Travels of a Donkey Chapter Two
	WHEEL OF FATE

               Avoiding the Costas, I now crawled across the map of Spain like an ant through grass; there were hours of climbing roads eaten away by years of neglect and so little used that seldom was the quiet breathing of the pines disturbed - followed by minutes of eye-watering pothole-slalom to valleys beneath. Second most mountainous country in Europe after Switzerland, Spain is a twelve-hundred-mile obstacle course from Olot to Algeciras.

               In Catalonia as in Southern France, there are few hostels, so I spent most nights in cheap hotels (hostales) where - to offset the additional expense - I generally ate in my room: I would spoon into my mouth the cold abóndigas (which sound but do not taste better than meatballs) and ease them down with bread and cheap wine.

             Washing was a problem. I was obliged to improvise many stoppers for basins invariably plundered of their plugs. Seldom were clothes dry by morning; but then I would secure them to my rear cycle rack, and they dried on public display.

              At Hostal Calú, Vic, I sat to write and, in passing, to observe the last throes of lunch, for it was four o'clock. The procrastination of the Spaniard - and the Catalán - affects all areas of life but food and drink: everything can wait except a person's appetite or thirst. There were half a dozen waiters briskly balancing plates across to the tables; the lunch paroxysm had peaked. And, on the principle that every other Spaniard is deaf, the noise spiralled.

             Comparisons are odious. Who said that? - John Fortescue. . . ? But who was he? And why should we listen to him? In any case I had to make the odious comparison between Spanish and English waiters: the energy of these camareros was tiring simply to look at; what tires us in England is waiting for ours to appear.

And now two comfortable women were mopping the floor around me.

‘No, do not stand, señor.’

* * *

                At Igualada there was a farcical chase for a room. It was only two o'clock, but I'd done fifty-five miles over exhausting hills.

First I was sent to a barrack-like hostal that wanted 3000 pesetas for a room, twice what I was used to paying. There were some professional-looking cyclists there, and I discussed my predicament with them, adding that I didn't wish to go on to Santa Coloma, a further ten miles. A man with a car overheard us and offered to take me - I thought - to a cheaper inn. Panting to keep up, I crossed town in his wake, exhausting my last reserves of energy.

We were now at the signpost for Santa Coloma. I saw he'd misunderstood.

‘Thank you,’ I said and made back for the centre.

                 A helpful policeman loitering at the comisaría entrance sent me first to one hostal or fonda, then to another; they were all full or closed. After six attempts, I decided I would go on to Santa Coloma. First, though, I would eat. I stopped at the Bar Capri, realising as soon as I entered that all they had to eat was nibbles. There were an elderly couple and their two grandsons behind the bar. The grandfather asked me if I wasn't cold in my shorts.

                  I was about to leave after a coffee when the old man asked me if I really wished to stay in Igualada: they had once offered accommodation but had closed down their rooms; if I wanted, though. . . I was delighted. His granddaughter Dolors (ignoring her bust, I'd taken her to be a boy) carried my heavy panniers up to my room. She had just finished a history degree at the University of Barcelona and had decided to help her grandparents rather than seek employment in her field.

The Capri was very popular. It had five billiard tables from England. I played a couple of games with two motorcyclists and a girl called Fina.

* * *

                The unending road unravelled itself across mountains with their smells of pine as titillating as a cheap aftershave. Rosemary set the teeth on edge; a white flower crowded the vines with the heavy perfume of meadowsweet. In the wildness of their black and grey mountains disclosed the sudden rose of towns sheltering under pretentious church towers.

                Lunches were still opportunities for relaxed communion, often for sunbathing. One such feast in a village I specially remember. It was a sumptuous affair in a sunny lane; though disturbed by wasps hungry for my mustard, I wallowed in the sensual delights of burning heat, a fruity Don Simón vino tinto, crusty bread and ham. An old man shuffled up to me, told me in fluent Catalán something about how many litres of rain they needed per something-or-other, then shuffled on again among the buzzing flies and wasps.

                 My limp was worse now - though it did not affect my cycling. News from Saddam and George was worse too as they played out their vicarious game of chicken on the world stage; but my wheel appeared to be holding out, and I was in fine spirits.

            In the early sixties my friend George Evans and I had spent an extraordinary three days at Valdealgorfa with a young man called Juancito (we were all young then), and I'd promised to visit the place and try to find out what had happened to the man.

              The town did not appear to have changed at all - steep streets and random little squares still juggled with each other; but of course no one knew who this Juancito was. Didn't I recall his family name? No, I didn't. One man directed me to a bar where I would be able to get a room for the night; he would meet me there at 7.00 and try to help me in my search.

