20 years ago today – Day 58

Tuesday, April 30 – more Barcelona - Picasso, Miro, etc

It’s a cloudy day, our last day in town, and so the perfect day to see museums and galleries. Mike has his list of things he wants to do and I have mine. But first he takes out an advance on his VISA card. He insists that he wants us to take turn taking out larger withdrawals to save of money transaction fees. That means he will have all the money for a while, leaving me living on his handouts until it’s my turn. I’m wary of that idea but I agree to give it a try to save money.

My first stop is the Picasso Gallery. Picasso has always been one of my favourite artists, not only because of his originality but because he constantly changed his style and techniques. Amongst many other works, I love the power of Guernica, the great painting of the Nazi bombing of the Basques that hangs in the General Assembly of the United Nations.

He was cool too. I once read an account of an art critic and fan who came to interview him at his villa near Barcelona. They were having tea on Picasso’s patio. The critic mentioned that he had seen a painting at a show that he would like to see again. Picasso said he still owned it and suggested he could go see it in his attic while their tea was steeping. Leaning against a wall in the attic, the critic saw a stack of new charcoal drawings on canvas in a style he had never seen before and he became quite excited. As he brushed off the dust from the outer one he utterly destroyed it. The charcoal had not been set. He almost died. He returned, white-faced and shaky-kneed, to the patio. Upon seeing him return, Picasso jumped up and asked if he was alright. The critic was on the verge of tears as he explained what he had just done. “Oh, is that all? Well let’s sit down and have some tea,” was Picasso’s response.

The Picasso Gallery has 24 rooms, but there are great gaps in the collection in spite of the volume of Picasso’s work. The whole exhibition feels a bit sterile too. I cross the city to visit the Joan Miro Gallery, an artist I know little about in comparison. I have heard that Miro spent his whole life learning to paint like a child, a noble ambition. The collection is more impressive and colourful, but perhaps if I had studied him it wouldn’t be.

After the galleries I call Llorenc again, as he had mentioned yesterday that he might be available to meet with me again. But he has changed his mind. A prospective boyfriend of his apparently returned to town last night and wants to meet up with him today. Now I am clearer about his disinterest yesterday. Still, he wants me to write to him from France and I agree to.


Back at the hostel, I strike up a conversation with a stunningly handsome young hunk from Brazil named Rico who has just checked in. He is friendly and shy and wants to talk but speaks only Portuguese and Spanish. Still, we struggle for an hour and do surprisingly well. I learn he is 19 and meeting his water polo team here in Barcelona, which explains his incredible arms. It’s his first trip away from home and he seems quite lonely. He invites me to watch him play at 9am tomorrow. It really hurts but I have to decline his offer. Mike and I should be rolling out of town by that point.

He wants to be friends. He’s warm and open, but so innocent that I doubt his interest is meant in a gay way, but that doesn’t stop me from fantasizing what I would like to do with him in private. Still, there is no way I’m going to make a move on him. With me being 36, he is almost young enough to be my son. I promise him I will send a postcard from somewhere down the line.

Between the frustration fantasies of being with Llorenc and now Rico, I decide to make one last visit to the tubs. I return to the same sauna that was so active on Sunday night, but it is much quieter on this Tuesday night. There’s no one around but young hustlers and older men. I eventually meet another fellow my age, a tall, handsome fellow in town for a conference. His name is Leif Villars-Dahl, a 34-year-old lawyer from Oslo. He’s a pleasant guy to be around and a more likely friend than either Llorenc or Rico. He leaves with me and accompanies me back to our hostel where Mike is expecting me.

Mike wants to try the Pakistani restaurant again, and Leif is happy to join us for the company. We call Blake to see if he can join us, but he suggests instead that we meet him afterwards at the club named Gris uptown at 11:30. But by the time we get to the restaurant, order, eat and pay it is already 11:40 and neither Mike or Leif want to stay out longer. I decided not to go out on my own. We are cycling out of town early tomorrow and I don’t really hold up long anyway, in the smoky, noisy confusion of a dance club. Leif walks us back to our hostel. He gives me his address and phone number and invites me to stay with him in Oslo. I tell him we aren’t planning to go north of Copenhagen at this point but one never knows.

It bothers me that we have stood Blake up. I promise myself to write to him tomorrow or the next day to apologize.


