for a midnight snack at a kebab place, and at about 07:00am we ended up crashing at this friend's place.
One little snag: at 09:00 the car would have to be either moved or paid. This wasn't too pleasant but we managed without tickets, or without further notice from the other parked cars (who were gone by then). The rest of the day is a haze: sleeping long, breakfast of liquor soked pancakes (Isil's friend Jorge is a chef, with a satanical turn, giving us liquor again). Jorge also had some great stories to share over breakfast: we talked about his food and drink adventures in Galicia and inspected his terrible hawaiian shirt, which would win the 'worst hawaiian shirt competition' at another party that night. By the end of the afternoon we headed back to Isil's apartment: I took it easy, Isil visited her parents for dinner, we met up with other friends of hers, but this time I went to bed early: Juan Carlos would be picking me up early next day.
At 10:00 the next morning Juan Carlos and his girlfriend Rebecca picked me up with their car. First destination: a walk/picnic breakfast near one of the outside of madrid palaces: El Pardo. The walks were nice, but the area was not as beautiful as we had expected, so we opted to have lunch at home, and pick their dog up for some more fun hiking further outside of Madrid. During the walk we did have time to catch up on things: there had been a restructuring at INTA and a lot of the people that used to work at the windtunnel department were gone now. Juan Carlos was now working on drones: specifically a target drone which I had seen in the windtunnel some six years earlier. His girlfriend is a freelance graphic designer. Fun fact: they met online: Rebecca was blogging about films and JC became a follower of the blog. Their dog is a funny type: I forgot the name of the race, but it is a local race from the area where JC is from: Almería. Since it was bloody hot and we all like the outdoors we opted for some destinations with water: quite outside of Madrid though: near Guadalajara and the sierras.
First up 'lagunas de puebla de Beleña'. These lagunes are known for their bird life, but when we arrived there they turned up to be empty (summer). The walk was nice though and we had our little picnic in a bird watching house (the dog joined in on the grapes). The bird watching hut had some infographics on the local wildlife and the variation of the water level during the seasons. We were quite sweaty after just a 20 min hike in the sweltering heat, so with swimming in a river as the activity at the next stop we were really looking forward to it. Although we were worried that with the water level being so low we might be disappointed.
The drive to the place made me feel like driving in the US again: lots of small roads going mostly through beautiful hilly landscapes with red earth, although there were a lot more villages here than in the US.
On the way we got stopped by a very serious looking Spanish police officer: she pointed us to stop in a side dirt road where here colleague was waiting. This was looking like some kind of crazy scheme in the middle of nowhere, but after checking our papers the serious looks disappeared and we were free to drive on (very strange, apparently just a regular check up?). When we finally arrived at our destination the water level in the river got us quite worried (just very, very dry rocks), with one puddle of algy water behind a low concrete dam down a 30m ravine. After some hiking up river this didn't change much, but people coming back with towels on their shoulders assured us that the swimming was nice and water was to be found. The hike continued past a lot of human waste on the sides of the path (apparently there are no toilets near the water hole and people here do not clean up after themselves). In the end however we were rewarded with a great sight: a small waterhole with about 20 people chilling, drinking, swimming and smoking weed (and combinations thereoff).
Ofcourse we also took a dip, and although the water is cold at first, it was actually very nice after a little while. The little canyon we were in was nice and cool as well due to the shade and the water, so it was a very pleasant little place to relax and eat and drink the rest of our supplies. We didn't join in with the (drunk) rock jumping locals. Some sampling of the depth came up with some 2-2,5m, so not something you want to jump into from 4m's up!
By the time we headed back to the car the sun was already nearing the horizon, shedding some beautiful light on the 'pueblas negras' or black villages. These are called black because of the use of the local stones to build and roof them. There's some better examples in this region, but I'm glad we got to see some small examples in the small town of Valdesotos.
To get back to Madrid (or just outside of Madrid: Ajalvir), we took the 'short' route, which led us through a lot of hairpins through an uninhabited area. This wasn't bad at all: we got great views of the sierras during sunset, of Spanish pueblos and of a partially burnt village. Very much like roadtripping in the US, just in a different landscape: lots of fun and beautiful scenery.