The barman scarcely looked up from his crossword. ‘No rooms,’ he said.

               It was five o'clock and many miles to Monroyo, where I might obtain a room, so, excusing myself inwardly for breaking the appointment, I was once more on my way, in time for the first fat drops of rain. The road was ever upward, the rain soon one long cloudburst; night fell.

A man stopped his car. ‘If I could only take your bicycle,’ he said.

Rain guttered from my nose. ‘Very kind of you, but there's no room, is there? And Monroyo can't be far now.’

‘Five minutes uphill, then it's downhill most of the way. No, Monroyo can't be more than ten kilometres.’

His tail lights disappeared in the mist; rain and darkness surrounded me.

Yes, there was an hostal. Yes, they had a room. Socks squelching, I splurged on a restaurant meal, half-watching Night Court in Spanish as I ate. The patrón promised he'd unlock my bike by 7.00 in the morning.

           And now it was 1 November. Not realising the significance of this, I tried to get at my bike, but the hostal appeared quite deserted. Sockless in drenched cycling shoes, I wandered down the street to a bar called El Molino where a woman explained to me that this was the Day of the Dead.

I put down my coffee. ‘The Day of the Dead?’

‘That's right. On November 1 each household's supposed to send at least one man to help clean up the cemetery. Grass is cut, plots tidied up. Your patrón is probably there with them.’

Of course - All Saints', I thought. With her business card in hand, I limped back to the hostal, where I finally managed to locate and wake the patrón. He came sleepily downstairs with a Winchester rifle.

‘No, I'm not going to the cemetery, I'm going hunting.’

             That day I came across Morella. See Morella before you die. If Carcassonne is picturesque, Morella is astounding. Crowning a mountain and surrounded by a giddy curtain wall, the ancient roofs seek elbowroom round a rocky wart carrying the ruins of a Moorish castle. Sell everything and move to Morella. As for me, I barely allowed myself time to take a snapshot before racing past it, saying to myself - with brief apologies to Frost:

... Morella's ancient, proud and steep.

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

* * *

           Next day was a long one. At Cortes there were no rooms at the hostal: there was a fiesta there. In Zucaina two hours later I discovered there were no hotels at all. My last chance, I was told, would be Castillo de Villamalefa - three miles down to the river, then another three up the mountainside on the far bank.

           As I swept down the hairpins through gathering twilight, I had glimpses of an oversize moon hanging over a white town, now opposite me, now above me, now barely visible and far above. Shoulders of rock gleamed blood-red, became grey, then black.

              My gears were slipping, and I walked the last mile or two up to Castillo in moonlight. As I approached the lights of the town, mad wolf-like cries rang across the mountain abyss. In the final safety of the inn I met the man whose cries I'd heard. He was talking nonsense in the bar, a cloak of invisibility around him as townspeople got on with their drinking. In the little shop next door the señora used me as witness to her annoyance.

‘The man's from out of town. He tells me he's hungry, so I offer him bread and sausage. But, no, that's not good enough. He wants something out of a tin.’ She handed me the tube of toothpaste I'd asked for.

‘He's weird,’ I smiled.

‘You can say that again.’ She sliced meat off a mummified ham for a customer.

‘You can indeed say that,’ agreed the customer.

The señora sighed. ‘We should be Christian to a man in need - but then beggars have no right to be choosers, eh? Anyway, lock your door. He's probably quite harmless - but you never know.’

At breakfast the vagrant was in the bar again with tousled head, trying to get someone to listen to his nonsense. Where had he slept? I wondered.

               As I left Castillo, it was fine as usual but bitterly cold, and the road plunged down the mountainside, down, down and down again through sleeping, smoking Ludientes (here I put my spare woollen socks on numbed hands), down through a colossal gorge that seemed as if it would never end (I remember asking myself why we don't know about Castillo and its mountain road - but of course it's just as well we don't). Finally I sailed out of the gorge into sunlight.

               Here at a turning I hesitated. Pedalling a few yards up the Montejos road that I'd planned taking, I hesitated again: its surface was very poor; it was uphill. The other road - not marked on my map but signposted to Onda - was downhill and its surface excellent. Then there were the accommodation problems I'd been running into in the smaller towns. But what finally decided me to take the Onda-Valencia road was a consideration of the difficulties of drawing out money if I continued off the beaten track. I could easily get money in Alicante on Monday if I took the coast road now.