PHOTO 1: another interesting facade downtown
PHOTO 2: entrance of Picasso Museum
PHOTO 3: inside Picasso Museum
PHOTO 4: Miro Gallery
PHOTO 5: University of Barcelona
PHOTO 6: Town Hall, Barcelona

20 years ago today – Day 57

April 29– Gaudi’s treasures

An acquaintance of mine from Toronto, Blake Field, now lives in Barcelona and I made sure I had his contact information before I left. Yesterday was too crazy, with Sonja’s sleeping in, picking up the bikes and looking for a place to stay, but today we are more in control of our schedule. I call him at work and arrange to meet him at Café Zurich at 8:30 this evening. Then Mike and I go about breakfast and our morning chores.

Llorenc is still in the shower when I call at 2. He says he will meet us at 3 at Café Zurich as well – popular place, that café – but it is more like 3:20 before he arrives. He is looking flushed and exuberant as he greets us. He leads us to Gran Via and beyond where some of Antoni Gaudi’s architectural wonders could be found. I had only heard vague mention of Gaudi before and I had no idea of the scope of his work. What an eye-opener!

First we see Casa Vicens and then the more famous apartment building Casa Batilo with its wavy walls, its ginger bread Mansard like roof fronts, crazy stairwells and animated, mushroom-like chimneys on the roof. Walt Disney must have used Gaudi as an inspiration at some point. His ironworks are wild too, sometimes thickly ornate and at other places swirling scrawls of iron strips that are definitely not functional. No doubt his buildings were not cheap. Though we did not have time to get to his famous Guell Park, but we did make it to his greatest and still unfinished Sagrada Familia.

Sagrada Familia is a cathedral that was begun 108 years ago in 1883. After all this time it is still only 20% finished. The eight perimeter towers are finished for the most part, but the centre towers which will be much higher, have not even been started. Still, we could see the towers from quite a distance above all other buildings in the area. When it is finished it will be 50% higher than St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, though smaller in volume.

The cathedral was Gaudi’s life-long obsession. He lived on site until his death at age 74, when he was reportedly backing up across the street to have a better look at it and was run over by a streetcar. The stairs to the top of the towers are steep and almost endless. There are slits that act as air vents that are large enough to slide out of it one wanted to and the walkways between the towers have low walls that got my knees shaking. Gaudi definitely didn’t care if people fell out of his buildings.


Mike leaves us to explore the cathedral on his own. I stay with Llorenc and pay his admission as he has seen the building a thousand times showing visitors around. He says it’s just another church but I firmly disagree. Llorenc has no fear of heights, unlike me. I marvel at his coolness and am enthralled by his sparkly blue eyes. He is so self-effacing too. As we reach the top I have the strongest urge to kiss him, but he doesn’t seem to register either avoidance or acceptance my subtle advances, in spite of his friendliness at the bathhouse yesterday. I content myself with a picture of him instead, and he takes one of me.

We meet Mike at the base and browse through the museum. Then Llorenc takes us up the Ave de Gaudi to a hospital designed by one of Gaudi’s contemporaries. We finish up at a café on the Rambla, the famous pedestrian way in the centre of the city, for coffee and some traditional Catalan desserts. A handsome fellow at the table behind me is shifting his chair and his hand keeps brushing my ass. He’s trying to pickpocket you, Llorenc explains. Don’t tell him I’m wearing a money belt, I whisper, as his hand keeps trying to find my non-existent wallet.

After we hug our goodbyes with Llorenc, we ramble up the Ramble to Café Zurich to meet Blake. I make a bet with Mike that he will be late, but I lose. He has been there fifteen minutes when we arrive. He spots me first. I hardly recognized his as he has aged a lot since he was a 22 year old glamour boy model. That was almost three years ago.

Blake was a friend of a friend, one of those handsome, untouchable Torontonian gay men with an attitude that prevents anyone from getting close, but here we are Canadians far from home and for the first time he gives us his full attention. He seems so changed, so relaxed and comfortable in his new life. He is glad to meet up with people from “home” but insists he’s never going back. “Never another snowflake,” he declares.

He takes us to a local restaurant. I order baked rabbit in garlic, which turns out to be garlic oil. It is too greasy to finish. It doesn’t matter, I tell myself. In a week I’ll be eating French cuisine.

I agree with Blake that Barcelona is the nicest city we have visited on the trip so far, though several places have been charming. It has its expansive ancient Gothic section, the beautiful Rambla, a wealth of ancient and semi-modern architecture and a handsomely-designed street grid, easy intersection being diamond-shaped. It’s easy to find my way around and there is so much to see.

