Outside the ground

I drove into Asturias from Cantabria and immediately I felt at home. Different customs, different people, different architecture …. I’ll post more about this later.  It is an amazing place.

I came to Gijon, a city about the size of Brighton.  it’s got a university and culture and is built on a peninsular, so water on 3 sides.  There’s 3 surf breaks right in the centre of the city.

I found out that the cities football team, Sporting Gijon were playing at home last Sunday and bought a ticket. They got relegated from La Liga last year, so play in the 2nd tier, similar to Brighton.  It was a great experience. Although the ground is old, it is really set up in a way that UK clubs should be.  There are good quality bars and restaurants under the stands and they are open every day of the week.  There is also a top class gym/fitness centre open to the public in the ground.  Rather than serving crap that you have to queue for and pay high prices for, in awful surroundings, they give proper food and drink for normal prices in good quality bars and restaurants.  The staff are well trained, so there is minimal queueing.  My accountant is finance director at the Albion and i need to send him over here to look and learn.

In the ground, the atmosphere was excellent, with a particular area of a stand I was in allocated to the ‘Ultras’ who sing all of the way through the game.  There’s a guy with a microphone facing away from the game and starting all of the chants.  There was a guy with a drum and another with a trumpet following his lead.  .. see below. superb! I’ve always wanted to go to a game like this, as seen it on TV  in South America but never been.

Gijon went one nil down against the run of play with 10 minutes to go.  They immediately went up the other end from the kick off and equalised.  Then in the very last minute of stoppage time, they got a winner .. 2-1 .. everyone went wild … superb!!!!

Good quality bars and restaurants.

Old schools ground

Proper set up with guy and a microphone and speakers in front of the home supporters. His only job is to get the home crown and atmosphere going .. just like south america … we should definitely have this in England.

About a week ago I got 2 days at an amazing reef bread in the middle of nowhere.  At the end of a 3km lane, on from a little village is a forest on the edge of the sea.  There is a really good reef break with an ‘A frame’ and also a great right hander about 200m metres from it.  There were about 5 other vans camping there with Germans and French being the majority, apart from the locals …. still only 1 group of English surfers in Spain .. great!

Attack of the Giant Mosquitos

I drove from the Basque country into Spain and stayed by a lovely quiet beach called Oyambre.  I have never come across mosquitos in northern Spain before, however, on this night when I went to bed I was woken by things landing on my face.

They buzzed around my ears and sounded like mosquitos, but as I have never had mosquitos dive bomb my face before, I thought they must be flies and couldn’t be bothered to turn the light on the try to swat them.

After being woken several times, I sat up at 3.10am and turned on the light.  My eyes quickly focused on the biggest mosquito I have ever seen.  I splatted him with Alex Ferguson’s autobiography and Sir Alex’s face took the full brunt.  When I looked at Sir Alex again, there was a big smear of blood across his chin. I looked around and saw a couple more and they got the same treatment.  The worrying thing was that each one was full of my blood when being head butted by Sir Alex.  I kept trying to get back to sleep only to be dive bombed again.  The mosquitos kept landing on my face and I just couldn’t sleep.

I think I got around 12 mozzies in total and there was still one flying around when I gave up trying to sleep and dragged myself out of bed at around 8.30am.  The van ceiling and cupboard doors were like something out of a Tarrantino movie and I was knackered.

OH NO …. I Did It Again

Yep, I got out of my van first thing in the morning and closed the side door behind me, to again find myself locked out.  This time, it took from 9am until about 5pm to resolve the issue.

After about 10 phone calls to the UK from a phone box and waiting for hours in a local bar for a return call, I was told that someone was coming to tow my van.  While waiting for the arrival of the tow truck 2 police and lots of locals came along and before I knew it, I had 6 local basques and a crazy Austrian around my van.  There were 2 policemen, 2 maintenance men and a recovery driver all trying to retrieve my key through a slightly open window.  The key was on the worktop in the centre of the van, behind the drivers seat.

The doors could not be opened, so I had resigned myself to have the window smashed and replaced and the breakdown company with whom I have a policy confirmed that they’d put me up in an hotel for the night.  However, when the recovery vehicle arrived the locals had different ideas.  I stood telling them to tow the truck to the VW garage and break the window, but they took absolutely no notice. I had a lady called Patricia, who is Basque but lives in Hampshire translating for me and the response that came back was “tell him to relax”.

