European Vacation – Laredo – Day 4

We didn’t have anything other than the bull fight planned for today, so we took it easy in our room and read our books until noon.  We had picked out a restaurant nearby that we had not been to yet and went there for lunch.

We had an adorable waiter, whose only knowledge of English was “thank you very much” and “was it good”, and each time he was near our table, he said on or other other to us.

After lunch we headed for Santander, hoping to find a parking spot fairly close to the ring.  We took our blankets with us as cushions to sit on and were glad we did.  The seats were 2 skinny boards with a few inches gap between them which would have been very uncomfortable.

That afternoon we watched 6 beautiful animals destroyed for entertainment as people cheered.  The lady at the travel agency was right – we did not enjoy it.  To a certain extent, I was glad we had gone.  The bulls would have been killed whether we were there or not and this was something that is tradition.  It didn’t help me understand why they enjoy watching this though.

The bull is wounded terribly before the matador even steps into the ring.  The fights don’t take very long, since he has to be killed before he drops dead on his own.  One matador was boo’d when his bull went down before he could make his final stab.

The best matador of the day (according to the cheers) was Angel.

That night we went back to the same restaurant where we had lunch today and got the same adorable waiter.  I had paella and sangria.    Our waiter made the sangria himself and said it was his specialty.  He told us this in French (since we’re Canadian).

I have some pictures of the bull fight, but all were taken before the bulls were injured.  Here are 2 of the fights and one of Angel the matador as he made his victory walk.

Angel

bullfight

bullfight

Today was Friday July 25th, 1975.

European Vacation – Laredo – Day 3

We had breakfast in the hotel this morning and then headed for a souvenir shop that we had seen just down the highway.  It was a huge store and it took over an hour just to see everything.

I bought a bull.  It was made of paper mache and had a black fur-like covering, which made him very realistic looking.  It was about 2 feet tall.  I may regret having to lug him around once we have to drop the car off – but just couldn’t resist him.  I named him Angel – after one of the matadors who will be at the ring on Friday.

There was a car wash not too far away, so we thought it was time to wash the car.  Three Canadian girls wearing shorts attracted a lot of attention as we stood outside when Libby went through the wash.  No one around could speak English and we couldn’t speak Spanish, but that didn’t stop them from talking to us.

Unfortunately, we noticed that the scratch on Libby really showed up once she was clean.  We decided that we might have to throw mud on her to cover the scratch before we turned her back in.  There was still time to get her dirty before then anyway.

We headed over to  Santander for lunch and then we all phoned home.  It was nice to know that Canada still existed. 

After we got back to our room, I posed with Angel for a picture at our window- so that is what you get today.

Mavis & Angel at Laredo

It looks like I’ve spent a little bit of time in the sun. 

Today was Thursday, July 24th, 1975.

European Vacation – Laredo – Day 2

We headed over to Santander this morning to find out about the bull fights.  We found information without any trouble and then headed to the place where tickets can be bought.  That was very easy to find because of the line up of people.  We stood there for 1 1/2 hours before we reached the wicket and we got our tickets for Friday.  Apparently the fights sell out early all the time, but they do sell standing room tickets for late arrivals.  I don’t think we would have settled for standing room tickets, so its good that we went early for them.

Our waiter at lunch told us that we had good seats and that the fights this  Friday should be good ones.   Of course, everything shut down after lunch and we had to wait until 4:00 pm for the stores to open so we could do some shopping.  I didn’t mention buying anything, so I guess we just looked and I have no idea what we looked at. 

After shopping, we went went to find the bull ring so we could plan our route on Friday.  Amazingly enough, we found it without too much problem, but saw that there is hardly any parking in the near vicinity.

Back at our hotel for dinner, we heard Canada being mentioned in the news, but we couldn’t figure out what they were saying.  They don’t have sangria here.

I don’t have any pictures today.

Today is Wednesday, July 23rd, 1975.

European Vacation – Burgos to Laredo

We had a wonderful sleep last night and even slept in because it was so quiet and peaceful.  We then slowly started towards the beaches – but were feeling depressed because the sun was now refusing to show itself.  It won’t be much fun on the beach without the sun.