We decided to for a simple dinner at home in Ajalvir (Rebecca has lots of food allergies), but we were lacking one ingredient: bread. Where do you get that in the middle of nowhere? At a local restaurant ofcourse! Rebecca was a little hesitant (she just needed to use the restroom of the restaurant actually), but we pressed on, and she came back with bread: woohoo! Once again my camera focused on the wrong thing, but well... mission accomplished!
We had a nice dinner at their home in Ajalvir, with home grown herbs included (Rebecca has all her balconies covered in herbs which taste great!), the evening went away quickly. We concluded with walking the dog, and even outside of Madrid the streets are filled with people late at night. A chat with the neighbors and then quickly off to bed: JC will have to go to work early tomorrow morning, and since I made a chaos of unpacking my bag to get my swimming trunks I need some time to repack and then catch the bus back to the center.
The next day the bus drops me off at metro station Barajas, the small village just in between the two airport terminals. This is perfect because my next couchsurf host is also located on this metro line. Aleksandra actually lives just 2 minutes away from the metro station of 'Columbia'. I didn't learn about this until after the request had been accepted, but this is actually perfect for flying back home too: just 20mins to the airport with the metro station just around the corner. We talked a bit on facebook to arrange my visit, and since I was early she just hands me the keys to her almost empty apartment (a shared place, with rooms of 2 other people that just went back home to South America) and heads off to a visit she has to make. She left me her laptop to use, so I used this time to post the previous blog post. Afterwards it's siesta time because I'm still way too short on sleep.
When Aleksandra is back we talk a little bit about Madrid and life, and once the topic of dinner comes up I tell her the story about not being able to find the 100 montaditos that I wanted. She actually knows the one I'm talking about, and there's also one around the corner too, where we head for dinner (or well, lunch with this Spanish timing).
Up next was a visit to El Retiro, or the best park of Madrid. A tradition during my internship was to go here and eat a melon with friends during the weekend, so we did the same. After that we went into town again to eat Patatas Bravas at a place near Sol where a Spanish local once showed me the 'best bravas of Madrid'. They were still tasting good, and the atmosphere of the street and surrounding area was still the same (badly singing street singer included). With not many touristic attractions on the list, we make a plan to go swimming tomorrow (the heat was still killing), but this changes quickly as Aleksandra has to go and fix a lot of stuff for her landlords (she is moving out in two days and is the last occupant of the flat, so she has to show a lot of stuff for inspection). I take the opportunity to walk another bit of Madrid, and once again notice that almost nothing has changed.
At night we go out for dinner with friends of Aleksandra's at 'El Tigre' a Sidreria with three branches near Tribunal. Aleksandra tells me as if it's the best thing in Madrid since sliced bread, so I can't believe I've never heard of it... Jolanda, you've got some explaining to do about being my Madrid guide six years ago... Anyway the attraction of the place is that a large jug of beer plus a plate chock full of great food sets you back just €6,-. We arrive at just the right time too, about 30 minutes later the place is as full as it's plates, with what looks like a young college crowd: great rowdy atmosphere once again!
The evening with Aleksandra and her friends is great fun, we are enjoying ourselves and laughing ourselves silly over stupid language mistakes and our different customs in all kinds of matters. After some help I can remember one stupidity: in Madrid you have the famous 'museo de jamon' branch of restaurants. They're filled from top to bottom with great tasting Spanish hams, of which they sell all kinds of servings. Aleksandra was explaining what she would like to do in Amsterdam: go to the Museo de Jamon.... I ofcourse did not understand anything of this: the Museo de Jamon is in Madrid... if you know how to pronounce Spanish you'll understand that the J is pronounced as the dutch G... what she was saying, but what I misheard, is that she wanted to go the the Museo de van Gogh... which in dutch is the 'van Gogh Museum' (we were talking Spanish of course). Anyway, you should've been there to understand ;-). We dedicated it with a little memorial:
We ended the evening with another outside beer on the tribunal plaza. This time I could show the girls something that for me was very typically Madrid, but which they had not experienced after living there for more than half a year! We didn't party hard until sunrise this time, but still it is a short night until my flight home the next morning. Finnair takes me from Madrid to Helsinki to Amsterdam. The stop in Helsinki was so short that I couldn't even make a proper picture of something Finnish... well, you guessed it, I'm back in the Netherlands now. More on post-travel reflections, blues, etc. in a next post.