Mike is in agreement too, and tells us Barcelona is the true capital of Spain. I haven’t seen Madrid, but I suspect Barcelona would be happier being the capital of an independent Catalonia. Blake says that next year’s Olympic Games here is one way of bringing world attention to the fact that they speak Catalan here first, not Spanish, and as a first step to promote independence from Spain. He doubts the Olympics will bring that but it will bring in enough federal money to relocate the railway corridor inland. At the moment, it severs the city from its beach, a real curse for a Mediterranean city with so many other interesting features.

After dinner we say our goodbyes to Blake. He is moving into a new house this week so he won’t have time to meet with us again. “It’s nice to meet someone whose head is screwed on right,” Mike comments to me. We are both a little envious of his life here as he has described it to us. It’s been a wonderful and very full day. We head back to the hostel.

PHOTO 1: Casa Vincens
PHOTO 2: Casa Batilia
PHOTO 3: Gaudi ironwork at Guell Park
PHOTO 4: more crazy ironworks
PHOTO 5: Llorenc
PHOTO 6: Sagrada Familia
PHOTO 7: two spires of the Sagrada Familia
PHOTO 8: Jesus been ignored by bystander
PHOTO 9: inside the entrance
PHOTO 10: Jesus above the door
PHOTO 11: details of decorations at entrance
PHOTO 12: hollow facade from inside
PHOTO 13: me, taken by Llorenc
PHOTO 14: Llorenc, taken by me
PHOTO 15: front of the Sagrada Familia
PHOTO 16: Sagrada Familia as it should look when finished
PHOTO 17: Hospital designed by one of Gaudi's contemporaries

20 years ago today - Day 56

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April 28 - Barcelona adventures

In spite of our late night, we are up and awake by mid-morning. Sonja is soundly asleep so we scrounge a breakfast of sausage and cheese from our panniers. We wait the rest of the morning for Sonja to get up, prisoners without a key. Mike writes his aerograms and I read more of Anna Karenin.

Sonja emerges sometime in the early afternoon and makes us coffee. Sonja's mother is returning from out of town tonight and we have to stay somewhere else, she tells us. I feel a sense of relief.

She drops us off with our bags downtown at the Placa de Catalonia where she first met us. We catch the Metro to the train station and pick up our bikes from special baggage. Mike tried to find us a Servas host to no avail. The only host willing to take last minute requests is in the process of moving to Indonesia and we are in no mood to help him pack. So we cycle down Gran Via to search around for a room in Hostel Bienestar near the Rambla. We shower, dress and go exploring the city our separate ways, agreeing to meet at la Café de la Calle at 8:30 this evening.

It’s a gray, chilly day, all the reason I need to seek out Thermos, a three level sauna highly recommended in Spartacus. It has all kinds of facilities – a TV lounge for movies, another TV lounge for sports, swimming pool and deck lounge, a large whirlpool, a restaurant, two shower rooms (one lighter and one not), darkened hallways, darkened playrooms, darkened porn room, darkened saunas and a huge darkened steam room. With all the money spent on heating, management had to cut corners with the lighting.

The halls are full of handsome young men cruising around, who I soon find out are mostly rent boys. I decide to check out the facilities instead of the roomettes. I grope my way across the pitch-black steam room and discover that I am not the only one groping. I find a man with a lovely, defined body and to save energy we grope together.

All in all, I have fine evening. Just before I leave I meet a handsome lad named Llorenc (Lawrence in Catalan), a student of architecture who beams at me from ear to ear. I am already going to be late to meet Mike so we make a quick arrangement to meet tomorrow. I accept his offer to take Mike and I around on an architectural tour of Barcelona.

It is raining lightly outside. I rush to meet Mike, feeling slightly bad for having kept him waiting for half an hour. Just in the nick of time, I meet him leaving the Café de la Calle, and we decide to go elsewhere. I notice he isn’t himself. I ask him what is wrong, and he explains he has just come from the police station an hour ago. He was strolling around the old section of the city, deserted because it was Sunday morning, with a map and camera wearing his hot-pink framed sunglasses looking like bait in a piranha tank. He attracted two men with a rather large knife, who relieved of him camera and 1000 pesados.

