World’s First New Year’s Eve, Happy 2017 Salamanca
Zagan the motorhome’s free-bagging it in Salamanca, in a small car park alongside a park – Jardines Miguel Delibes – named after a celebrated Spanish writer who was born, worked and died in this area (N40.955371, W5.674103).
Cheeky free parking place a stone’s throw from central Salamanca
Before I start: thanks to everyone who commented on Ju’s previous post, through email, this blog, Facebook and so on. No-one’s died here, and we’re still sitting in a pretty incredible position, but in every life there is some trouble and your words were kind and thoughtful. We appreciated them all.
When it gets to the point you’re driving straight past one of Spain’s finest, most beautiful cities without a care for even a wee peek at it, you know something’s wrong. We did that, heading first a few miles south past Salamanca, then back towards the city to find an open campsite (which was pretty pants to be honest, but any port in a storm). Finally we’ve found ourselves a few minutes walk from the 2000 year old bridge which crosses the river to the city centre. Our intention was to use a car park listed in our Camperstop Europe book for a couple of hours to go look in the city, but since it was printed the ‘No Autocaravanas’ signs have gone up, so stuff it, we just parked up round the corner instead in a small parking area with no restrictions.
Salamanca’s Roman Bridge (about half of it is as old as Christ)
Charlie was less than impressed with the bridge!
This spiralling back in towards the city’s coincided, perhaps with no coincidence, with my mood gradually lightening. As Ju wrote in the previous blog post, I’m having a mental block with the idea of continuing our travels as we have to date. In long discussions it’s become obvious to me that I need a degree of challenge and newness in what I’m doing in order to stay engaged and avoid sinking towards depression. It’s sink or swim. Travelling new countries usually brings that freshness. Whenever we set off we’re always driving through countries we’ve visited before though, sometimes many times before, like France, Spain and Germany. While these are beautiful, fascinating countries to be in, they offer almost no challenge to us, and with the lack of challenge comes the old black dog of depression. I need something new to focus on, and on this trip we’re unlikely to visit any countries we haven’t been to before. Problemo.
The easiest option is to revert to the old, accepted approach: go home, get a job, let someone else create the newness.
Did I imagine I’d ever find myself writing those words? Well, yes if I’m honest with you, I did. This financial freedom malarkey always seemed so wacky I found it impossible to believe it was possible (before we did it, and even for a while afterwards). I took to the Internet in search of proof it could be done, and found plenty of bloggers offering evidence it could be done, and describing how. Those that had actually achieved it would often have some words of caution too: you might not be able to handle the lack of structure it creates. The lack of pre-created challenges being handed to you can be a deep issue. I need to get a grip on this. What challenge do I want to set myself? What do I want to do?
Incredible carved stonework in Salamanca
It amazes me anyone can do this – and this is only a tiny fragment – see below.
For the time being we’re going to continue to travel, but with the aim to stay still in places for longer. This will, if it works, give us time to get to know the place better, and to enable us to develop and work on other projects. Ju also has a half marathon in Marrakech to get around, which I remain hugely impressed with her for doing. I’ve raced half marathons in the distant past, so the newness is missing from that particular challenge to me, but I’m more than happy to keep supporting Ju as she chases down those 21km in Africa.
The facade on the new cathedral (they have two here, of course). It’s breathtaking.
The shell house. No, we have no idea.
We suspect this chap may have found himself in a red hat later on…
Yesterday was a welcome boost to morale too. Salamanca’s university was set up back in 1130, 79 years before Cambridge’s university came into being. Its fortunes have waxed and waned since, but it’s remained a world-class player and attracts tens of thousands of domestic and foreign students to the city. Which means one thing to me: life. The city is no doubt a thing of beauty, all sculptured facade, ornate Gothic spire, stone road and decorated plaza. But without the university, without the hoards of eager eyed folks who look 12, but are probably 18, these cities can often have a feel of slow decay. Not here, and yesterday was a banging endorsement of life, as 40,000 (somewhat inebriated, would you believe) students celebrated New Year two weeks early with their Noche Vieja Universitaria town-endorsed party in the Plaza Major.
Calm before the storm as thousands of students streamed into the city all day
No bottles allowed in the main square so everyone ‘got loose’ around the town instead. A small number of police wandered about on foot, and we saw no trouble.
Freebie party? Don’t mind if I do! They even had a DJ called Fonsi (Happy Days anyone?) who was a former MotoGP rider.
Happy New Year Salamanca!
Ha! I felt old, but thankfully we weren’t the only ones older than 30!
It’s not an old tradition in itself, only going back 10 or 15 years, but it’s a thing of wonder. An enormous metal stage flanked by screens sits absolutely incongruous among carved sternly-stone-faced figures in the city’s main square, hammering out tunes loud enough to replicate conditions of a minor earthquake. Said thousands of students, sporting freebie Captain Morgan pirate hats and flashing wrist bands, bounce around the square en-masse, shouting, smiling, throwing hats, eye balling each other, recording everything and singing. It lifted my soul, man, although I have to admit Ju and I legged it by 10:45m, lightweights. The story goes at midnight everyone eats a sweet for each chime of the church bells, before the stage shuts down and everyone (and everyone looks like a million people when they’re in a Spanish square) streams out into the city’s clubs and bars. Such a thing I cannot imagine happening in the UK, and this is ultimately why we travel: to experience what we couldn’t experience at home, to see ourselves from new angles.
