| Submitted by: Ren Withnell, United Kingdom |
| Submission Date: 02 October 2005 |
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I open the goody bag to see what I've got. I have a metal numberplate with Faro 2005 on it, T-shirt, flyers, postcard, 3 meal vouchers, small Faro patch and Faro badge and a Faro sticker for the bike. I'm well impressed and consider removing my numberplate and replacing it with the Faro one.
I go to look around the site and figure out where everything is. There are bars everywhere, in amongst the tents, in their own area, in the main area and out on the edges. The site is huge, it would take almost an hour to walk the perimeter and 15 minutes to walk from one end to the other. The main arena consists of a dry field with a large stage at one end and what I can only describe as an open hangar at the other that is full of benches and tables. All around are stalls for food and bikes but the majority of stalls are in one area near the entrance. There is also a smaller marquee in a far corner with a homemade pool outside. It's not very busy yet but judging by the constant stream of arrivals it soon will be.
In amongst all this wandering I bump into the Scottish crew. They welcome me like a great traveller among other great travellers. "You made it then!" and we all congratulate each other. This gives me a sense of camaraderie and survival that makes me laugh to myself. I sit with them and they tell me of not being able to find the campsite at Merida, going on to Seville and getting hopelessly lost and going round Seville airport until they gave up and one of the ladies got a taxi whilst the others followed. I tell them of my day of hell coming through Badajoz and my search for camping. I make a mental note to have a word with everyone who told me the roads are lined with campsites in Spain.
I learn from them you don't really use money on the rally as such, you buy 60 cent tickets then exchange these for food and drink. 60 cents! That's about 40 pence for a drink or something to eat, fantastic. I go and duly exchange money for tickets and skip off in search of top quality cheap food. I find a food place and the only thing I can recognise is "pollo", chicken I ask for this and I'm presented with a small bun with a few chunks of chicken between, then I am relieved of 4 tickets! €2.40 or £1.60 for a crap chicken butty with no salad or mayonnaise. I'm not impressed
I wander round a little longer and meet with the West Bromwich crew who again greet me like a fellow survivor. By mid afternoon the heat is stifling so I retire to my tent and lie in the porch to sleep a while. I wake and I'm lying in a pool of my own sweat. As I wander some more I think about how different things are to my expectations. I'd hoped to see dark senoritas smiling at me whilst flicking their hair, the women look like the women back home with a suntan. I'd hoped for green meadows full of flowers mixed with fields of vines and cattle grazing on lush green grass basked in sun, I'd seen endless miles of arid desert mixed with trees that look twisted and mean. I'd hoped for quaint towns and villages with cute cafes and elderly folks playing ball games in the square, I'd found empty towns in disrepair and cities gridlocked between concrete apartments.
I had expected to be lonely. I have found friendship with the Scottish crew and countless other bikers travelling down. I am still a little homesick but I am pleased I know folks to talk to. I am also pleased the bike has got me here with only one problem and that was not serious. I am pleased with how well my thermals keep me comfortable. I am pleased I have made it, achieved what I set out to do. Now I have achieved what I set out to do, I am mentally preparing to return and the rally has not even begun. My thoughts turn to my inescapable inability to relax and enjoy the journey rather than keep on moving with a "get it over and done with" attitude. It's not just my travelling that is like this, I am always looking for the next thing yet I cling to my past like a shipwreck survivor holding onto a piece of wood.
My thoughts begin to annoy me. I need to switch them off but I can't and that's why I am terrified of being bored and having to listen to myself. I switch on my mobile as G and the rest of the stag do crew are due to arrive about 1800. Eventually I get a message and we meet up. G asks me about the journey down and where I am camped. They find a pitch in a far corner of the site and make camp while I relay a shortened version of the trip. I also explain about the tickets but some of the group have been before and know how things work.
I meet up with them again as the sun sets and the air begins to cool to a tolerable temperature. We stand near a bar overlooking the stage and watch a local band as they pump out familiar tracks sung with a Portuguese accent. I have to laugh as the female singer sings "I'm cowboy on stee hoss I ride, I want, dead ow awive". But to give them there due they are good. I talk with the stag do crew a while and then wander to the marquee to see what's happening, more of the same, wander back, talk a while, wander round the site people watching and talk with a few faces from the ferry and the journey down. Talking to one fella I'd met in a cafe on the first day in Spain I learn the Tuesday I was in the desert, my day of hell, was supposed to be one of the hottest in 100 years and temperatures had reached 48 centigrade in the desert. No wonder I was hot and bothered.
By midnight the stag do crew are on their way to getting drunk and so is everyone else. I retire to my tent and climb into my sleeping bag. The noise is constant. Bike engines of all kinds rev and drive past, the music from the stage thumps away in the distance, shouts and screams from the bar nearby and languages of all kinds as folks wander by. Somehow I fall asleep.
Day 7
I wake up, the sun is shining and I'm sweaty in my bag. I get up, dress and go to wash some more thermals and socks and shorts. The washing facilities are to say the least basic. A tap and a trough on a metal sheet are all you get. None the less I get some odd looks as I scrub and lather up a whole heap of clothes which I wrap around my neck when clean. I walk back to the tent dripping then hang my clothes on the tree and guy ropes from the tent. There's very little to do during the day so I grab some clean dry thermals, kit up and head out to see what sort of place Faro is.