It doesn’t matter where we go. I choose a gay bar named Monroe’s because it is mostly empty, unlike the busy café we just left. Mike is quite distraught, humiliated and angry at himself for being so stupid. It is very hard for know-it-all perfectionists to seriously fuck up like this. We talk for more than an hour, or more accurately he talks and I keep encouraging him. This is more than he has spoken in the whole trip so far. I feel good in this new consoling role, especially after last night’s fight which only I seem to remember.

We have dinner in a Pakistani restaurant (my treat) and walk back to the Hostel Bienestar. We are enjoying one of our better moments as friends and traveling companions. I hope is learning something about being there when the shoe is on the other foot. I tell him about meeting Llorenc and his offer to give us an architectural tour tomorrow, and Mike thinks that would be good. He is feeling notably better.

PHOTO 1: the Rambla
PHOTO 2: Old Town (the Gothic quarter)
PHOTO 3: the cathedral in Gothic Quarter
PHOTO 4: the train station

20 years ago today - Day 55

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April 27 - train trip to Barcelona

Today Josep is free, at least until early afternoon, so we accompany him on his morning rounds to buy magazines, cigarettes and to a photography shop. Even when he is off he is constantly moving. Then he takes us to the train station where we buy tickets to Barcelona. We want to cross into France at the start of May and that requires a train ride to shorten our time in Spain by saving four days of cycling. Mike was given conflicting information about which train can carry bicycles. With Josep's help we are satisfied that the 5:30 train is what we need.

Josep walks around with us afterwards, never resisting the urge to chat with every friend he meets. He has lots of friends and often keeps us waiting while they exchange news. The great majority of them are young women. He has a natural and easy manner in their presence and seems to have a glow when they are around. They seem to like Josep too. He tells me he doesn't have a girlfriend and doesn't want to marry as he cannot be faithful to just one woman at this stage of his life.

I have noticed that some men prefer the company of men and others the company of women, regardless of sexual orientation. I have always preferred the company of other men. Mike prefers his own company over anyone else.

Josep leaves us alone at his place after 2, taking off with a friend somewhere. We linger at his place until almost 5, when it is time to go to the train station. The trip to Barcelona is uneventful. We arrive at 10pm, too late to reach the special baggage office for our bicycles before it closes. At the train station I check my bags into a locker, all except my front panniers and sleeping roll.

Mike and I head to the Café Zurich at la Placa de Catalonia, where we have agreed to meet our host Sonja. Sonja is Nuria’s cousin (Nuria from Almeria). The café is full but we have no idea what Sonja looks like. She is probably expecting us to have our bikes with us, which we don’t. Twenty minutes later she approaches us, since we were obviously looking for someone. She asks if we are from California, having confused information about us. She short, quiet, 22 years old and dressed in quasi-punk drag.

She leads us several blocks through the old section of town to reach her car. We load our bags into her trunk. We run into Sonja's friends, a girl named Isa and two drunk or stoned boys. The guys are not attractive but fairly friendly in their inebriated state. They accompany us to a punk bar where Sonja's sister and her girlfriend join us. The bar is packed and throbbing with British punk songs with lyrics as unintelligible as if they had been sung in Chinese. Sonja hangs out with her clique while we stood by idly in everyone else's way. I hate crowded bars. After a time that seemed like an eternity, Sonja returns and announces that we are going to another bar. Mike glances my way to see if I am as tired as he is. I am.

Sonja drives us what seems to be a long way in her car. She is very quiet and shy and says very little, and since Mike doesn't like to ask questions or share information he has been told I am in the dark about what is happening. I am just going along for the ride, literally.

We arrive at a rustic looking bar with western décor, if you can call it décor. Sawdust has been sprinkled liberally to soak up spilled liquids and the broken bottle swept aside towards the walls, but not removed. The place is empty at first, but it begins to fill up. Soon I can no longer see the broken bottles. Most of the new arrivals were patrons of the previous bar on their normal mid-week evening migration pattern.

I take refuge from the crowd in the unisex washroom. It is filthy. There is no doorknob and there are more piles of sawdust everywhere. I try not to think about the liquids being soaked up on that floor. There is no toilet paper and no toilet seat. I decide I’ve had enough of the smell and filth but the door jams on a pile of sawdust and I cannot open it. I dig at the sawdust with my foot until I am able to open it far enough to squeeze out through the crack. There are several punkers waiting outside to use the room. Three squeeze in at once and a minute later I catch a sharp whiff of a hash-tobacco mix drifting out the door. Until now I have innocently thought that only gays could create a bar this raw and raunchy.

