5/7/11 - On the road to Cordoba

The best part of waking up
Is Folgers in you cup
Or whatever.  Here's pics.

When we woke up at 9:00 in Toledo the rain was coming down in buckets. We could hear it pouring outside, and so in retaliation we curled up under the covers and refused to get out of bed. It was after 10 when we finally got up, and we went straight to McDonalds once again to check our internet and book another hostel. Our plan was to order something akin to a bacon egg and cheese sandwich, but the breakfast menu in Toledo consisted of coffee and pastry or coffee and pancakes. With orange juice if you like. So, we settled on just coffee and again took our computers upstairs.

We decided to find our own pastries for breakfast, and ended up at the same pizza place we’d tried the night before. Not having very much time, we didn’t want to look for another place, and so ordered chocolate-filled croissants. They were very good - the place heated them up for us and everything.

We still had to pack and check out of our hotel, but we soon realized we were never going to make the 12:00 bus back to Madrid. We went back to the hotel and paid for our room, then got everything together and on our backs. I didn’t attach my daypack to my hiking pack, and realized the bag was much more comfortable without the day pack pulling it backwards. We hurried to the bus stop, and got there just before our bus, which was nice because it would be a 15 minute wait for the next one.

The local bus dropped us off at the bus station at 12:10, so we needed to wait until 1 for the next bus. This would put us into Madrid at 2, meaning we would miss the 2:00 bus and need to wait for the 4:00 bus. It was a 5 hour bus, so we were looking at 9 before we arrived in Cordoba.

Once in Madrid, we still needed to grab a metro to the other bus station. We had some time, so we sat in the cafeteria to fill up before our long ride. I got a salad “buffet”, which apparently means something like “self-serve”, and Tricia got an egg and cheese baguette “combo”, which came with Coke and coffee. On my salad I piled on the pickles, olives, tomatoes, cheese, hard boiled egg, roasted red peppers, carrots, tuna fish, ham, and vinegar. I made a good effort, but couldn’t quite finish it.

Next came the great outlet search. We walked from one end of the station all the way to the other, but couldn’t find a single outlet! Finally, we gave up and were taking off our packs and bags and things (a lengthy process) and preparing to settle in to wait for a bus, when I saw a strip of 4 outlets a little way down the hall. So we loaded up again and made our way down there. The lady sitting closest to the outlets took in our getup and moved away so we could have the entire bank of seats for our things. I pulled out my computer and my adapter and plugged in….only to learn that they had no power.

One of the ladies watching this craziness took pity on us and used sign language to point out where we might find a usable outlet. So we set off again, and found a power box set about 5 feet up in the wall. We needed to lift up the metal covers, but found two outlets. After a brief discussion about whether these were really meant for us, we decided that the “foreigner and don’t speak the language” card would get us out of most kinds of trouble, and we plugged in. Not 5 minutes later though, a man came up with his dead cell phone and looked longingly at the only two outlets in the entire terminal which we were using with our computers. So I unplugged mine, and Tricia pulled out her surge protector, which then needs to be plugged into the adaptor. Unfortunately the outlet cover wouldn’t allow the precarious balance of surge protector, adaptor, and two computer plugs, so one of us had to stand there and hold the whole thing onto the outlet.

It didn’t take us too long to tire of that, and between eating and searching it was getting late, so we went off to find our bus. We stowed our bags underneath and brought our daypacks and computers and snacks into the bus with us. The bus was supposed to have Wi-Fi, which had us excited for a minute, but we couldn’t get it to work. So we got out our earphones and danced in the seat (we weren’t listening to the same music, but that doesn’t matter) and used our computers without the internet.

Tricia and the little potty

After about 2 hours Tricia started to get antsy and need a bathroom. I pointed out that there was a bathroom on the bus, but she wasn’t too keen on that idea. I also pointed out that it was probably fairly clean since none of the other passengers had used it yet. She decided to hope the driver needed gas soon. After about 3 hours, the bus pulled into a BP. Tricia and several other passengers jumped to their feet. However, the driver and his friend just looked at the gauges for a few minutes and then turned the bus around and got back on the road. So Tricia decided to give the tiny little bathroom a go. She said it was not, in fact, clean. But, she did start a trend, and many people got up to use the bathroom after her.

After about 4 hours the bus did, in fact, need gas, and the driver kicked us all off while he filled up. We went into the little rest stop and looked at the food and the souvenirs, and then went back out into the parking lot to wait with the other passengers. There were 3 buses the looked exactly the same, right down to the Madrid * Cordoba writing in the window, so everyone was watching out to make sure they were on the right bus. A couple people did get on our bus and made it all the way to the back before realizing they weren’t in the right place.

When we finally got to Cordoba at 9, we jumped on a local bus that eventually let us off right in front of our hostel - the Independent Traveler. The owner, Kevan, led us upstairs to drop off our bags, and we were both surprised to find that we had booked a private room! We had confused the hostel from Cordoba with the one from Seville, where we will be staying with 12 other people. J

Many artists were painting in the
square late at night

Kevan wanted to make sure we knew all the best things to do in Cordoba, and sat us down and gave us a map and drew in the routes to the main attractions. He also circled his favorite restaurants, and told us of the local dishes - Bull’s Tail, Deep-Fried Ham, and Tomato and Bread Soup. Finally, he gave us a map of the Patio Festival, which is where local people open up their houses and let people come in to see the flowers in bloom on their patios. It goes on from May 4 to May 15, and is the reason we came to Cordoba when we did.

Finally, Kevan told us of a free concert going on in the Plaza starting at 10:00 that night. So we hurried over to catch it. We missed the beginning, but we got to hear a couple of songs from the first singer, all dressed up in a black and yellow traditional Spanish dress. Next was a male singer and a guitarist (we have a video of that one). Finally was a male Flamenco dancer and his “group” - several singers and guitarists. They egged him on as his feet flew and he danced all over the stage. Tricia said he wasn’t as technically good as the girl we’d seen, but I really liked his attitude!

It was actually getting quite chilly by midnight, so we got up and walked around. We were reading the info on the patio festival to find out if it was free or not, but it was in Spanish. We did find some prices, about 3.555, and some things that said 1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd with prices next to them, so we wondered if the more patios you see, the cheaper it gets. When we got back to the hostel, we asked Kevan what the prices meant, and he asked “you think you need to spend 3 thousand euros to see the patios??” Oh, that’s right - decimals and commas are reversed in Europe! We had thought it was about 3.5 euros! It turns out that’s the entrance fee - 3.5 thousand Euros, or almost 5,000 dollars!!

Tricia and I brushed off Kevan’s “you’re back early” comment and headed upstairs. We’re still using the “we’re Americans - we need sleep” excuse. Plus, we don’t take siestas. Very often. J