Monday, December 03, 2007

Weekend diary, part 4

Saturday, 24 November (It just keeps on giving, right?)
I mentioned a couple of posts ago that we bumped into some more lost tourists on our way from the City of Arts & Sciences... Well, we teamed up with the four of them to find our mutual end destination: the port.

We doubled back on ourselves and, rather than walking all the way back to the Ciutat, we chucked a right, down what looked like a semi-residential area. We walked to the end, which was only a couple hundred metres, and found ourselves at the river. Instinct (with a face all screwed up like George's in Elaine's clasp) told us to go right, along a trail of dirt and bare grass, heading towards the railway bridge that spanned the river. We could see from our map that this was the right general direction. But this was most definitely not the right tourist way.

Then we saw a man stepping down off the railway bridge. "Well, he must've crossed it," we say to ourselves, "so it must lead somewhere." We continue. As the man approached us obvious tourists, one of our number still wheeling her suitcase over the great mounds of dirt, he appeared to have a wry smile on his face...

We got to the bridge and realized it was a pretty crappy affair, certainly not likely to be the major river crossing we were hoping for. Still, it was wide enough for us to walk down without fear for our lives, so we did.

The interesting part was when we got to the other end. Y'see... there was no exit point. The bridge ended, and our way was blocked by a fence. That's right, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, we were fenced in like half a dozen wild animals. Caged in our prime. Well, there was nothing else for it, of course, but to climb...

After our climbing adventure we continued to walk. We passed the place where refrigerators go to die and we threw a right at the next road junction. At this point our merry group splintered. Suitcase Lady, it turns out, was not with the rest of them, and she trucked on alone. Red is a fast walker, so she trotted on ahead while I chased after her coat-tails, and the other three held back to check their own maps rather than be dragged into the Great Unknown by us crazed Ingle types.

But we were right, and as quick as a very very slow flash or quite a quick tortoiose we were at the port. Well, it probably took the best part of another 45 minutes, past various abandoned cars, and more fences where building work was going on, until finally, FINALLY we got to the port, where a guy was offering boat tours around part of the America's Cup course. We declined. By this time, it was about 3:50pm, we'd been awake for about 11 hours, and we wanted to get into the America's Cup shop and buy something for the mother-in-law and get back to the hotel room that we still hadn't even seen...!

Here's the video of these stages of our misadventures:

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6 Comments:

Blogger Milla said...

I want my fridge back.

This post made me laugh out loud, especially the climbing bit. Ah! Tourists!

03 December, 2007 13:19  
Blogger tweetey30 said...

Those boats look like the Foxy Lady we have here that takes you on Tours of the Bay of Green Bay. I havent been on that since we had Kora. But pretty neat really.

03 December, 2007 15:58  
Blogger * (asterisk) said...

Milla: Ha ha! It was more fun than usual writing this one, cos the fence thing is so mental. And I'm glad I videoed the climb-over, too.

Tweetey: It looked like a cool boat, but we were in no mood to ride on it! Things to do...

03 December, 2007 16:29  
Blogger Martha Elaine Belden said...

haha! i love this part of the trip diaries!

and i adored hearing your voices! i feel like i know you both a little bit better now. yay!

:)

03 December, 2007 17:06  
Blogger Avid Andy said...

funny post and i loved the video and commentary.

03 December, 2007 17:23  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I believe its these type of times that make vacations memorable. The idea of suitcase lady hanging in there like that is odd. Why didn't she just get a taxi? Or what one not an option?

03 December, 2007 19:04  

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