Sevilla – Sevilla: 56 km (of cycling)

Marous and me are going on a little adventure again. This time our meeting point is at a lake, about 55 km from Seville. I’ll bike there, she’ll take the van. The sun shines, the slopes are forgiving. The place Marous told me to meet her is incredible. A big lake, surrounded by hills and forests. Some other campers are here too. We meet Anita, a Polish lady who’s been living in The Netherlands for a long time. She travels with her two cats. I can’t remember their names. That night we build a fire, the first of many this week, and talk between the three of us while changing from wine to gin-tonics, back to wine and back once more. Anita tells us she’s trying to disappear. As little contact with anybody, just her and her cats. If she could, she’d turn into wind. We listen carefully and sort of baffled to her story.

This spot is so perfect we stay another day. I never really do that with the bike. It’s surprisingly nice. I only ever stay longer in hostels in towns. Now we’re here out in nature, with all the food and water we need. We spend the day reading, swimming, talking, cooking and collecting wood for the fire. There’s nothing else to do, nothing else to see. Complete relaxation. I can feel myself getting sunburned, but I don’t care. It feels like heaven after what feels like an eternity of rain.  

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We take the van up to a national park. We park it underneath the eucalyptus trees. We ride along small windy roads. The sun is beaming down, and we feel like we’re not actually living this, but are in a cliché of a travel movie. We take Billy – that’s the van’s name – to a camping to charge the batteries and take an actual shower instead of natural ones. And so it goes on for a while. Actually, for a little while too long. Marous needs to be in Turkey for a project, and we’re waiting for her plane to leave. The last days we can feel we’ve been together for too long, after being alone for such a long time. It becomes especially apparent when the rain returns. We’re confined to the van, already a small space, with all my gear in there too it’s even more snug. But we’re honest about it and try to give each other space. On one of those days, we break the handbrake. It simply comes out of the dashboard. The cable is broken we find out soon enough. Not really a minor issue we can ignore, especially seeing Billy has some problems getting up hills. We take it to a garage. This machine is too old for them. Marous calls her garage back home. “Take it too a tractor workshop”, the mechanic advises. We do so, but they won’t touch her car either. “I won’t touch anything but a tractor!”, we get told. Even though this big unexpressive man won’t fix it, he’s willing to sell us the parts we need, so we can do it ourselves. Ourselves? Both me and Marous have never done something like this. But as Pippi Longstocking says; “I’ve never tried that before, so I think I should definitely be able to do that.” That day Marous works on her laptop, and I do so underneath the car. To my own surprise, I’m able to fix it. So much satisfaction in doing something for the first time and succeeding. Black, greasy hands towards the sky in victory!

The reason I’m waiting along with Marous, is because she offered me to take care of the van while she’s in Turkey. I had to think about that. I’m scared something might go wrong. At the other hand, when do you get the opportunity to drive around the south of Europe in a classic campervan for a while? The chance of a lifetime! After some consideration, I obviously will!