21/12/02

Background: Wauchope (WAW – hope), is one of the classic tourist destinations of the world. Undeniably the No.1 destination in Australia and favourably compared with the likes of London, NYC, Paris and Rome, Wauchope is a must see on EVERY globe trotters list. For those unfortunates unfamiliar with the grandeur of Wauchope, it boasts such timeless wonders as the BIG BULL and the widely acclaimed and ‘UNESCO heritage listed’ TIMBERTOWN…

So how did I get to visit the Spanish equivalent of Wauchope?

Introduction:
EVERYBODY has a horror story (or several) when it comes to travelling. Something that makes us wonder why we romanticise so much about travelling in the first place and brings back the many memories of uncountable hours lost in transit, in queues and in waiting rooms, and the hassles caused by stupid, incompetent spanish booking agents.
With such good luck in all my travels to date I guess my number finally came up…

Thanks: To my family and friends for their support and to RyanAir “The Low Airfares Airline”

Chapter 1 : Too good to be true.
IT started about two weeks ago when I went to the train station in Salamanca to book my train ticket to Girona, in northern Spain, in order to get a dirt cheap flight to Frankfurt for the start of the holidays. Now, after living in Spain for three months you think my spanish would be sufficient to convey a message clearly and concisely to the booking agent. OK all set for the 14th of December; a 35 euro, overnight-direct train from Salamanca to Girona with plenty of time to get to my dirt cheap flight.

Chapter 2: En Espana nada es tan facil como parece) — In Spain nothing is as easy as it seems…

ON the 14th of December I turn up to the train station to catch my direct-overnight train to Girona, only to find out it doesn’t actually exist. Look at my ticket in exasperation to see the date 17.12 silently mocking me. It was one of those classic “oh fuck” kind of moments. Had an old lady befriend me in her attempt to make Spain a better place for “extranjeros estupidos e ignorantes” and off we marched to information. After having the lady explain I HAD to get to Girona to fly to Australia for christmas (??) I am told there is NO chance to catch a similar train and instead I will have to change my itinerary, and possibly with God’s (or the antiquated Spanish rail sytem’s) help I will still get to Girona in time. I just have to go and wait in line. As though prompted by the familiar surroundings of the booking room, snippets of my conversation with the booking agent a week earlier flooded my mind (and with crystal clarity and accuracy I might add), “Ok, catorce de diciembre, bien todo esta bien para el catorce de diciembre”. Maybe if the words catorce (14) and diecisiete (17) sounded remotely similar I might not have been so pissed. So I kept an eye out for my booking agent just in case he had happened to pass by on his day off, and what a flurry of broken, stunted spanish would have greeted his ears if he had.

Chapter 3 : How stupid is this guy?
My new booking agent gave me one of those “Tut tut, how stupid is this guy?” looks, and told me there were no spare seats on my back-up train and so off she trotted to find a back-up for the back-up. Meanwhile I was trying to think of how to construct phrases in Spanish along the lines of “How fucking stupid would I have to be to sabotage my own trip, ruin any chance of catching my dirt cheap flight, create my own personal, living nightmare and have the pleasure of paying through the nose for it!” Unfortunately the idioms “dirt cheap” and “pay through the nose” escaped me at the time, and I couldn’t find the word for “sabotage” in my spanish vocabulary. ON the lighter side I managed to recall the word for nightmare (pesadilla): a slight comfort given the circumstances. So in the end I would have to catch four trains, first heading south to get north, with a two hour stop in Alcazar between the happy hours of 1-3am. And how much did this ‘added experience’ cost? The low, low, one-off price of 80 euros (minus an 85% percent refund of my first ticket). In the moment of bitterness that gripped me as I reached for my wallet, the word “baratisimo” ironically entered my mind. Mmm dirt cheap indeed…

Chapter 4 : Waujope de Espana
And so I found myself at 1 am standing on the deserted platform of Alcazar in the middle of… well nowhere. The name translated means “palace, castle, fortress or citadel” and more roughly translates to “Wauchope”. Nearby, a buzzing neon light reads “Karoake” and hearing the honkey-tonk sounds from within fills me with a sudden, overwhelming nostalgia. How I longed to see those huge paper-mache testicles once again or pass another excitement-filled day on the (Lonely Planet recommended!) replica steam-train in Timbertown. And my heart struck a twang about the same time as the unfortunate Waujopian singing “Achy-breaky heart” nearby. OK, so I may be using just a little poetic license…

Chapter 5: A coffee and a beer would be nice
After 16 hours in transit and very little sleep I finally arrived in Girona. Having missed the bus to the airport I otherwise would have caught (with my fictional direct train) I was forced to take a taxi. My driver had a predilection for supplements. After deciding that the original 1.50 euro starter wasn’t enough, he graciously bumped it up to 4. Then as we pull up at the aiport he presses a small red button and magically another 4 euros is added to my tariff. It looks as though I qualified for the “stupid, gullible foreigner” supplement. And the fact I was too tired/stupid to question his actions was vindication enough. I really shouldn’t have been surprised that the plane was delayed by an hour, in fact I was preparing myself for the ever-increasing likelihood of the plane crashing in a smouldering ball of fire; the perfect end to a perfect day. So all in all, just to get to my dirt cheap flight had cost three times the flight itself. Cheap flight perhaps, ah but cheap travel, “pienso que no”…

But can a horror story have a happy ending?

Chapter 6 : The happy ending:
As the plane leaves the tarmac, it’s like everything is ok: the sun is shining, (we don’t crash), and I have my holidays ahead of me. As I pass over southern France, I see a formidable structure on the ground and realise I’m passing directly over the Pont Du Gard, and even though it might lack some of the supreme craftsmanship and timeless grandeur of the Big Bull, it’s quite impressive indeed. And I reflect on the happy fact that I have now had the privilege to fly directly over the Pyramids, East Timor, the Bosphorous and my recently acquired Roman aqueduct and I feel very lucky indeed. Soon I pass over snow-covered St Etienne where brother Ian was skiing not seven days ago, and view the French alps (attempting to pierce the blanket of cloud) and the Swiss alps (dominating all) in the far distance. I pass over Geneva, nestled on the banks of Lake Geneva and shrouded in fog, and soon skid to a halt in Frankfurt Hahn Airport, with a balmy –1° and frost awaiting me. As I am reunited with my friends and sip some warming tea with rum, the previous day and Waujope de Espana feel almost (happily) forgotten. (Albeit a somewhat ominous portent to a planned rail journey through Eastern Europe), and in that moment I regret the abscence of any comprehensive travel insurance cover, but feel that I have “pagado por la nariz” enough for one day…

Post Script: So is there a Wauchope in Every country? Well given there are 192 countries in the world I have only 190 Wauchopes to go. And then I remember… that in 1990 as the McIntosh family bumped their metallic-green Tarago down a lonely, desert road, who know’s where, in the Northern Territory, there was a sign leading 300 lonely kilometres into absolute nothingness with the all-familiar name WAUCHOPE imprinted on it – Sister city and name-sake of the aforementioned “Jewel of the Hastings Valley”.

So maybe the question is in fact “2 Wauchopes in every country?” Guess I’d better get cracking…

I know that in the end I really have no grounds to complain, but I needed a platform to boast about the Pont du Gard, amongst other things. I am also aware that I have embellished on a few facts so I hope you all understand and weren’t too bored ;)

James (Bullshit Artist, Wauchope afficionado and President of the “Kempsey… It’s not so bad” Fan Club)