              In Valencia at about four in the afternoon, I eventually got a cheap room in a private house near the station, but the woman didn't want me there till eleven o'clock that night, so, putting on my trousers, I dropped postcards, address book, journal, and the wine I'd begun at lunch into a shopping bag and moved out into the balmy streets.

I asked a man if he knew where there was a bench I could sit on to write.

Instead of answering me in Spanish, he spoke in French. ‘Yes, there's a park near here. I'll take you there.’

                He was about thirty-five, slim and supple. His name was Pierre, he said; he was an electrical engineer from France and was here on holiday. We were soon seated in the park under palms. I was disappointed. It was Saturday, the day I usually sent cards to friends and the weekly article David Cowlishaw had asked me to write for the North West Mail. Pierre was kind, but we did not have much in common; I willed him to leave.

He stayed. We spoke of the Gulf Crisis, of Saddam Hussein, Bush and Thatcher as I uncorked the wine. He shook his head.

‘Don't you drink?’ I asked.

‘You drink it, Nicky,’ he smiled.

Indeed there wasn't much left.

A fountain gushed eruptively in the background.

‘Where are you heading for after Valencia?’ asked Pierre.

‘Oh, Gandía tomorrow, Alicante on Monday - for the banks.’

‘You can draw money out here, you know.’

‘On a Saturday?’

‘Well, it's not an ordinary bank, it's a savings bank.’

‘So they won't accept credit cards, Pierre.’

‘Oh yes, they will.’

He led me to the caja de ahorros where to my amazement - at 5.30 on a Saturday - I was able to draw out 18,000 pesetas.

I was bored by my friend. We were both searching for things to say. ‘I'd like to eat now, Pierre. I'm starving. Do you know of a cheap restaurant?’

‘Sure. Come with me.’

I limped beside him down the street, joining the Saturday paseo. At one point we stopped by a date palm, and Pierre passed me handfuls of little dates. Dusk invaded the streets as we passed the bulk of the Fortress. By the time we reached the esplanade, night had fallen. We leaned on the parapet.

I peered. ‘What's this?’

‘That's the bed of the Guadalaviar, Nicky. They diverted the river some time ago - Flooding problems, I suppose. They're turning it into a park.’

‘This part hasn't been finished, though.’

‘No. Just down there's the Palace of Music - and there's the fun fair.’

To our right I could make out a distant illuminated Ferris wheel.

‘OK,’ said Pierre, starting down the steps.

‘But it's dark here. Why don't we go over the bridge?’

‘Short cut.’ He waited for me.

I followed him. I remember seeing a group of young people crossing the bridge to our right. I followed Pierre under it, picking my way carefully over the uneven ground.

Then Pierre stopped. ‘Give me your money.’ The voice was tense, impatient.

There was a rush of fear. Well, this is it, I thought. Oh God! I don't want to die tonight.

Pierre pulled me to the ground. He was very quick and sinuous. My right hand held the rear pocket where my wallet was. Scared as I was of Pierre, I was yet more scared of losing the 18,000 pesetas and my two credit cards.

Over and over we bumped on the stony earth. I didn't cry out. I was surprised I had not been knifed, but I knew this did not mean he was unarmed or would necessarily hesitate to use a weapon if I called for help.

It's impossible to say how long we struggled on the ground.

At length he was still. ‘Give me something,’ he panted.

                I did not even reflect on the situation: Pierre was offering terms; he'd been surprised at the strength desperation had lent this lame man at least twenty years his senior. A thousand pesetas was less than six pounds. He was welcome to it.

‘I'll give you a thousand pesetas, Pierre. But I don't trust you. Stand over there while I take out my wallet.’

He rose quickly and moved off.

‘No. Further.’

He promised me on his honour not to attack me again, then slowly moved off a few more steps.

Now the distance separating us was about fifteen yards. I took out the note, returning the wallet to my pocket where I held onto it with one hand while I advanced on the dark figure of Pierre, proffering the note with the other. He made no attempt to move against me this time.

Sobbing, he took the money, then my hand, which he kissed. ‘I'm so ashamed, so terribly ashamed.’

‘Off you go then.’

             Relieved, I watched Pierre vanish under the darkness of the bridge, then groped for my shopping bag. As I made my way to the far embankment, relief was followed by scalding anger at myself. I couldn't blame Pierre: desperation must have led him to the act as he carefully moved me across the city to this lonely spot; yet I could - and did - blame myself for crossing an unlighted park with a man I'd only met three hours before. The pain in my ribs was nothing to the pain of my wounded ego.

