Journeying deeper into Spain and off the tourist trail, they encounter a contrary picture to the one shown on television travel shows, and by far removed from the rose tinted romantic tales of middle class ex-pats. It’s a country of urban decay, suicidal taxi drivers, unsanitary sanitary facilities and a unique ambivalence of Spanish banking employees towards foreigners. Matt’s red wine accented and verbed Spanish sort of helps endear them towards the majority of the people they meet, although has an unusual effect on his wife.
Thirty days into the adventure, without warning or explanation, over a bowl of gazpacho in a restaurant in Seville, Debbie asks him for a divorce and takes the next flight home. It leaves Matt emotionally devastated and stranded in Spain, with Debbie’s car and a mountain of camping gear. Self-medicating with copious amounts of red wine, he struggles to come to terms with his predicament. Should he torch the car and fly back to England, or ride out the initial grief and soldier on?
A few days later, extremely hung over and still undecided about whether to commit a spot of car arson or no, salvation arrives in the unlikely form of an über-talkative German girl, then, a fun loving Dutch lad. Almost talked and partied to death by his new companions, Matt finds solace from his battered emotional state and decides to carry on with what has now become a mid-life disaster and misadventure all rolled into one.
He continues his red wine fuelled journey through Spain. Deviating from the original plan of visiting the historic cities, he keeps to the coast and begins to discover an even darker underbelly of Spain. It’s a country of drunken British tourists, just as drunk British ex-pats, ex-pat swingers clubs, lonely middle-aged women, brothels, transvestites and junkie beggars. All are things that never get a mention in tourist information guides, or, by smiling television presenters.
After a brief, unconsummated encounter with a beautiful Russian girl, who turned out to be a prostitute touting for business, Matt decides he has had enough of solo travelling and asks his Dad to meet him in Gerona for the last couple of weeks of the misadventure. More drinking ensues as they spend a week driving around the Catalan foothills of the Pyrenees, dodging Police patrols and linguistic autonomists, before finally heading back through France to England, leaving behind a Spain that is as enchanting, infuriating, exhilarating and exasperating as ever. |