Both Mike and I are sapped and not in the best of moods. I make an attempt to order a beer in Spanish. He explodes into criticism, annoyed over my Spanish pronunciation, and I blow up right back at him, calling him arrogant and stuck up. He tells me to shut up and we stand scowling, not looking at each other, arms crossed with our backs to the wall. But we are not seriously mad at each other, just over-tired. Ten minutes later we have cooled down and are laughing as though nothing had happened.

Our ordeal isn't over. Sonja drags us reluctantly to a third bar. I tell myself that once she's an adult she won't do this to others, but I'm not so sure. The third bar is similar to the first. It's called Max. Its unmarked entrance is off a narrow street in the old quarter. The walls are decorated with junk, scavenged from junkyards, I assume. A dismantled bike has been mounted on the wall above the door. The bartender, a lanky fellow in his late 20s, is wearing a cap with a Toronto Blue Jays logo on it. He asks us, in a Canadian accent, if we'd like a drink but we've already had too many. We try to talk but the crowd from the last bar follows us in and sidles up to the bar, and he is suddenly very busy.

We only stay here for an hour. Sonja says goodbye to her group of friends and they each say goodbye to us, which is the first thing any of them has said to us all evening. Sonja leads us back to her car and drives us to her mother's place 5 km away where we spend the night.


PHOTO 1: Josep greeting a woman friend
PHOTO 2: train to Barcelona
PHOTO 3: Barcelona train station

20 years ago today – Day 54

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Friday, April 26 – Valencia

Josep is up and zipping around early. He tells us he will be out all day until 10pm so he leaves us his keys. The day is all mine as Mike is going his own way. We agree to meet at the Placa de la Virgen at 6pm. He leaves first, so he leaves me the keys.

It's pure luxury not to have answer to anyone until then. I love the freedom. I stroll around the old city, through the gates of the walls and over the moats, which are bone dry in most places. It's a lovely city for walking, almost as nice as Alicante, but it extends many kilometres in all directions.

The people here speak a dialect of Catalan, a Romance language not as closely related to Spanish as some other languages, such as Italian. I didn't know this previously, and it makes the city feel more exotic. Before this week the only thing I associated with Valencia was oranges. My guide book tells me that Valencia was the last stronghold of democracy to fall to Franco's Fascist forces in the Spanish Civil War. It suffered greatly for many years after it fell.

There is a gay sauna in Valencia that I check out, thinking that it might be quite popular in a much bigger city, but there are only three other patrons so I leave immediately. I meet Mike at 6 as planned but we return to Josep's to eat our groceries instead of going out. Josep returns home briefly in the early evening. He has tried to get us complimentary tickets to a dance performance he is recording but the director doesn't want extra bodies in the small space. So he's out the door again after a few minutes. I read Anna Karenin for the rest of the evening.


PHOTO 1: Placa de Virgin
PHOTO 2: Valencia Cathedral
PHOTO 3: lane in old town Valencia
PHOTO 4: walls of the old town
PHOTO 5: Place de Virgin

20 years ago today – Day 53

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April 25 – Benidorm to Valencia, 2708 km

Today we have a serious problem. Benidorm is not half way to Valencia and the distance we have to cover for the rest of the way is much longer than two days ago, and significantly longer than any day since the start of our trip. To shorten our distance we have decided to follow the national highway most of the way, not there are many other options in certain places. We packed and shopped last night and are up early, psychologically ready for the hard day ahead. We are on the road by 9.

We are able to use a smaller highway, N332, for almost the first 20 km, while we are following the flat coastal plain north-east from Benidorm, but beyond this point we run into the Sierra de Bernia, a sharp wall of mountains that bars our way. Here our smaller highway merges with the freeway and the freeway turns north and climbs through a narrow gap at the east end of the wall. Here we are met by a strong north wind that fights our efforts to climb the hill. We struggle with it the rest of the day.

On days like these, when the wind is our enemy, there is nothing much we can do but to stay crouched down over the handlebars, our faces tilted down, squinting at the road a few metres ahead to reduce our wind resistance and keep the blowing dust out of our eyes. I put the bike into the lowest gear to ease the strain on my knees and keep cranking the pedals slowly and smoothly. At times I feel tempted to get off the bike and push it but I have learned from past experience that it is three times harder to push a loaded bike up a hill than to keep riding it. With the wind against us, there is no coasting, no relief from the fight, and this continues hour after hour until the destination is reached.