We had decided that we would go to a bullfight in Spain, since we couldn’t get to one in Portugal and were looking for a tourist office along the way to get information on where and when we could find one.  We finally stopped at a travel agency and found out that there would likely be one on Friday at a nearby town.  She told us that we would hate it and we almost changed our minds, but can decide between now and then.

We stopped at an old hotel on the highway at Laredo which very close to where the bullfight is scheduled at Santander.  It cost less to stay here than it would have been to camp – about $1.00 each, so we are thinking about staying here until Friday anyway.  We have a view of the beach not far from our hotel.

Of course in a place like this no one speaks English.  We forgot to take our book (Europe on $10. per day) with us when we went out for dinner and had a hard time placing our order.  Usually the menus are translated for us, but here, it wasn’t and we had no idea what most of the foods were.  We ordered a few small things from the menu that we did know, but did not have much to eat tonight.

I took a couple of pictures of the beach and the town of Laredo and those are what I have to show you today.

Laredo

Laredo

I found almost the same image online of my pictures combined – but its not as old and faded as my pictures.  Its a beautiful town.  Here is the picture.  There is no one on the the beach in their picture either.

Today is Tuesday, July 22nd, 1975 and we traveled 190 km.

Chester and Stuff

We’ve had to increase Chester’s meds after 2 quick seizures again.  He had a seizure on February 18th (3 weeks after the one before) and then again on February 22nd (just 4 days later).  So, on the 23rd he was back at the vet’s office for more blood tests.

Without waiting for the doctor to tell me to increase, I added another 1/2 pill into his food starting Thursday morning and on Friday afternoon, I got the phone call to increase so this way he got started a day and a half earlier than if I had waited.  There was a possibility that I wouldn’t get the results until Monday – so that would have been 4 1/2 days head start.   His regular veterinarian was off work on Thursday, and last time, she ok’d the increase without another blood test.

This still has to balance, so I’ll have to be watching him for the next couple of weeks (actually, I’m always watching him).  At $100.00 per test, plus the meds this illness is getting very expensive – but he is so normal and happy when he is not having seizures.

I’ve had a couple of problems with the car in the last month or 2 also – so between the car and the dog, they are sure making it hard to save for my trip.   I’m getting full use out of my line of credit at the bank. 

Actually, most of the cost of the trip has been looked after (through the line of credit) already.  I still have to pay for the other 2/3 of the cost at Kruger, but I have 4 1/2 months before I have to worry about that.  I also have to pay for the balance at Nkorho, and I can pay that when I check out.  The only other item is the car rental and I pay for that when I book it.  I don’t have to book it for awhile yet either.  I should have more than enough spending money as that is being saved in a tax free savings account, plus my pay cheque and pension will continue going into my account while I’m away.  When I first started planning this trip, I hadn’t even stopped to think about how it would be paid for – I was just going to let the money add up on my credit card – but the interest on the credit cards would have really increased the amount I would end up paying.   The interest on the line of credit is very low, since it is using the equity on my house.

To complicate financial matters a little more, the Royal Bank just took a payment out of my account for a loan that was paid off almost 2 weeks ago.  Luckily I checked the account yesterday or a scheduled payment today would have bounced.  I phoned the bank when I noticed it, and their answer was that the payout was not received until the 22nd and that was after the scheduled payment.  I thought payments went electronically, so I’m not sure why it would take that long for them to receive it, but they have already scheduled the refund to be sent and apparently it will be about a week before it is back in my account.

They have just changed our health benefits at work and I will have to check to see if I still have travel health insurance once we get the documents on that.  I sure don’t plan on having to use it, but can’t take a trip like this without it – just in case.  There are lions and elephants and snakes there – along with the fact that I’ll be driving on the wrong side of the road.    Of course those critters are many of the reasons I am going. 

Of course, I have a couple of pictures of Chester that I took out in the yard this morning.

Chester Feb 25

Chester Feb 25

Things are almost back to normal at Africam now after the storms that knocked out 2 out of the 3 cameras and damaged the 3rd as well.  There is still work to be done, but the admin have been working tirelessly at getting everything back up and running.  Its so good to be able to watch all 3 of them again. 

