Spain - Farewell made easy

Goodbye made easy

Mañana, mañana. The Spanish 9 o'clock is far from being our 9 o'clock. We quickly pack and leave the hostel without comment. And now off to the veggie restaurant. As so often before, we are standing in front of a closed door, it is only half past nine. There is also espresso across the street, so we go there.

A little later it opens and we eat the vegetarian and vegan version of the English Breakfast with beans and no bacon. It tastes great and we leave the restaurant near the Rambla satiated and satisfied.

We drive along it for the last time as we reach the harbour. The signposting to the ferry is adventurous and instead of following the signs, we drive by feel and suddenly we arrive at the right "pier". We are calmly checked in and dispatched, a small shade sail helps us not to take the blazing midday sun quite so purely. The queue here in Barcelona is very manageable, apparently most of them have already boarded the ship in Morocco and here in Barcelona only two handfuls get in. Still, there must be 20 or more motorcyclists. Once again it is exciting for me and I have great fun filming the entrance of the ferry. At 1 pm the giant colossus departs and we say goodbye to Spain.

We are old hands now and know what to expect. This time, instead of all the hygiene stuff (which we need less and less the longer the journey goes on), we prefer to take sleeping mats and sleeping bags. We new arrivals are assigned a huge cinema-like room, which again looks like it did on the outward journey, with comfortable cinema seats and plenty of space. At the front of the room there is even a podium with a speaker's table. Why this is there is not at all clear to us. But we unpack our sleeping bags and roll up the sleeping pads and on the platform, directly under the lectern, we have the best, cosiest and most protected tent on this ship. We read, write whatsapp (as long as there is still reception to the Spanish network) and I type in my diary.

While we are setting up our night city like this, I feel wild and adventurous. Just like that, spreading out mats and sleeping bag and instead of booking a good and proper cabin, we are wild and naughty. I know that's so not crazy, but I'm feeling it right now. Gerd smiles mildly at me, because he knows I need a long time for really wild adventures. And so it's fantastic that I find this little out-of-order camping adventurous. And so we are both very happy.

And as it happens on trips, as soon as I'm done organising, I feel like having a picnic. It's a good thing that in the morning we bought vegan cake, a whole bag of fruit and a huge crispy baguette. Just as well that Gerd reminded me that all this should last until tomorrow morning. Otherwise it would all be gone by 4.

Later we take our first tour of the ship - there is nothing really uplifting to see. Gerd has already had his first power nap. We drink espresso from Styrofoam cups (yuck!) and watch all the Moroccans playing cards and smoking shishara. People are lying everywhere. On blankets, mats, in sleeping bags and even in the bars and cafés on board, women and men lie and slumber. After all, they have been on the road for more than 24 hours and here there seems to be no such thing as etiquette.

Unlike the trip to Barcelona, there are an incredible number of children on board this time. This makes life on the boat very lively. We observe the very small ones who are learning to walk, those who form little gangs and run all over the ship, up and down stairs and whoop and holler and laugh. We see the 13-14 year olds, cool, carrying their smartphones with music in front of them, strolling overboard and, in keeping with the current fashion, almost losing their trousers under their bottoms. But they are infinitely cool. And the gentlemen chatting up and down, the women trying to keep an eye on their children. And then the crowd of people, unfortunately including us, looking at their mobile devices and surfing, chatting or, like Gerd and me, reading our travel diary to each other. That's always an interesting moment, when Gerd hears the diary for the first time and also remembers what we did and what thoughts I had during the days.

We lie in our den and this time I read it to him and by day 10 he almost falls asleep on me. I'll have to ask him later if he got so tired because of the diary or because of all the activities today.

Every day needs structure and we spontaneously decide that 7 o'clock is the best time to go to bed. So we take our picnic to the so-called sun deck. This has seen better days, like everything else on the ferry. But no matter, we don't let it bother us and sit down on the planks, the view into the sunset and I start chopping our tomatoes. I have everything with me, of course, I thought. The spices are downstairs with Felix, tied up tight and not accessible until tomorrow morning. Now I have to make do with mustard, lemon and olive oil instead of spices. The onion I had bought seems to still be on the supermarket counter. At least the avocado is still in the shopping bag. Today we have tomato salad from the improv kitchen. Gerd goes in search of salt, pepper and sugar in the bistro and lo and behold, with all these great ingredients we conjure up a huge tomato salad.

While I sit there and flip us off, I feel more and more people looking at us. Two Austrian women then give us their seat. They probably want to go eat and say admiringly that they have been watching us and are fascinated by our simple way of preparing our dinner. We beam. And although it's not noble, of course, I'm a little happy about the admiration.

We enjoy the world's best improvised tomato salad at sunset on the Atlantic deck of the luxury ship Fantastic. It is unbelievably beautiful. Next to us, Moroccans (although of course I don't know if they are Moroccans) smoke shisha and the world stops for a moment. These moments are the ones that make me happy when I travel.

A little later, clouds come in front of the sun, it gets a bit chilly and we go to our sleeping cave. We play a few more rounds of cards, I again regret ever having taught Gerd rummy, because he wins again...

And now into the sleeping bag, a little reading and we glide into the realm of dreams amid the rumbling of the boat engine and the not-so-quiet chatter of the gang of German children.

 

 

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