The shoulder is broad beside the high volume of fast moving traffic on the freeway, broad enough that we can safely make it through the tunnels where the road cuts through the mountain. But this is a toll road and many trucks try to avoid the tolls by riding on the shoulder. They don't like us being here. They would gladly run us over to save a few pesados.

Past the gap, the expressway follows through a couple valleys and canyons that are channeling the winds from the north right at us. Finally, after 30 km in the hills, the road returns to a seaside plain where the winds are somewhat lessened, allowing us to go a bit faster. Not long past the 100 km mark, we are able to take a side road away from the expressway that follows the shore through a national nature preserve that features a fresh water lagoon called La Albufera, the rest of the way to Valencia. Unfortunately, we are both too exhausted by this point to enjoy its watery beauty much. We arrive in Valencia around 6 after nine hours of hard riding. We have covered 28 km more than our longest day so far, from Setubal to Evora in Portugal.

Valencia is large, the population of Vancouver but more sprawling, and the layout is confusing. The centre is surrounded by a large canal on the south and a smaller one on the north, as if to create an island. Several signs to the “centro” point away from the core, confusing us. Luckily, Valencians are friendly and helpful, tired as we are, and we manage to get to the tourist office just before it closes. We have city maps in our hands before we call our Servas host Josep.

We hustle to get to his place because he has to leave for some commitment with friends at 7:30. He’s a tall, curly-haired, attractive and out-going guy, 30 years old in a Tom Hanks kind of style. He gives us a brief tour of his flat, wishes us luck and dashes out the door without leaving us keys. We scrounge through our panniers for dinner. Mike wants to have his typical evening walk around Josep’s neighbourhood. I have to stay to let Mike back in, but I don’t mind. I’m too tired to move and I am anxious to read more of Anna Karenin.

Rob, Josep’s long haired English roommate, comes home and introduces himself to me. He’s been living with Josep three years now, working as an English teacher. (Duh! I had to ask.) He showers and then retires to his room to play electric guitar. Like Josep, Rob is flamboyantly and unmistakably hetro.

Josep returns at 9:30, shortly after Mike arrives back. He only stays a few minutes, munching on a quick meal of fruit in front of us while trying to chat us up. He has done cycling tours all over Europe, Bolivia and parts of Brazil. He has thousands of slides but no time to show us. He doesn’t have time to read our carefully prepared letters of reference before darting of to join others for a theatre engagement. We are in bed and sleeping long before he returns.


PHOTO 1: view south towards Benidorm from Altea
PHOTO 2: view north to Calpe and the cape from Altea
PHOTO 3: Cala del Morro de Toix (the cape)
PHOTO 4: La Galera, before the climb
PHOTO 5: highway climbing the Sierre de Bernia
PHOTO 6: highway tunnel
PHOTO 7: looking back from the pass towards Benidorm
PHOTO 8: La Albufera wetlands south of Valencia
PHOTO 9: gateway to Valencia, Puerta del Mar

20 years ago today – Day 52

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April 24 – an extra day in Benidorm

Somehow Mike told Josef Sanz, our Servas host in Valencia, that we’d arrive tomorrow and not today, and he isn’t prepared to receive us a day early so we are resting an extra day in Benidorm. I can handle that, though. I need to learn to enjoy myself.

I feel like being alone today, after last night’s drinking and frustrations. I enjoy a quiet breakfast in a sidewalk café alone, watching the street life and other tourists in the cafe. The town has a strange tourist mix of trendy, yuppie gays and over-weight bad-taste straights. I don’t feel like I’m part of either group but I do like strolling around the markets. I am itching to buy things, as if I am living here and don’t have to carry everything I buy from town to town.

I spent the afternoon on the beach absorbed in Anna Karenin. When I get to warm I go for a swim, my first swim in the Mediterranean on this trip. I find that realization curious since we have passed so many beaches so far, and they have all looked inviting. It is even stranger that Mike hasn’t had many dips since Sagres either. He has had a few though, and each time I ask him how it was he had replied, “Like a fresh mountain stream,” which did nothing to encourage me. Now I am thinking – and I know it’s Tolstoy’s writing that has got me thinking this way – that I have spent too much time as wall flower or perhaps a turtle when it comes to having fun. I need to try more things, take a chance once in a while.

Mike joins me on the beach. He doesn’t stay in the water as long as I do. It isn’t too sunny but that doesn’t stop the tourists from coming to the beach. Perhaps it’s like having an extra plate at an all-you-can-eat smorgasbord even when the food is boring – you want to make sure you are getting your money’s worth.