Because of all the water still in the bush from the storms, the sightings are not back to normal yet, but we are seeing many of the critters grazing nearby anyway.  Grazing critters will attract the predators too.  So far today, we have seen Waterbuck, Kudu, Elephant, Nyala, Wildebeest, Warthog, Impala, Baboon, Cape Buffalo, Black-backed Jackal, Side-striped Jackal and Egyptian Geese.  Click here to see all of today’s pictures.

European Vacation – Ciudad Ridrigo to Bergos

Either this is normally a very lively town – or it is a holiday here because this place was hopping all night long and we didn’t get much sleep.  I guess having a bar downstairs maybe didn’t help.  We had breakfast in the bar and then packed up to head out.  We didn’t have any particular destination and were just going to take it easy after the day of driving yesterday with so much tension.

I didn’t mention this in yesterday’s diary, but we must have seen several farmers with donkeys or mules pulling carts or loaded up with things, but today I said that we were hoping to find more when we can stop to take pictures.  We didn’t find any donkeys or mules, but we did find a man with a pair of oxen pulling a cart.  I think we scared him when we stopped the car and all our cameras popped out the window.  He turned off the road just as we started taking pics.  I was using the video camera and didn’t get any still pics, but I took a pic from the video just now – its not great, but better than nothing.

We pulled into a campground just after 4:30 at Bergos and relaxed around the tent until 8:00 pm when we headed into town for dinner.  Now that we’re back in Spain we had sangria with our meal – but I have no idea what the meal was.  A thunderstorm started up while we were eating, so we were sure glad this restaurant had a roof over it.  There were no walls, but it wasn’t cold – just wet.  It is cooler now than it was last week in Spain, and its very pleasant. 

For pictures today, we have a postcard of Bergos and the picture of the man and his oxen that I snapped from my old video.

Bergos

Oxen

When I was snapping pics from the video, I also got a couple showing some of the cars in Lisbon driving by with the flags.  If you go back a couple of days to a day in Lisbon, you will see them. The video was also showing all the police nearby – with one standing right across the street from our hotel and others walking by – but I didn’t take pics of those.  When I figure out how to get this video onto a disc, I will upload it to You Tube though.

Today was Monday, July 21, 1975 and we traveled 215 km.

European Vacation – Lisbon to Ciudad Ridrigo

We got up early this morning to head back to Spain.

We had one stop we wanted to make in Portugal and we started off for Fatima.  The roads we traveled on today were in horrible shape – the worst we had seen since coming to Europe.  Again we were seeing red painted swastikas on everything – the roads – the signs – and buildings along the way. Looking past the roads and the defacing, we could see how beautiful the countryside was.

We were stopped at a road block this morning, but they  let us through without too much delay when they saw that we were  Canadian.

We thought about just passing right by Fatima and getting out of Portugal faster, but decided to continue.  It was a fairly quick stop though and then we were on our way.

It was getting late as we approached the border and we knew we would loose an hour so considered staying in Portugal for the night at a small town near the border.  Once we drove into the town though, all we could hear were sirens – so we thought it would be better to continue on.

Crossing into Spain was much like our experience of coming into Portugal, but they seemed a little friendlier this time – even though one of them had to leave his television show to look at our green card.

The first town we came to was Ciudad Ridrigo so we checked into a hotel here for the night.  It was pretty late by then and we just fell into bed.

Today was Sunday July 20th, 1975 and we traveled 340 km.

I have no pictures today.

European Vacation – Lisbon – Day 3

This morning we walked over to the bull fighting stadium to find out the schedule.  If there was going to be a fight in the next few days, we will stay to go to it. – but we found out that we just missed one and there won’t be another one until Thursday.  We also found out that the bulls were not killed – which is what we were hoping.  A matador who does kill his bull by accident could be jailed.

While there we found out a little about the situation here in Portugal when we talked to some Americans.  There is a revolution going on.  That explained why we had so much difficulty getting through the border and also the horn honking, flag waving and swastikas painted on the monuments.