For now, I leave you with picasa links:
140727 Outside of Madrid with JC and Rebecca
1407 Various impressions of Madrid
So, Madrid. It's been about six years since I've last been here. INTA hosted me for my engineering internship for about 3 months. During the first month my home was in Torrejon de Ardoz, a small town just outside of Madrid, near INTA. The last two months I lived in the city center: Calle de Collegiata: about a stone's throw from Plaza Major. I had a great time in Madrid, so the visit was mainly scheduled to dip into the Madrilenian life again and visit some old friends. The rental company of my flat at the time had a policy to let old renters stay in their vacant rooms for short term stays for free, but when I looked them up they did not appear to exist anymore. As I had seen the touristic sites already when I lived here I opted to stay with couchsurf hosts as much as possible, meeting new people and also giving me an opportunity to keep speaking Spanish.
Juan Carlos was my tutor when I was doing my internship: he's still working for INTA, but in a different department nowadays. He was glad to welcome me for a visit to his home, which we planned for the weekend, since he was working during the week. With me arriving on Thursday afternoon and flying out on wednesday I opted to put two different couchsurfing hosts on either side of the weekend. First up: Isilwen. I was pretty amazed that she would host me: she would arrive back from a holiday on the beaches of Spain on Thursday night, and would fly out to Istanbul on Sunday. With me arriving early on Thursday from a long and jet lagged flight, and also feeling awkward about not letting my host have time to 'come home' after her travel I opted to book a hostel for the first night. Later my host let me know she would be hosting another surfer as well, so we kept in touch on Whatsapp: if they'd be heading into town for a beer I'd be glad to join in, especially with my body being wide awake at night due to the jet lag.
During the day I got installed in the hostel and met with my room mates. One of them was an Algerian PhD student studying Aerodynamics. What a coincidence, my course of study as well! This gave a small glimpse into the Algerian level of education: the guy was doing a promotion that his professor knew nothing about (that was a mechanical guy) and in the third year of his promotion he was still struggling to get to grips with some of the terms of the Navier-Stokes equation. He had designed a wing and calculated it's force characteristics and internal strains. Still quite impressive considering the means he had at his disposal.
During the afternoon a Swiss 18 year old couple joined us: they had just finished high school and had been interrailing Europe for 2,5 months already of a 3 month trip. They had a lot of nice stories to share and I could explain them about round the world travel: a nice one for them after they finish college :-). After this short social interval I dropped my laundry bag at the hostel's laundry service and went to my old neighborhood around 'Tirso de Molina' on foot from the hostel in 'Tribunal'.
Overall feeling: absolutely nothing has changed in Madrid! The only difference I could discern was that there's two or three streets that have been made car-free, and they paved the 'Callao' area. For the rest it was still the same: the terrible summer heat, the 'water spray' arconditioning on terraces, Cien Montaditos, the hookers near Gran Via, the living statues and punters at Sol, the Corte Ingles, Museo de Jamon, Patatas Bravas, the boats in Retiro: wonderful! I didn't bring my camera on this first day, so sadly no pictures yet. After a small bite and a beer I went back to the hostel to get a Siesta: I was knackered after a 12 hour flight and a short night in Lima before.
