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Well, at least this past Sunday in Spain was less exciting than the previous Sunday in that it only involved a six hour drive to exchange the rental car......

Not a 2 hour towards Portugal - half of that over and around roads under construction thorugh the mountains.

However, the final view from the national wilderness area above the remote lake was real nice. (A bit tinged by rain and high winds - but we’ve (the Spaniards) have had rain (or snow) every day but three since early December.) However, the GPS gave a return route that was .... (er, how do I phrase it?) “unpaved” and through cow and sheep pastures back towards the single lane country road that DID have pavement. At least at time it had pavement. Not recently “have pavement”, but at one time most of it was mostly paved.. With something.

Regardless, I was proceeding along - bouncing over ruts and cattle guards merrily in my rented Citrogen C4 (front wheel drive) when I came to a gate.

A locked gate - D*mn it. A thoroughly locked gate complete with stone fence and barbed wire across the one lane rutted almost a dirt path “road” on GPS. D*MN it.

So the poor little Citrogen got royally stuck in the mud trying to turn around. Right at dark. In the rain. In Spain. Waaaaaay above the plains, in Spain, in the rain.

And Robt, of course, has naught to pull the car out with but his shoes and a light jacket.

So, Robt puts the GPS in his pocket, walks back down the pastures through the rain and the dark to try to find the way back to the 1 lane road to find his way to the two lane road to find his way back to the (Spanish-speaking, Sunday-night shut-down) village where lights (might) be turned on. Which indicates people. (Cows and sheep and goats), it turns out, don’t get lights in the middle of the rains in Spain above the plains.

Walk was 1-1/4 or so - so figure 5-7 kilometers straight-line distance.

About 3/4 the way back down the one lane road, heard a diesel generator at a barn, yelled to the lights for attention. Goatherder was milking his goats, and couldn’t help me, but he called his wife who came out in an ancient pickup.. She couldn’t speak English, and my Spanish is “muy poco y muy mal” so she called her daughter, who was out of town but who did speak English. A little bit.

The daughter told her mom to take me to the village bar up the road, where the daughter had one of her friends come by and meet me. His English was broken but understandable, and my diagram and sketches were better than my Spanish, so this “friend of a daughter of the wife of a Spanish goatherder” called one of his friends who had a 4-wheel drive truck and a “rope.”

Friend came by, took all of us back down the little paths (reverse-following the walk out track of the GPS screen through the dark) until we found the stuck car.

Much mud and broken ropes and rocks and water (did I mentin mud and sticks?) we got the car turned from the mud puddle but backwards. Obviously, there was no room to do anything but to open the rear hood and back up the car up the hill between bushes and rock walls to until the road widened and I could actually turned around.

Made it finally - with much good graces and good humor from everybody concerned. None of whom wanted anything nor gave me their names!

.....

So, the question this week is ........ Do I tell St Ronnie what happened last weekend? Or just say that I’ll go visit the Prado Museum in Madrid next weekend if I can get off?