Madrid - Zaragoza
By Parson Thru
- 742 reads
Waiting.
Waiting is an art.
You have to be able to wait for life to catch up with your dreams, or your plans at least, anyway.
I waited on a stainless steel bench at darsena 28 on the upper level of Intercambiador Avenida de America. There were half a dozen people scattered around the glass door to the bus dock. Others were sitting around on benches at the other bays. Maybe some waiting for the same bus. I had a battered old purple case on the floor in front of me, a Spanish shoulder bag around my neck and a straw sun hat on my head. The forecast was for sun in Zaragoza, too.
The long blue and silver ALSA bus rolled up about on time. The driver popped the luggage hold and the doors and passengers emerged into the concrete bay. There was a press of people around the glass door and we swung our bags, cases and musical instruments into the hold: Zaragoza at the rear, Barcelona at the front. The driver checked our tickets and we climbed on board. Why do I always get anxious at this point?
I knew where the seat was roughly, but there was no number. Someone pointed down to where the numbers were stuck on, but there was no number on mine. I jumped in anyway. Window seat.
A pretty couple in their twenties got in the seats in front of me. They were both blonde – Dutch-looking. All the spaces were filling up. The bus was full. I had a family group behind me. One of the kids had started kicking the back of my seat. I tried to filter it out. Bus travel. It’s how it is. Just roll with it. Four hours, that’s all.
A tall, powerful African man came up the aisle looking at seat numbers, then back at his ticket. The Dutch girl – we’ll call her that – was in the seat he’d booked. She gave up the place and went back to find an empty seat. Her companion stayed where he was. He looked anxiously along the aisle after her. She must have found somewhere. I found out in the US that the rear of long-distance buses can be a hard place to spend your time.
The hold doors slammed shut and we headed through the network of tunnels leading out to the street – only two minutes late by the bus clock. It was good to be on the move. The kid was kicking the seat. Someone in front let go some vile wind. The Dutch boy was looking traumatised. The African man was asleep before we reached the airport on the edge of town.
I had a tall handsome-bearded man in his thirties sitting next to me. He offered to put my shoulder bag on the overhead rack with his, but I politely refused. After that, we seemed to miss the opportunity to get acquainted.
The road out to Zaragoza is big, wide and empty - like the landscape and the sky where birds of prey – buzzards, maybe – were wheeling in the emptiness. I read Woody Guthrie’s book and listened to Dylan’s “Blood On The Tracks”.
Time passed. The bad gas made me gag at times, but the kicking stopped on the back of the chair. I think the kid had swapped seats. We stopped at a service area in the middle of nowhere for a ten minute break. Halfway point – two more hours. I took a leak, looked at the prices of crisps and biscuits, then stood in the shade of the building until it was time to leave.
Coasting down the mountains onto the Zaragoza plain, we passed vivid scars of the Spanish economic crisis: newly-built and unfinished ruins on the outer limits of optimistic business parks. Remnants of a gold-rush. The train and bus intercambiador on the edge of Zaragoza looked like it came from the same package: vast, empty, underused. I wandered around the tiled floors on my sore foot looking for somewhere to buy a travel pass. I queued at a window.
The man didn’t know anything about travel passes for buses. I researched it before leaving Madrid – it’s called a tarjetabus. He shrugged and waved vaguely outside. I couldn’t find any more information. I’d seen a taxi rank earlier. New arrival, new city. Tired. Achy. Take a cab.
The driver kind of knew the hotel. It had changed its name recently. He wasn’t up for chatting, but he did find the place. The fare was less than eight euros.
It was early evening. I was starving. I oriented myself and found a tourist information office in the main Plaza de Pilar, opposite Pilar’s basilica. The woman in the office asked me if I wanted information in English or Spanish. I chose Spanish. She told me a load of stuff and I looked at her. “Too fast?” she asked. “Si.” I answered. When she slowed down, I could pretty-much understand. That’s progress since the end of the teaching year.
I limped around for a while. Walked across the old stone bridge over the Ebro river, checked a couple of streets, then walked back again, trying to find someplace to eat. In the end, I went into an all-you-can-eat for thirteen euros. Sometimes, that’s all you need. At least the food on the buffet was Spanish.
The square beside the basilica is stunning. It felt similar in a way to San Marco in Venice. After I’d eaten, I sat there and watched goings-on as dusk became night. I was glad of the food and a beer, but began to feel tired. I walked back to the hotel.
The room was up on the fourth floor, but when I lay down on the bed I felt like I was down in the alleyway with a big crazy family of kids over the road and the borrachos gushing wisdom and bonhomie. I checked the window wasn’t open. I pulled the curtains across as best I could. At least I had Dylan’s “Chronicles” with me. I’d brought it along to finish in Zaragoza.
The kids all went inside at some point and the screeching attenuated.
The borrachos? I don’t remember.
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Comments
you always remember the drunk
you always remember the drunk unless you're drunk. Enjoyed reading but 'bad wind' sounds like something out of a navel magazine or Jane Austen misunderstanding. A smelly old fart like me knows that
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Coach trips are not always
Coach trips are not always comfortable, but in Parson Thru's hands and pen are completely rivetting. This is our facebook and twitter pick of the day!
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