The Bombs of Biarritz

The managing director of Ryan Air may well be the king of all stinges. His latest money-saving plan is to remove co-pilots from short-haul routes! Unfortunately one of his earlier ideas “if you can carry it to the plane you can take it on board”, has yet to come to fruition so when we found ourselves five kilos overweight at Biarritz airport we were left with no choice but to dump our tent. After failing to fit the bulky grey plastic object in the bin outside the airport entrance I was forced to leave it leaning beside it.

A matter of minutes after clearing customs a stern voice came over the intercom requesting the owner of the “suspicious grey package” to report to security. I reluctantly returned to the entrance and found myself surrounded by ten or so humourless French municipal policemen. In the twenty minutes that had passed between leaving the tent and returning to claim it someone had contacted the authorities, police had arrived, cordoned off the area with police tape, placed bomb shields around my tent bag and were on the phone to the bomb squad. I was very impressed with their efficiency. Needless to say they were unimpressed with me. Especially when I showed them my British passport. And they seemed strangely disappointed and deflated when I pushed aside the bomb shields and unveiled a grubby tent and bent pegs.

Throughout the whole process I got the feeling that most of the officers would have much preferred me to have been a Basque separatist terrorist and for the tent to have been a bomb. This reminded me of something I have noticed in others and in myself at times; a deep-seated desire for excitement of the macabre variety. The nightly news, Hollywood blockbusters, rubbernecking, crime shows and detective novels; all serve to scratch this itch. We want to hear about others’ misfortune, petty or horrific, real or imagined, because it makes us feel better about our lot in life and it eases the bludgeoning burden of boredom. And although it does make us feel better in the short run, it comes at a cost. Numbness. We can’t witness so much death, destruction, pain, suffering, animosity, betrayal, and hatred without becoming desensitised to it and normalising it. This only serves to perpetuate problems through acquiescence and copycat behaviour. But might there be another way? What if instead of delighting in others’ misfortunes we delighted in their fortunes and celebrated them as our own? What if every time something terrible happened to someone we had the courage to feel their suffering as our own with an open heart and without revelling in it as an opportunity to rise one rung higher than them on some imaginary ladder of worldly success? Compassion. It’s the new black.

Lessons learned

We are holed up in a lovely little apartment in Biarritz with only three days left of the European leg of our adventure. Having spent the last few weeks battered by one illness after another we wisely decided to stop camping and find ourselves some higher-end accommodation. As Extravagance will attest, camping is hard work. But I have to give it to her, she managed to make it through over a month of constant packing and unpacking of tents and sleeping bags, cooking meals on frying pans smaller than teacups, carrying out her ablutions in shower/toilet blocks covered in layers of sludge, pubic hair and fungus so thick you could grow veggies in it, and sleeping on a plastic mattress in 45 degree heat, surrounded by testosterone fuelled Italians giggling amidst a haze of marijuana, without whinging…much. But in doing so, Stinge and Extravagance managed to keep to a budget of 80 euros (114 aussie dollars) per day including food, fuel, accommodation, tolls, sites and booze for both! Stinge is very excited by this feat of stinginess and by Extravagance’s stoicism.

Another problem with camping in Europe is that aside from the language barrier, we appeared to be stuck in an age vacuum. There are three groups of individuals in campsites, those who move around on walking frames, those with one hand glued to their genitals and the other a can of beer, and those in nappies (some fit into both the first and last groups). We love a good chat and after a month of talking solely to each other we were flat out of conversation, so when we bumped into an old school friend of Lize’s in Valencia we talked ourselves hoarse (sorry Sal, sorry Duncan!).

We enjoyed their company so much that we agreed to meet up in San Sebastian a week later for a few luxurious days in a swanky loft apartment that had Stinge shaking in his tattered second-hand thongs. It was bliss. We all guiltily sat around watching t.v and sitting on the couch (a new found appreciation born of camping… a place to sit!), and occasionally we dragged our sorry travellers’ arses to the glorious beach. We are a bit remiss now without the company. Four people instantly makes a party and meeting up with friends from home across the world is somehow magical, though I must admit Stinge and Extravagance still seem to like each other after six weeks quite literally in each other’s pockets/sleeping bags.A few things we’ve learnt along the way:

· When people say Spain is hot, listen to them. You are not a tough Australian. You are a pussy city boy/girl and you cannot camp in 45 degrees plus humidity that could moisten the inner folds of your anus through a drysuit.

· If an offer seems too good to be true, it just isn’t true. Don’t go for bargains. You will end up with bed bugs or gastro. Play it safe and pay market value.

· Never eat in restaurants with pictures of the food (this we didn’t learn from experience, the pictures are just damn awful!).

· European speed limits are merely recommendations… feel free to flagrantly disregard them.

· Don’t eat in restaurants with English on the menu. It’s much better to point and hope.

· Bottles of wine with rubber corks are always shit, even if they are French… unfortunately the cork isn’t evident until after you’ve removed the foil.

· 80 euros/ day is more than enough to survive on but not really enough to live (Stinge says “bollocks!”)

· When travelling as a couple you become a two headed beast; two heads, one set of legs (or wheels). This becomes problematic when the heads want to go in different directions.

· Don’t take advice from 7-foot tall drug-pedalling german-croatian Porsche driving car-dealers with anger management problems about where to holiday in Croatia.

· After a month on the road, you get very tired and although you are ‘on holiday’ you can suddenly and quite stubbornly become “over it”. Account for this and find a beach, sangria and friends stat.

· A diet solely comprised of cheese and bread is good for nothing but gluten and dairy intolerance.

· When you haven’t had company for a while, remember that bowel movements and back hair are topics best left between you and partner

· Cars, TomToms, the internet and technology in general create as many problems as they solve. Stick to guide books, walking on your two feet, maps, and local recommendations.

· The Australian accented ‘Ken’ on Tomtom navigation devices is far more accurate than his butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-her-mouth pommy colleague ‘Susan’ (she was completely useless).

· As Stinge’s uncle Roy says, remember the 6 P’s. Prior preparation prevents piss poor performance. Romantic attempts at travelling spontaneously and being “truly free to go where the wind takes you” result in frenzied last-minute 8-hour sessions on the internet trawling through page after page of over-priced soviet-era nightmare hostels only to end up sleeping in campsites so inhumane the Australian government wouldn’t even dream of inflicting them on its illegal immigrants.

· Australians, like Americans, should not be allowed out of their country without prior training in discretion, volume control and the language/culture of the country they are destined for. Sounds draconian and elitist I know, but it would go a long way towards improving foreign relations.