             Yes, there was a restaurant. I took off my trousers in the toilet and rubbed off the dry caked mud, washing a deep cut in my shin that appeared to have stopped bleeding. I was shaking now.

             In the morning, walking to my breakfast in a Valencia bar, I noticed to my joy and considerable surprise that the pain in my hip had utterly disappeared. A wave of gratitude for Pierre and his rough physiotherapy swept over me; I was almost too emotional to ask for the coffee and bread. Would the pain return? Somehow I thought that it would not.

                Anyone out there who has an arthritic hip should give it a try. Go to Valencia. Stand in the Plaza del Caudillo. Look round you for Pierre, slight and lithe, well dressed, black-haired, a North African probably, posing as a French electrical engineer. Ask him to mug you on the bed of the old Guadalaviar. I suggest you give him more than I did. After all, such a cure is worth more than a thousand pesetas, isn't it?

My wallet on balance replenished, I now headed back for the interior.

In the cool early sunlight the outskirts of Valencia were a mess; vast tips spilled down to within yards of the road, fat rats and lean men with scrawny motorbikes rooted among the rubbish.

               Sunday cyclists, like heroes from Goldorak in bright clinging legwear, raced against the sun. As for my own rusted armour - shorts, rain jacket worn round my waist like a skirt - it began to provoke adult smiles and derisive childish laughter. I attributed this to a Southern Spanish readiness to mock as much as to expanses of brown leg and scalp (hair loss is something Mediterranean people are not very good at, and the farther south I travelled the older I was taken to be; by now I was at least sixty-five; and in the Province of Valencia there is something immensely funny about a sixty-five-year-old riding a bicycle).

                At the Hostal de Tarifa, Albaida, I was welcomed by an Andalucian and his charming local bride. An elderly man from Tarifa (yes, somewhat more elderly than I) told me of his army years in the forties, of the Great Hunger of 1945 when brothers and sisters of his had been obliged to eat grasses and roots in the fields.

A Manolo promised to bring me mushrooms in the morning, the very special mushrooms of Albaida. What a beautiful day! And now I was walking springily as a twenty-year-old!

Manolo had not turned up by 10.00 next morning, so I left - regretfully - without the mushrooms. It was 5 November and everyone was making bonfires by the road, their acrid fumes enveloping me as I passed. They were pruning fruit trees and had certainly not heard of Guy Fawkes.

                At the Virgen del Remedio, Pinoso, the girl behind the bar told me there would probably be a room; her mother would soon be up. While waiting, I ordered Spanish tortilla and wine. A man who claimed the Third World War had started at nine o'clock that morning insisted on paying my bill.

                  Soon the señora appeared and led me up marble steps to my room. She was astounded I had come by 'bici' all the way from England. I was only fifty-seven? She'd have given me at least ten years more. At supper I had a superb local wine, Torre del Reloj, and the señor, now home, made me a gift of grapes from his own vineyard
- the largest I've seen and quite delicious. As usual in small inns, I was made to feel absolutely at home.

                The younger daughter, a nine-year-old who'd earlier been whining, now came and sat with me. For hours she and a stone-cutter talked with me while two birds barked from their perches. (I was told they were loros, but I'd never seen - or heard - parrots like them.)

                 Murcia was a country raped by man and nature. There were great pustules of eroded rock like grey slagheaps, terraces long uncultivated, abandoned farmhouses among their entanglement of prickly pear, good only for advertising the next restaurant or the last political party. The air was oven-hot, and I frequently stopped to pick oranges (I'd been told you can do so as long as you don't fill a sack). The road to Mula, where I'd hoped to spend the night, was, I noticed, paved with orange peel.

Mula, I found, was not to be my destination after all. The patrón told me there were no rooms - with what I took to be sadistic pleasure (the paranoia of an exhausted cyclist?). Dejected, I opted for another fifteen miles and the main road I'd been trying to avoid.

It was largely uphill to Alhama de Murcia. Here at length, in my room at the barrack-like Hostal de Tánger, remembering Herodotus' description of Egyptian priests extracting a pharaoh's brains through his nose, I drew cold spaghetti from a narrow crevice in a tin.

              November 8 was drizzling and grey. The rear wheel was beginning to buckle again, and when I arrived at Vélez Rubio, though there were two hostales within a Molotov cocktail throw of the Hostal Jardín, I hadn't the spirit to shop around.

              I managed to make it into Baza on the following afternoon. Here for the third time I heard my spokes were of low quality steel and that they'd have to be replaced with superior ones which would last thousands of miles. I was sceptical at long last but had to pay up. Was it Peugeot workmanship that was letting me down? - or the mechanics?