After Siesta I went back into town for a small bite and a beer (great tradition in Madrid). When I came back to the hostel I was confronted with the 'smartphone generation' once again. At 22:00 at night, in the middle of summer in the center of Madrid there were some 10 youngsters sitting on couches glued to smartphones. Madrileñans all over are outside at this time of day: finally the relentless heat is gone and you can go out for a beer and dinner with friends! I asked the people in the hostel to come out for a beer, but all kind of vague excuses resulted in me leaving them there and going out for a beer myself. Great to see that also here nothing has changed: people are outside sitting on the squares drinking cold beers sold by Chinese people with rolling carts full of ice and beer. I enjoyed the pleasant warmth at this time of day, the boisterous atmosphere of the square and my cold beer, and returned to the hostel about an hour later to get some sleep. I had told Isilwen to keep me up to date on her progress: she would be in Madrid by 02:00. We had some misunderstandings about her address: on the couchsurfing site it was depicted as Atocha: or walking distance from where I was, but in reality she lives at the end of the metro line somewhere west of Madrid. I wouldn't be able to join them for a beer at her home because I could not get back to the hostel then. However, at 03:00, after a couple of hours of sleep, I got a message that she had arrived and that they would be drinking a beer in the city center: near Sol: great! I got dressed and headed into town, what a proper Madrilenan should also be doing at such an hour.
Of course Murphy was also active, so instead of heading for the right bar, I ended up at the wrong bar. When I realized my mistake I smuggled my bear outside and into the proper bar where we had agreed to meet up. I was now quite late, so Isil and Arnaud were already gone... I opted to empty my beer and slowly head home. Serendipity hit and I bumped into the crowd on the street: the party was four people now: Arnaud had also brought another couchsurfing host: a Frenchman living in Madrid. Both are musicians: Arnaud had been traveling South America for six months hitchhiking with his guitar. We had a great night getting to know eachother and I ended up back in the hostel at around 06:00.
Because I had to check out at the hostel I had to get up at 10:30 already. I noticed a message from Isil that they had gone to sleep at around 09:30 and that I'd be welcome at around 14:30. This meant a lazy and hungover afternoon on the hostel couch after checking out from the room. The hostel had done my laundry as well, with one small bummer: I had stored my useless mifi device in a sock, and had forgotten all about it... you can guess what has happened. It did not survive it's trip in the laundry machine, so the T-mobile curse has followed it to the end.
The trip to Isil's place is uneventful: navigating Madrilenan metro is a breeze. A helpful local points me the right way at the station and I can drop my backpack at Isil's apartment. A great little place full of fantasy and dancing memorabilia (she's a dance teacher and role player). Arnaud was still sleeping and I was in a half coma too due to the long night, so the afternoon was slow.
Isil had a friend visiting soon though and she was cooking us lunch. We woke Arnaud up for this and we had a nice chat with this interesting dude over dinner. After that it was into town again: drinks and tapas on a terrace, with Isil's niece and fiancee who would join us later. They were there to bring Isil here marriage invitation: the couple would get married in about a month so we had some fun sharing bachelor party stories and discussing their honeymoon plans. In the middle of things we dropped Arnaud at the bus station for his night bus to Barcelona. Being properly Spanish the couple joined us afterwards for a bar trip into Lavapies.
Parking in Madrid at this hour was an interesting afair. Isil gained our respect by driving like a man beforehand, but this time it was a little more 'interesting'. She was parking in a very small spot, using the 'bump means stop' method (a Dutch saying, of which I know no proper English translation). This meant about 10 back and forths to slowly inch our way into the spot. When we got out we could see that the rear bumper had pressed the grille of the car behind us out of place, so we had to move forward a little bit. When that was done it became clear that the bumpers were touching both in front and at the back....of course Isil was proud of her achievement :-S.
Next destination: coffee! I was falling apart due to lack of sleep at around 01:00am. Another friend of Isil is a Lavapies local and could point us in the right direction: first a nice coffee place, then we picked up his girlfriend who had just finished work (at 02:00am), then a Mexican bar (Mezcal...) and afterwards a artisan beer bar. This last bar was actually supposed be closed, but this being Madrid, we were welcomed in, with the shutters being closed behind us. At daybreak we stopped for a midnight snack at a kebab place, and at about 07:00am we ended up crashing at this friend's place.
One little snag: at 09:00 the car would have to be either moved or paid. This wasn't too pleasant but we managed without tickets, or without further notice from the other parked cars (who were gone by then). The rest of the day is a haze: sleeping long, breakfast of liquor soked pancakes (Isil's friend Jorge is a chef, with a satanical turn, giving us liquor again). Jorge also had some great stories to share over breakfast: we talked about his food and drink adventures in Galicia and inspected his terrible hawaiian shirt, which would win the 'worst hawaiian shirt competition' at another party that night. By the end of the afternoon we headed back to Isil's apartment: I took it easy, Isil visited her parents for dinner, we met up with other friends of hers, but this time I went to bed early: Juan Carlos would be picking me up early next day.
