Madrid and Navalmoral

To our surprise we arrived in Madrid today, on monday, which is great.

Hitch-hike from San Sebastian to Madrid took about 8 hours and 5 cars. Thank you to all the helpful drivers who have helped us along the way. Yeah we're here now and will enjoy Madrid and the rest of Spain. Hope to meet lots of great people :)

In Madrid we had to stay in a hostel for 3 nights. Unfortunately weren't able to find any CouchSurfers there that could host us. Hostel itself wasn't really the best one around, cheapest one actually =D
City seemed pretty cool, nightlife was active and there was lots to see during the day.

Hitch-hiking out of Madrid was hard though. On the first day we tried to head to west, in direction of Salamanca, but not one car stopped, and as it was really hot outside, we stopped sometime around 5-6 in the evening and headed back to the hostel. Second try was a bit more successful, as we got about 180km away from Madrid and had to stop in a small town called Navalmoral on the way to Portugal, as it was late in the evening by then. Actually the car that picked us up from the road and took to Navalmoral was an small town ambulance, but they seemed to be off duty at that moment. So now we have hitch-hiked on a police car and an ambulance =P

Navalmoral was a nice little town with calm people and warm weather. We took a small walk through the town and sat a bit in a small park near the bus station. It was cool to see families with small children spending their evenings out together into the early night hours. For sleeping we just selected an out of sight spot next to the bus station and just spent our night there, much more comfortable than in San Sebastian =)

Moving from Navalmoral to Portugal went a lot faster than start from Madrid, but more about that in the post covering our stay in Lisbon ;)

Note of the day: Madrid is not the best place to hitch-hike out of!

Cool street in Madrid

Having breakfast before heading out to hitch-hike

Trying to hitch-hike out of Madrid

Yarrr, we need a parrot

Walking around in the heat

Getting some rest after hitch-hiking in 40 degrees

Lunchbreak

Got some cool leche and watching Olympics

Found some snakeskin, looking for the owner

That's the outside of Madrid for you :D

In the ambulance ;)

Nightlife at Madrid Puerta de Sol

In the desert near Madrid

Hitch-hiking on the road to Portugal

Evening in Navalmoral

San Sebastian in Spain

Got to San Sebastian from Bordeaux on Saturday. We were trying to hitch-hike to South-West of France from Bordeaux, to stop in a town called Bayonne. We were picked up by two french girls heading to San Sebastian for the weekend, and as there wasn't anything certain planned for Bayonne, we decided to go all the way with them.

Once in town we took a walk around the center town to find a Touris Information point and got ourselves a map. After finding a map, we headed to the beach. To our surprise the sand area of the beach was fairly small, but later we saw that it was because of the high tide. Beach itself looked fairly nice, but the water was cold. To our misfortune, after staying on the beach for a bit the sky turned cloudy and it got bit chilly. So we decided to head back into town and find something to eat and perhaps a place to stay at.

For dinner we got two packs of chips and some sausages, from already closing Lidl shop. We enjoyed it well and started to look for a place to sleep at. As there were two train stations near by, we tried to see, if we could spend the night there. Unfortunately it was closed for the night, so we had to settle with some benches outside of it. After siting there for a while, decided to walk around a bit and find a place to lay down at. After trying to find a spot somewhere around the train station and the park there, we spoted a church tower nearby. As we had a recomendation at the start of our trip to spend a night near a church, if we had to sleep outside, then that's what we did.

It wasn't comfortable by no means, but we got some sleep, untill it started to rain early in the middle of the night. We quickly packed our stuff and walked away from the church. After walking for a while through the city to find a dry spot to lay down at, we eventually stopped next to the beach on a small area meant for people to enjoy the view over the beach. It was certainly the longest night of our trip so far, but we survived it =)

On Sunday, we decided to head on deeper into Spain. To our misfortune, the weather continued to be awfull and it rained almost all day, not really best time to hitch-hike. As sleeping outside with the rain wasn't an option, we had to settle with a hostel marked down on the map we got from the tourist office. Looking back, it was fairly expencive one, but atleast we got a warm and dry place to sleep at.

Monday the weather turned warm again, so we started heading out of San Sebastian. More about that in the next post ;)




Beach at San Sebastian

Trying to find a host :P

Dinner on our first night

Dinner at the hostel on our second night

Hostel

Complimentary breakfast

Our hostel

Beach at San Sebastian

Enjoying the city and having dinner

Rainy day

French police and Bordeaux

Big waves from Bordeaux

Getting here started off with an interesting twist. We were dropped off by the speedway by Raphaël and tried to get a car there. We stood there for more than a hour and seemed to have very little chance of finding a car that would take us closer to our destination. Then, a local police car stopped at the truck stop behind us. They asked us to come away from the speedway and said it's not allowed to hitch-hike there =P
Facing no other option but trying to get a car from the truck stop, we decided to ask the policemen who had stopped us, if they knew a better spot, where hitch-hiking was allowed. To our surprise, they said that they can drop us off to a place nearby, where we could get to Bordeaux. So out of nowhere, we had hitch-hiked on a police car =D

They took us to a small town nearby that had a national highway going through it, in the direction of Bordeaux. We walked a bit to the edge of the town and once we lifted up our sign, about the third car stopped and picked us up. It was a cool guitar teacher from Nantes and he was on the way to enjoy his vacation in Cognac, which was on half way to Bordeaux. It was fairly long but fun ride, talked a bit about music and Olympics.

From midpoint to Bordeaux we waited for a bit to get a ride (and Erki got attacked by a vicious plant). But soon enough we were picked up by a cool guy that was heading to his new home on the coast, nearby Bordeaux. He dropped us off just outside of the town, from where we used the tram line to get to the center, where we met Guillaume, our host.

Guillaume is a talented musician and had a piano concert scheduled just at the time when we arrived, so we had an opportunity to go to listen to him play. He was performing some of his own piano pieces to his friends in a close by bar, on a piano he actually tuned himself. He is really good and it was awesome to listen to him play and relax after 7 long hours of hitch-hiking.

On Thursday, we took a walk around town with Guillaume. He was so passionate to show his favourite spots and talk about his town. Great to see someone so enthusiastic about the place they live at. We saw a cool water mirror, some nice narrow streets and a big boat in the harbor. Also got some blue smurf ice cream =P

In the evening we enjoyed some French cheese and Bordeaux wine. Since we didn't have a corkscrew, it turned out to be quite a challenge to open the wine bottle. Luckily we had a real Frenchman around and he showed us how it's supposed to be done (see pictures below for illustration) =P

After the wine and cheese we climbed up to the roof of Guillaumes house and enjoyed the view over Bordeaux at night. As most of the houses are not higher than 5 floors, you could easily see over most of the city. Beautiful sight.

So we're happily in Bordeaux right now. Heading south on Saturday =)

Found some cool turtles at Place de la Victoire

Getting our feet wet

The Water Mirror (Miroir d'eau)

It's getting foggy

This boat is for little Juku

Horses in a fountain

Enjoying smurf ice cream with Guillaume

Mmmmmmmmmm

Omnomnomnivoure

French wine and cheese

That's what happens if you don't have a corkscrew

Crazy Frenchman with a knife and a bottle of wine =P

Guillaume giving a piano concert 

Parking in Bordeaux

Water mirror

Guillaume vs a bottle of wine

On top of the roof at night