Eurotrip Leg 3: Alicante – Alicante

The densely populated urbanizations of Alicante and its surrounding areas, are essentially a dry and dusty reincarnation of Britain itself. So much so that ‘hello’ is your safe bet when crossing paths with a neighbour in the street. A quick, Sherlock Holmes style body scan, will give you any extra assurance you may need. Olive skin and a copy of ‘El Pais’ nestled under the armpit = ‘hola’. Londsdale sliders and a Welsh dragon on the shoulder = sure fire ‘alright there boyo’.

My step dad and his other half (I can’t be asked to stray into the long winded, dysfunctional dynamic of my family – I’ll bottle it and save it for when I’m rich and privileged and therefore eligible to see a therapist, and then it’ll all come pouring out and I’ll really get my money’s worth, only it won’t matter then because I will pacify myself with luxury Delicatessen cheese and a Tesla) has an apartment here, so it was a great place to anchor down and have a proper wash (by ‘proper’ I mean one where you can have a real scrub of your gooch, for this tends to be frowned upon in public parking lots – weird because armpits is fair game?). It was also the perfect moment to order in some components for the new electrical system that would take me off grid and away from the caravan club that I subtly voiced my distaste for in the last post.

And so, with the van staying true to its money pit reputation, I found the beefiest battery and inverter combo that my overdraft would allow, clicked ‘pedir ahora’ and put my feet up, readying myself for a job which would surely be no harder than assembling Lego - only in this case, the Lego bricks would be flowing with live and potentially fatal current. In the meantime, I downloaded Tinder and commenced investigation ‘can you successfully entertain the fairer sex with no fixed dwelling?’ (a title that has been refined for the more sophisticated reader, as opposed to the original ‘can I get laid whilst homeless?’).

My ego was soaring after striking up a conversation with a smoky-voiced Valencian in a coffee shop last week, so much so that an hour pitting myself against the thousands of males in the local area who are more ripped, have better teeth and own more Rolex’s than I do (i.e. they own a Rolex) was just what the doctor ordered. As a sidenote, you know you’re doing well when the smoky-voiced Valencian gets interrupted by the waitress mid-sentence, but then doesn’t resume to finish that sentence when the waitress disappears, preferring to busy herself with the work on her laptop. If, by chance, you then walk out of the café, only to be chased by the staff for having not paid (my mind was apparently elsewhere), then you, my friend, are one smooth criminal. Naturally then, I created my online profile, added an inch to my height and several facets to my character, and started swiping like my future bi-lingual children depended on it.

I am now of the opinion that Spanish girls see British boys as shy, bumbling weirdos. A far cry from the James Bond/Hugh Grant combo we always secretly thought we were. “A gentleman never tells” is a very useful expression that in this case I will cling to for dear life, in order to summarize/obscure a hit-rate akin to the England football team’s record in major trophies. “Bags of potential, but when it really comes down to it, just cannot cut the mustard”.

All in all, Alicante’s an uninspiring place. But you know what? I’d take uninspiring all day if it meant dependability. Every day is 12 hours of glorious – if not debilitating - sunshine, so you’re guaranteed to get out for a run or a ride. Zwift, Peloton or similar indoor solutions are just not a thing here, with what little rain there is falling in micro-storms, the evening’s humidity building to a climax, before torrentially pissing it down for all of 10 minutes. Honestly, I think the only time I put a top on during my 3 weeks here was to take a daily Teams call, or grab a table for one at a local restaurant, to the pitiful gaze of surrounding parties. It’s difficult to pass as a travelling salesman, dining out on the company card, when the place you are dining is the Costa Blanca. There is no business around here except that of construction and lager. More likely, I looked as though I was being repeatedly stood up by my Castilian Tinder dates.

Ribbing the leather-skinned, beer-bellied expat who’s chosen to see out his days in an Irish bar enjoying the familiar sound of an ABBA tribute band is low hanging fruit, so I will resist the urge to indulge. On the contrary, bingo in Benidorm sounds like a top way to see out your days. When I die, I want to do it choking on a chicken bone that was left lingering in my paella. I'll be unsuccessfully resuscitated by paramedics I don’t understand because I never got past ‘que tal’ on Duolingo, despite having lived here for 15 years.

During this time my step dad, his Mrs and some of their family came out for a week, so by default I was consigned to the van. I took this, and the infuriating mozzie bites (sleeping in a van in this heat is a choice between a sauna with no air flow, or opening the door and inviting the mozzies to come and feast on my vascular, freshly shaved calves – they’re a real delicacy) on the chin, since the familiar faces came as much needed comfort. Anyone who’s travelled on their own for a long period will be familiar with this. Having friends or family with which to recount sights or stories, stops the journey feeling altogether pointless. At the risk of sounding like that bloke from Into the Wild - who I am basically just a watered down version of - ‘happiness is only real when shared’.

When the parts eventually did arrive, it sparked a week of bending in contortionist like fashion to run wires into the back cupboard of the van and through behind the kitchen units to the starter battery. A lot of time has passed as I write this now, so having completed the job, it’s easy to forget that at every stage of the process, it felt utterly insurmountable. I am for all intents and purposes an impatient, hot headed chimp with no electrical experience, and there is only so much that Youtubers, with their perfect workshops and plethora of power tools, can teach you. Seriously, if there’s a more miserable way of spending your evenings and weekends than converting a campervan, it’s changing it post-conversion. Fitting the battery alone nearly broke me, and cost me several trips to Spain’s B&Q equivalent, Leroy Merlin (if you want to swing by a local ‘ferreteria’ (hardware store) on an hour where they actually decide to open, good luck with that). The following photograph will suggest workmanship of precision and calculation, but it quickly descended into a tangle of precariously balanced components and interconnecting wires.

An idea that gives me great liberation is that if you keep chipping away at something, despite the setbacks and fuckups (I think the neighborhood watch was quietly relieved as I drove off into the sunset, that they wouldn't have to hear the C word uttered from the inside of a Transit anymore), you will achieve what you set your sights on. So, as I went to install the final piece of my electrical jigsaw, after much deliberation and toil, I allowed myself a hint of pride - pride it turns out, that was misplaced and short-lived, for within 20 seconds of turning on the isolator switches, the inverter erupted in a plume of smoke and began hissing wildly. Scrambling to disconnect every switch in sight, I was left head in hands, utterly spent from the roller coaster of emotions I’d just felt in the space of 5 minutes. It turns out that all I'd done is left a stray neutral wire unconnected, and the current had been flowing back into my inverter. Nothing was damaged, but I must've stood there watching it for about 20 minutes after reconnecting, on tenterhooks waiting for it to erupt again. The first night with the new setup was a nervy one to say the least. Saying that if the whole thing had burst into flames it might've made my life a whole lot simpler, such is how I've come to see this bastard van. All roads now pointed North, as I sought to broaden my horizons to the real Spain, leaving the comfort of Temple Bar and the greasy spoon cafes behind me.