At 10:00 the next morning Juan Carlos and his girlfriend Rebecca picked me up with their car. First destination: a walk/picnic breakfast near one of the outside of madrid palaces: El Pardo. The walks were nice, but the area was not as beautiful as we had expected, so we opted to have lunch at home, and pick their dog up for some more fun hiking further outside of Madrid. During the walk we did have time to catch up on things: there had been a restructuring at INTA and a lot of the people that used to work at the windtunnel department were gone now. Juan Carlos was now working on drones: specifically a target drone which I had seen in the windtunnel some six years earlier. His girlfriend is a freelance graphic designer. Fun fact: they met online: Rebecca was blogging about films and JC became a follower of the blog. Their dog is a funny type: I forgot the name of the race, but it is a local race from the area where JC is from: Almería. Since it was bloody hot and we all like the outdoors we opted for some destinations with water: quite outside of Madrid though: near Guadalajara and the sierras.
First up 'lagunas de puebla de Beleña'. These lagunes are known for their bird life, but when we arrived there they turned up to be empty (summer). The walk was nice though and we had our little picnic in a bird watching house (the dog joined in on the grapes). The bird watching hut had some infographics on the local wildlife and the variation of the water level during the seasons. We were quite sweaty after just a 20 min hike in the sweltering heat, so with swimming in a river as the activity at the next stop we were really looking forward to it. Although we were worried that with the water level being so low we might be disappointed.
The drive to the place made me feel like driving in the US again: lots of small roads going mostly through beautiful hilly landscapes with red earth, although there were a lot more villages here than in the US.
On the way we got stopped by a very serious looking Spanish police officer: she pointed us to stop in a side dirt road where here colleague was waiting. This was looking like some kind of crazy scheme in the middle of nowhere, but after checking our papers the serious looks disappeared and we were free to drive on (very strange, apparently just a regular check up?). When we finally arrived at our destination the water level in the river got us quite worried (just very, very dry rocks), with one puddle of algy water behind a low concrete dam down a 30m ravine. After some hiking up river this didn't change much, but people coming back with towels on their shoulders assured us that the swimming was nice and water was to be found. The hike continued past a lot of human waste on the sides of the path (apparently there are no toilets near the water hole and people here do not clean up after themselves). In the end however we were rewarded with a great sight: a small waterhole with about 20 people chilling, drinking, swimming and smoking weed (and combinations thereoff).
Ofcourse we also took a dip, and although the water is cold at first, it was actually very nice after a little while. The little canyon we were in was nice and cool as well due to the shade and the water, so it was a very pleasant little place to relax and eat and drink the rest of our supplies. We didn't join in with the (drunk) rock jumping locals. Some sampling of the depth came up with some 2-2,5m, so not something you want to jump into from 4m's up!
By the time we headed back to the car the sun was already nearing the horizon, shedding some beautiful light on the 'pueblas negras' or black villages. These are called black because of the use of the local stones to build and roof them. There's some better examples in this region, but I'm glad we got to see some small examples in the small town of Valdesotos.
To get back to Madrid (or just outside of Madrid: Ajalvir), we took the 'short' route, which led us through a lot of hairpins through an uninhabited area. This wasn't bad at all: we got great views of the sierras during sunset, of Spanish pueblos and of a partially burnt village. Very much like roadtripping in the US, just in a different landscape: lots of fun and beautiful scenery.
Electric lines to be photoshopped
We decided to for a simple dinner at home in Ajalvir (Rebecca has lots of food allergies), but we were lacking one ingredient: bread. Where do you get that in the middle of nowhere? At a local restaurant ofcourse! Rebecca was a little hesitant (she just needed to use the restroom of the restaurant actually), but we pressed on, and she came back with bread: woohoo! Once again my camera focused on the wrong thing, but well... mission accomplished!