Mike has been enjoying his time alone too, his preferred mode of life it seems. He engages a young Icelandic man in conversation, who tells us Benidorm is one of the two most popular Spanish resorts for Icelanders. He doesn’t say what the other one is. Mike was born and partially raised in South Africa and knows how to say, “Pass the salt” in Xhosa, the pre-Dutch indigenous language with all its clicks and pops at the back of the throat. He has the Icelandic lad teach him how to say the same phrase in Icelandic, claiming that this will be a start in writing the first-ever Icelandic/Xhosa dictionary.

I have a three hour nap in the room from later afternoon to early evening. We opt to eat dinner out of our panniers in our room this evening, instead of going out. Mike stays in afterwards, as he hasn’t had a nap like I have. I go to Minerva for a couple drinks, and then check out the upstairs at People.


PHOTO 1: Benidorm beach scene, 1991
PHOTO 2: palms and bluff beside beach
PHOTO 3: Benidorm Island and seniors
PHOTO 4: Placa del Castell, Benidorm
PHOTO 5: gay night club in old town Benidorm

20 years ago today – Day 51

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April 23 – Alicante to Benidorm, 2557 km

We pack quickly and pause to eat the toast and jam Jacinto has laid out for us before we leave. Our journey to Benidorm isn’t that far today, but we have to be out early so Jacinto can get to work. Our bikes are thankfully still intact in his parking garage. We bid him adieu with regards and thanks for both him and Burquita, who leaves for work before him.

We follow the coastal highway, N332. There is not much notable scenery on the way to Benidorm. It passes through a smattering of coastal enclaves and two towns – El Campello and Villajoyosa.

Benidorm itself is on a rocky point jutting into the Mediterranean with two sweeping, curved beaches on either side of the point. The old town is near the end of the rocky promontory. It is interesting, even charming, and much less commercial than Albufeira and other Algarve towns in Portugal. There are many British, Dutch and Belgian tourists here, as well as many northern European ex-pats. It is also a popular gay resort, though not nearly as popular at Sitges, which is less than an hour’s drive from Barcelona, a major gay hub. In a way, it reminds me of Key West with less charm and character.

We find a pleasant ‘2-star’ pension for only 2000 pesados per night, “very niiiice”, as Mike would say. It’s close to the beach, shopping and bars we’d like to visit, but then the town isn’t very large so anywhere would be walking distance. The food prices are low too, which pleases Mike even more than me. I pick up a copy of Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenin” and read it while lounging on the beach.

This evening, after a cheap meal out, Mike and I go on a pub crawl through five gay bars near the beach. The first, “Minerva”, has an engaging owner/bartender named Rafael, who is a blond hunk with a fun sense of humour. The other patrons, mostly older, were open and friendly. The second bar, named “People”, is less friendly, but it has a second floor with lots of dark rooms and porn video room where sex was going on. I check it out briefly with Mike but he doesn’t want to stay.

As the evening goes on I become drunker and hornier. Neither sensation is very pleasing. My little tryst in the sauna in Alicante yesterday has wetted my appetite, not quenched it, because sex isn’t really what I need. Visiting gay bars makes it worse, since even if I am able to meet someone I cannot stay even if I want to. I think it is better to forget about being a “gay” man as much as I can or I’ll just get too frustrated.

On the way home I stop to gaze at a statue honouring drowned sailors, one sailor tenderly holding a limp drowned man in his arms. I am spellbound by the futility of the care expressed. A Spanish club goer stops at a fountain beside the statue, whips out his large cock and pisses into the fountain in a deliberate display of masculinity. He plays with it a bit as he shakes off the last drops, as though I wasn't there watching. Then he tucks it away and hurries off without looking back, as if he doesn't have he faintest interest in me. And he probably doesn't.

I am really enjoying Anna Karenin though. I love Tolstoy’s writing style, his amazing psychological insights into the human experience. I wish I could have met him while he was alive. Apparently he went mad shortly before his death, but not in a good way.


PHOTO 1: Alicante and Santa Barbara Castle
PHOTO 2: coast south of Villajoyosa
PHOTO 3: looking inland to Mt Puig
PHOTO 4: Playa de Torres
PHOTO 5: Dove Park, Benidorm
PHOTO 6: Levante Beach, Benidorm
PHOTO 7: El Papagayo Bar
PHOTO 8: statue honouring drowned sailors