Outside the site I'm directed and waved on by the local police. I wonder how much this rally is worth to the locals to be able to provide a constant police presence. In town all the billboards and bus stops advertise both caution messages and welcome signs for rally goers. The warnings advise pictorially not to wheelie or go fast and to wear your helmet. The town centre is crowded with holiday makers and bikers alike, sitting outside cafes and drinking tea or alcohol. The small harbour holds hundreds of small boats all tied to jetties and the area is filled with small tourist shops and hotels. All the building are of 5,6,7 storeys and I find myself thinking this is all starting to look the same somehow. Did I mention it is very hot?
But this is not what I came to see. I have no interest in the tourist places, I want to see how the locals live, to see the Algarve for what it is not how it is presented to the tourists. I head inland through the town full of shops, cafes and hotels and into the suburbs. It all starts to look like the Spanish cities. There are no houses but endless rows of 5,6,7 storey apartments with clothes hanging out of windows covered in flaking paint, wasteland covered in rubble and rubbish, dry open areas and building sites each sprouting several cranes. All through Spain there are cranes. Cranes in the middle of the desert, in small villages and across the skyline of every city. I stop and look for life. Cars fly up and down streets but there are only occasional pedestrians and dogs rummaging amongst the rubbish.
I sit against a wall in the shade to think for a while. All I hear back home is how everyone hates living in the UK and how they are going to move to Spain or the Algarve as soon as they have the money. Have they seen this? Have they seen the streets round the back of the town? Do they all arrive on planes and get whisked away to fancy hotels? Do the holiday home sales people carefully plan their routes to avoid these areas? Does the sun blind folks to the reality? I know the UK is cold, wet and miserable, but this part of the world is too hot. Prices are high in the UK but this part of the world does not seem cheap, only slight savings are to be made mostly on cigarettes and fuel. Fuel in Spain is three-quarters the price of UK fuel and Portugal is almost the same as home. No, it's not cheap here anymore. I shout to myself "Why would ANYONE want to live HERE?". Perhaps I'm missing home more than I thought.
I go back into town to a shopping complex I'd noticed on the way out. The supermarket offers no tins of food I recognise except baked beans. I purchase beans, bread and some chocolate. I then wander round the rest of the mall to see what is there. I duly note there is a Burger King, McDonalds and KFC, so if all else fails I shall not starve. I return to the site at tea time and cook the beans to eat with the bread. It's so hot the bread is almost toast anyhow.
Friday evening is much busier on the site. My tent is surrounded now by other tents and motorcycle mayhem. I look at some of the bikes. There are plenty of smaller bikes belonging to teenagers and in poor repair. Tyres are bald, bits hang off or are taped on, seats are ripped and the exhaust has been "modified" These bikes are ridden by youths wearing just shorts and any kind of helmet. Cycle helmets, horse riding helmets and hard hats all seem to be legally acceptable protection. It scares me when one youth climbs aboard his bald-tyred noisy machine, kicks it into life and revs it mercilessly until his beautiful girlfriend climbs on wearing shorts and a bikini top. Both are carrying dirty old open-face helmets, but not wearing them. I imagine how she will look covered in scars.
Before I carry on, I need to explain something. I'm not tough, I can't fight my way out of a paper bag and anger is something I only show to those I know love me and I feel I can trust to forgive me. I have been insulted, threatened and even hit and never retaliated. I will seethe and curse within myself but outwardly I only show distaste. Some people call me a wimp and for the most part I am. My strength lies in other areas.
I'm stood next to my tent in the burning sun wearing just my shorts and watching a group pitch tent behind me. I say "Ola" to one chap who looks my way and we start to talk, as best he can in his basic English. They have come from Lisbon is about all I can understand. I'll call this man "man 1" as I never got his name. Another man comes over to me and says "....casque?". It appears man 2 want to see my helmet, why I have no idea but I go and retrieve it from my tent. Next thing I know he says something along the line of "use your casque?...shops por amigo?". Again I struggle but get the impression man 2 would like to borrow my helmet for a while to take man 1 to the shops on his bike. Being the friendly sort of guy I am I agree, somewhat reluctantly. They climb onto a yellow fireblade wearing nothing but shorts and man 1 is on the back with my helmet on. I wonder if he has nits. Did I mention it is very hot?
I go and find the stag do crew in the main arena and we stand there looking at the ladies and wonder how to start up a conversation when we don't speak any of the lingo. Talking to strangers is hard enough, but when you don't know what language they are going to reply in it is too frightening. The site is really quite busy now with folks milling around and queuing everywhere for drinks and food. Passing the portable toilets the stench is getting scary, but nowhere near as revolting as the stench from the 2 stalls serving barbequed octopus tentacles. If there is one smell that will stay with me from this rally it is that of the octopus stalls. Yet people are queuing up and buying the hard, dry portions of suckers and sinew. Urgh. |
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