We had a nice dinner at their home in Ajalvir, with home grown herbs included (Rebecca has all her balconies covered in herbs which taste great!), the evening went away quickly. We concluded with walking the dog, and even outside of Madrid the streets are filled with people late at night. A chat with the neighbors and then quickly off to bed: JC will have to go to work early tomorrow morning, and since I made a chaos of unpacking my bag to get my swimming trunks I need some time to repack and then catch the bus back to the center.
The next day the bus drops me off at metro station Barajas, the small village just in between the two airport terminals. This is perfect because my next couchsurf host is also located on this metro line. Aleksandra actually lives just 2 minutes away from the metro station of 'Columbia'. I didn't learn about this until after the request had been accepted, but this is actually perfect for flying back home too: just 20mins to the airport with the metro station just around the corner. We talked a bit on facebook to arrange my visit, and since I was early she just hands me the keys to her almost empty apartment (a shared place, with rooms of 2 other people that just went back home to South America) and heads off to a visit she has to make. She left me her laptop to use, so I used this time to post the previous blog post. Afterwards it's siesta time because I'm still way too short on sleep.
When Aleksandra is back we talk a little bit about Madrid and life, and once the topic of dinner comes up I tell her the story about not being able to find the 100 montaditos that I wanted. She actually knows the one I'm talking about, and there's also one around the corner too, where we head for dinner (or well, lunch with this Spanish timing).
Up next was a visit to El Retiro, or the best park of Madrid. A tradition during my internship was to go here and eat a melon with friends during the weekend, so we did the same. After that we went into town again to eat Patatas Bravas at a place near Sol where a Spanish local once showed me the 'best bravas of Madrid'. They were still tasting good, and the atmosphere of the street and surrounding area was still the same (badly singing street singer included). With not many touristic attractions on the list, we make a plan to go swimming tomorrow (the heat was still killing), but this changes quickly as Aleksandra has to go and fix a lot of stuff for her landlords (she is moving out in two days and is the last occupant of the flat, so she has to show a lot of stuff for inspection). I take the opportunity to walk another bit of Madrid, and once again notice that almost nothing has changed.
At night we go out for dinner with friends of Aleksandra's at 'El Tigre' a Sidreria with three branches near Tribunal. Aleksandra tells me as if it's the best thing in Madrid since sliced bread, so I can't believe I've never heard of it... Jolanda, you've got some explaining to do about being my Madrid guide six years ago... Anyway the attraction of the place is that a large jug of beer plus a plate chock full of great food sets you back just €6,-. We arrive at just the right time too, about 30 minutes later the place is as full as it's plates, with what looks like a young college crowd: great rowdy atmosphere once again!
Sorry for the timing of this one ladies... ;-)
The evening with Aleksandra and her friends is great fun, we are enjoying ourselves and laughing ourselves silly over stupid language mistakes and our different customs in all kinds of matters. After some help I can remember one stupidity: in Madrid you have the famous 'museo de jamon' branch of restaurants. They're filled from top to bottom with great tasting Spanish hams, of which they sell all kinds of servings. Aleksandra was explaining what she would like to do in Amsterdam: go to the Museo de Jamon.... I ofcourse did not understand anything of this: the Museo de Jamon is in Madrid... if you know how to pronounce Spanish you'll understand that the J is pronounced as the dutch G... what she was saying, but what I misheard, is that she wanted to go the the Museo de van Gogh... which in dutch is the 'van Gogh Museum' (we were talking Spanish of course). Anyway, you should've been there to understand ;-). We dedicated it with a little memorial:
We ended the evening with another outside beer on the tribunal plaza. This time I could show the girls something that for me was very typically Madrid, but which they had not experienced after living there for more than half a year! We didn't party hard until sunrise this time, but still it is a short night until my flight home the next morning. Finnair takes me from Madrid to Helsinki to Amsterdam. The stop in Helsinki was so short that I couldn't even make a proper picture of something Finnish... well, you guessed it, I'm back in the Netherlands now. More on post-travel reflections, blues, etc. in a next post.
For now, I leave you with picasa links:
140727 Outside of Madrid with JC and Rebecca
1407 Various impressions of Madrid