Right, it’s 6:37am and it’s cold. We’re on a huge plateau here in Spain, and it’s getting down to -3ºC in the next few days. As I write this rain is steadily falling. Down in Tavira in Portugal, 6 or 7 hours south of us, it’s sunny with lows of about 10ºC. We’re off down there (south that is, might not be Tavira) to find somewhere to stay still for a few days. We’ll stretch the driving out over a couple of days, but we should be back on the coast and in some warmth soon, so we can get our thinking caps on.
Ju’s in training so made do with just a look in the sweet shops! We ate in town later, sampling a lovely menu del dia – a three course meal with a drink for a whole €12 each.
Pig chair? Oh yes. Stacks of shops selling mountain ham here.
Right, I’m going back to bed until it warms up a bit! Cheers, Jay
Good on ya !!
Oh no….. we missed a great night out in Salamanca. We thought we had luxury in Badajoz last night …. free WiFi while the rain battered on our roof…. bliss. Great blog and photos, see you in the south. Julie and Phil xx
We’ve gone through exactly the same challenges you have…exactly. I slipped into the travel lifestyle like a well-worn glove and 7 years later I’m still loving it. But Paul (my hubby) struggled with it. Slowing down our travel pace helped ALOT. And I mean way slow…spending weeks to a month in different places. Also taking up volunteer jobs helped too. We typically do them every year for a few months at a time. Plus Paul’s been working to develop more on his investing interests. Wish you all the best, and hope the slower pace works out.
Nina
Lovely to read! Glad you enjoyed Salamanca and you are still thinking of driving south! I was a bit late reacting to Ju’s previous post, so you must have only read it after this post, so sorry if it is old news…
So glad to hear you are making some headway with your discussion from yesterday. Genuinely made me smile all the love being sent over the digital network.
Keep on smiling :-)
Hi Jason. I didn’t get the emailed post so missed the bump in the road you are going through. For me at your time in life, seems it hits in your forties, I felt the change
As it’s called for women but men go through it too we start to question
Everything about our life and how we’re living it. Some men buy sports cars
Some men chase younger women. It seems like a time of doubt and
A feeling that we aren’t meeting the goals we’ve set for ourselves. On the surface it
Seems we are leading an enviable life but the clouds are gathering internally
Everyone deals with the change in their own way. Some to their betterment
Some not so much. I implore you to research this thing that turns our world
On it’s ear. It’s not the end of our life but our chance to change and accept
A new version of ourselves. Sorry to run on like this. It is necessary
To re-evaluate our life and come to grips with who we are becoming. Take care
You will survive these changes if you can understand that this happens
To all men in differing degrees. Again sorry to run on. Hope this helps.
The camper stop we found was down by the rugby ground which is also not far from the bridge and an easy walk into town. Big bauble in Plaza Mayor last year what have they got this year? Friends comment was what size Christmas tree did that fall off? If you have access to our blog you will see it. Glad the mood in the camp is better. keep trucking on xx
I’m pleased you have a plan to hopefully help you through this uncertain time. having recently retired at a relatively young age, were keen to travel and have followed your site for years, the honesty with which you both communicate your feelings is to be admired.
We really hope all works out for you .
PS having just been in our first week away in our van to Germany for the Christmans markets, we found both Bord Atlas and Camper stops to be outdated about 60% of the time, either height barriers, closed sites or just not there ….. Maybe we were unlucky
Good luck to both of you
Wo,so the fan club have had to rally again. You’ve had the lurve maybe you just need an old fashioned kick up the arse ! Consider it delivered !
Luvya
GlorYa xxx
Two and a bit years in, and at 54, I still feel the way you do ref having a focus. However, I’m just about to publish my third thriller – which ticks all the right boxes. So, maybe a novel? You certainly write lucidly enough. And you have enough background experience go add colour to what you write.
Was your blog Titled wrong, was it last years?
Nope the title was correct. It was this year’s New Year, for the students in Salamanca.
Thank you for your blog. Very interesting and enlightening. We are also at much the same stage as yourselves having travelled Europe in a motorhome. We find that moving around frequently means it’s hard to have any continuity in friendships and activities meaning that we do not feel part of a community. The nearest we have got is a small site in pera, Portugal, called mikkis. This is an Aires site which has a core group of people and owned by a fantastic lady who has the talent to make you feel very welcome.
We were in salamanca in November and loved it and are now at home sitting next to the log fire. I love coming home to get grounded again and now we will be off in 2 weeks to go back to mikkis place and then hopefully off to Morocco.
So now I raise my glass of wine to your good health and good cheer for 2017.