The recovery driver said that with the wheel lock on and a lot of other cars around, it was difficult to town my van.  Patricia then asked what he did in these circumstances and he said that he always finds a way to sort out the problem.  Ultimately, one of the policemen had some wire, which Johanas (your highness) put some sticky tape on.  His arm was though my drivers side window and the other 4 guys were peering (noses to the glass) through my tinted windows shouting directions to the key.  It really was like something out of a crazy film, but it worked.  The sticky tape stuck to my key and they somehow got it out from the back of the van through the front window …. have a look at the photos and video ….. AMAZING!  in hindsight, it was hilarious, but at the time, I just wanted to get my van towed, as I’d had enough and didn’t think there was any chance they’d retrieve the key.

On a different note, Patricia, was over from Hampshire to see her 86 year old father who by complete co-incidence have Myloma, which is the same pretty rare form of bone cancer that my Mum has.  (Hi Mum :))

Get off my van

I said, get off my fucking van and just tow it to the garage.

Click on this link and wait for the video to download, it shows what was going on . .   MVI_4968 …. completely out of my control.

Oh yeah … in all of the chaos about the van, I forgot I left my wet suit hanging up and it was nicked … never mind, I have a spare one with me, although it is crap and cold …. it will have to do for now.

On our first night in Zaurautz Johanas and I set out for a few tapas in the town.  It was Saturday evening, but I was not planning to have a big night out. 8 hours later at 4am, I was zig zagging back to the camp site …. the next day, I woke up with al of my clothes on in my can … I don’t know how I made it and I had a hangover from hell.

That evening, we had got to know loads of people in the town, who were all really friendly. For the next 2 days, lots of people, including the bar tenders were saying hi, although I couldn’t remember most of them.

My first stop in Spanish Basque country was Zarautz, just west of San Sebastian.  On the first day 2 brother’s unfortunately drowned together on the beach below the camp site I was staying at.  Apparently, the leash on one of their boards snapped and his brother went to help him. I am not completely sure how they both died, but i think they must have been beginners.

I feel for their family and it is a lesson for me to check my leak is in good order.

The Basque Country

So I drove south out of France and into the Basque country about a week ago.  I had 3 nights in French Basque country south of Biarritz near a village called Guetharay.  A beautiful place with 2 great breaks, but mostly suited to long

Also here is one of the best breaks I have ever been to, called Lafiteinia.  It is a 300m+ right hand point that holds up to 5 metres.  Basically, even massive waves break properly here and the ride goes on for a very long time.  I went in on my first day and had an excellent surf.  The next day, it was very big and heavy and there were far too many shit hot local surfers in the water for me to have got any waves.  I therefore went to the Spanish border and surfed Hendaye.

You wouldn’t want that to land on your head. Plenty of guys in the impact zone.

I have met a truly crazy Austrian called Johanas (pronounced “your highness”, as he likes to say) who is genuinely eccentric.  He was the Finance Director for the major Austrian oil company and has lived all over the world, including London and the Isle of man of al places.  He took what he refers to as a platinum handshake and now spends a lot of time with his car and caravan in northern Spain surfing.  He is currently at the end of a 4 month trip.

Hendaye, where I surfed is right on the Spanish border.

We travelled from French into Spanish Basque country together and have been to about 5 different places now.  He’s been good company and we’ve had a lot of fun, although a week of getting drunk is now taking its toll, so I am going to travel on West on my own tomorrow.  His fluent English and Spanish and good knowledge of Basque have been really useful.  Johanas, is loud and talks to everyone and generally makes them laugh, so it’s not been dull.  He is actually very funny, but shutting him up is not particularly easy.

His use of Spanish certainly helped when I locked myself out of my van for a 2nd time.  Yep, a 2nd time, but the system on the van is crazy, so it’s not all my fault.  See the next post.

The Reposte

Further to my earlier slating of the French, I spoke with a French friend of mine living in Brighton (Caroline) and asked her why everything is so dead in France and even the bars close at around 9pm.  I said that the streets in England and Spain to the north and south are always bustling, so where are the French?

She has a perfect and instantaneous repost. She said “James, in France, it is all about quality and not quantity”.

Well, that told me I suppose …. good answer.

After Mimizan, I moved to Hossegor, which is famous in the surfing world for it’s very fast and powerful waves.  The Quicksilver Pro France Competition was taking place, so I watched the comp in the morning and then went in and showed them how it is done :).

Hossegor is full of good looking chic women and top quality surfers.  A mixture of guys living out of vans and others in top class hotels and luxury villas.  Lots of boutique shops and restaurants.  It’s a cool place to hang out

After the morning cycling by the lake, I have 2 good surfs at Mimizan Plage. Te surf was small but empty and fun.  Mimizan is a nice little resort.  Like all of the French resorts, there are lots of showers and clean toilets at the beach.