We had a tour booked this afternoon, and decided that we would leave in the morning.

There were only 10 people on the tour but it was a good tour.  We went through a tropical garden, a coach museum and a monastery.  Our guide was very friendly and helpful.  We were dropped off at a gift shop afterwards and were given a glass of wine to drink while browsing.

After the tour we headed back to our room to pack things up and get ready to leave first thing in the morning.  It was scary being there now that we knew there was a revolution.  I hope we don’t have any problems leaving Portugal.

I have a postcard with a few views of Lisbon without any red swastikas painted on them, but again, no pictures of my own from here.

Lisbon

Today was Saturday, July 19th, 1975.

European Vacation – Lisbon – Day 2

Sometime during the night, the alarm was shut off – or we somehow managed to not set it, even though we thought we set it – or we all slept through it.  So – we got off to a late start to get the car in for servicing.

The garage listed in the book that was nearby turned out to be just for electrical work, but one of the guys there offered to drive us to the right place.  One the way there, Libby got a scratch.  It was actually scary sitting in the front seat with this guy.  I could see when we were stopped at a light that there were 3 lanes on our side of the street and only 2 lanes by the time we would get across.  We were in the middle lane and the guy in the right side of us scraped against us.   Neither driver stopped, but once we got to the garage, we got out to take a look and the scratch went about 3 feet along the side.

Unfortunately, that garage was closed, so he then drove us back (safely) to the first garage.  Another guy from the first garage then took us to a third one – that was luckily open and took Libby in for service.  We wandered around a few stores near this garage while waiting for Libby.  In one of the stores we found the album by Demis  Roussos – Good-bye My Love, Good-bye and we all bought one. 

We had pizza for lunch and then went to pick Libby up and head back to the hotel.

I don’t say what we did for the afternoon, but I think we just lay around the hotel room.  I remember looking out the window at all the cars going by with the red flags with swastikas flying out the windows and the horns honking.  We could also see some of the defaced statues from our window too.  It would have been great for taking pictures, but this all made me very uneasy and I didn’t take any.

I might have taken a video though – will have to look. I anyone knows what I need to turn this video from a VCR tape into digital, I would appreciate it.

We booked a tour for tomorrow.

We ordered room service for dinner.  I have no idea what we ate, but we were sure impressed by the service.    It reminded us of the great service we had back at home on the Aphrodite. 

Today was Friday, July 18, 1975 and I have now taken a couple of pictures from my old video of some of the cars and their flags.  They aren’t great since they were taken off the tv, but they show what we saw.

Lisbon Cars and Flags

Lisbon Cars and Flags

European Vacation – Toledo to Lisbon

Morning came awful early today, but we got everything packed up and then woke the guys to say good-bye.

We had to drive through Toledo on the way out and got lost there again.  I didn’t mention the poor traffic cop who we harassed yesterday, so maybe we didn’t see him.  We finally found the right highway and were on our way.  We realized then that we hadn’t had breakfast – but apparently we made up for that at lunch time. 

We had an awful time crossing the border into Portugal.  I had to go to 3 different places to show the passports and green card and they they asked to see in the trunk.  Luckily they didn’t take everything out once they saw how full it was with the tent and stuff.  Finally they let us go through.

We tried to get a room at 6 different pensions – but they were all full.  We then picked a beautiful and very expensive looking hotel, just to get a room.  It turned out to not be expensive at all and we had a gorgeous room for only $8.00 each, including breakfast.

We found out that we missed the bull fight today.  We wanted to see a bull fight  in Portugal, where we heard that the bulls were not killed.

We have noticed that police are everywhere and there are swastikas on flags and painted on monuments.  We’re not sure what is going on, but cars are driving by and honking their horns and they have the communist  flags flying out their windows.

We plan on staying here a couple of nights and will be taking the car in for service tomorrow.

Lisbon Monument

We didn’t take many pictures of the monuments due to all the red swastikas on them but this one was clean other than the bottom – so we cut the bottom off the picture.  I don’t know what it is though and although it is also on a postcard, it doesn’t say on there either.

Today is Thursday July 17, 1975 and we traveled 400 km.