{"id":765,"date":"2011-04-17T17:00:23","date_gmt":"2011-04-17T16:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.oewf.org\/?p=765"},"modified":"2011-04-17T20:13:04","modified_gmt":"2011-04-17T19:13:04","slug":"course-west-south-west-day-2-france-spain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oewf.org\/en\/2011\/04\/course-west-south-west-day-2-france-spain\/","title":{"rendered":"Course West- South- West: Day 2- France\/ Spain"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"<\/a>

South-French countryside. (c) \u00d6WF (daniela scheer)<\/p><\/div>\n

We start at 07:30 am- without any breakfast because the next shopping mall is about 500 m away.
\nTo everyone’s regret, it doesn\u2019t open before 09.00.
\n\u201cNo problem,\u201d says the leader of the expedition, \u201cwe will get the caffeine- fuelling soon, because our cars are thirsty, too.\u201d <\/strong><\/p>\n

At 8:23 we pass the Spanish border. At a distance of about 100 km we stop at a gas station. But there is neither any breakfast nor caffeine. The first withdrawal syndromes are appearing. But with positive talks we can avoid that the suffering staff eats the simple coffee powder.<\/p>\n

After an odyssey through Girona- and after being awake for 3 hours- the team uses the short shopping trip for searching a store of a fast-food chain, which should open at 10:00.
\nWe are on time, but it\u2019s closed. Did our watches stop to work properly? Don\u2019t the Spanish have a daylight saving time? We even couldn\u2019t find a staff member with cleaning stuff. Desperation is on the increase. Finally someone had the brilliant idea to look for our camping stove.
\nUp from now nothing and nobody can stop us anymore.
\nShort time later the leader of the expedition Gernot Gr\u00f6mer finds his team in a queue in front of the camping stove waiting to get coffee filled in plastic bowls. We didn\u2019t need any comment on this.<\/p>\n

In the meantime we noticed some movement in the fast- food restaurant- we didn\u2019t think of the Mediterranean 15 minutes.
\nBut they won\u2019t make any profit from us this day, because in the meantime we\u2019ve already started to unpack our snack. The ones who come late, will be penalized by the hungry ones.<\/p>\n

* * *
\n\u201eSouth France could be described somehow like: An endless row of tollgates and roundabouts, only interrupted by small pieces of highway\u201d. (Quote from expedition control). Only more of it in Spain. Around noon we pass through another tollgate. We enqueue on the left side but we see that all the others are on the right side. Damn \u2013 why are all on the other side? Are we wrong? A radio set would be nice but all the charging devices are stored theft-proof in the loading bay buried under all the other equipment. Yes we know, packing logistics is still developable.
\nFinally we have to cross roughly 20 lanes just that we don\u2019t loose our convoy. At the end we find out that we have just risked our lives to get to the lane where we can pay by credit card. Unfortunately the toll automat does not accept ours. Thank god there is still human help and finally we start to like the toll system in Austria.<\/p>\n

\"iHola<\/a>

The spanish border is passed\u2026. and our destination is coming closer. (c) \u00d6WF (Paul Santek)<\/p><\/div>\n

Just 30 minutes later \u2013 the next tollgate. The automat once again refuses to let us pass. This time the only solution is the reverse gear. We start a not really innocuous try to enqueue us into another row. Somehow we manage it to annoy a following truck driver with this. The weaker caves in but after we passed through the gate and start to look for the remaining convoy the trucker behind closes in on us using his horn with insistence. That\u2019s enough \u2013 as if we wouldn\u2019t be stressed enough. An Austrian is also done with his patience at some point. We transmit a message in international acknowledged sign language \u2013 with success. As a result the truck driver tries to throng us against the crash barrier. We manage to escape unharmed but as we catch up with the truck later, the truck driver opens his window and pours a fluid in our direction. Some of us still believe that whatever it was it wasn\u2019t drinkable.
\nThose are only a few examples, representative for a lot more adventures we experienced on the highway since the start of our expedition. Streets are like battlefields, there is an ongoing fight for every inch of it. We are tired of all the fighting and we have enough of the southern temper \u2013 time for a break. We camp at a service area although the clouds are still hanging in the sky, the day promises a feeling of summer.
\nAt 14:25 local time we pass the meridian of Greenwich, marked as an archway. The countryside looks sparse, different from France but still abundantly covered with vegetation and outside of the congested areas nearly uninhabited. A detail that specially attracts attention are the rocks and the red earth everywhere. Absolutely marslike.
\nAbsolutely typical for Spain is that there are oversized (but anatomically completely correct ;) ) bulls, decorating the hilltops from time to time. Once we discover an observatory in the distant. Over and over again we pass through wind farms. They where as well in France, besides the obligatory nuclear power plants.
\nIn the afternoon we have another stop in Zaragozza and are now aiming for Madrid. While Gernot Gr\u00f6mer is picking up a Spanish team member the remaining convoy is heading to Talavera de la Reina \u2013 around 950 km away from today\u2019s starting point \u2013 where the hotel for tonight is booked.<\/p>\n

DS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We start at 07:30 am- without any breakfast because the next shopping mall is about 500 m away. 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