Beside the Seaside

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In Which I Have A Day in Three Parts (Sort Of)

March 25, 2008 by Mike

Marbella

Part One: In The Morning
Hopped on the bike and braved the N-340 to check out Marbella and Puerto Banus.

A word about the N-340 -- a road notorious in 70s and 80s Britain as a death-trap hell-hole traffic jam.. just the kind of thing you'd expect from Johnny Foreigner.. picking off sunburned tourists at will as they tried to cross the rat run from hotel to beach and back. (The hotel was probably unfinished, too.) The tourist had bought a sombrero or stuffed donkey just before being running over.

It's not so bad now. A motorway running just inland takes most of the through traffic (but not me); pedestrian bridges every few hundred metres and a concrete divide between the lanes have eliminated the more grizzly accidents. And yet, and yet.. everyone quotes a different figure but  everyone  reminds me that 1728.. or 1505.. or 2187.. people died on the N-340 last year.. or the year before.. or in the six months to February.

I almost became a statistic.

Coming down a hill and round a bend this morning, I saw ahead of me a floating newspaper, caught up in the gusts and wind and slipstream of the road. Up it danced, and down, up and down and left and right and I *knew*, I could just tell, that it was going to land on me, envelope the visor in a welter of small ads and economic prognoses. A cartoon moment -- and then I would die. I turned to the left, I edged to the right. I slowed as quickly as possible (if that makes sense?) The errant newspaper paused in mid-air, mocked me, then zoomed Mikewards in a desperate effort to blind me.. but.. at the last moment.. I ducked. I felt the thwack as it careened off the top of my helmet. If I hadn't ducked? Hmmm, don't want to picture the consequences of riding down the N-340 completely unable to see.

The point being -- it's a ridiculously dangerous stretch of road. And it runs besidetheseaside clear to Almeria -- a couple of hundred more miles.

Anyhoo.. on the N-340 to downtown Marbella, which totally charmed and disarmed me.

The old town has more than its share of touristification, but there's Real Life here too. Teenyweeny streets of white-walled terraced houses, car-less, bird song, flowers and plants on every window-sill, smell of laundry, the ubiquitous black-clad widow waddles up the hill carrying the groceries; a schoolyard rammed full of SHOUTING infants and weary teachers; a tiny neighbourhood cafe serving the world's best coffee, welcoming pictures on the tobacco-stained walls of smiling regulars and the owner's bleach-blond girlfriend; round the corner and there's the remains of a castle wall, hundreds of years old.. now with a pizzeria attached. I fell for it.

Marbella is home to assorted Saudi and Hollywood royalty. I didn't hang out in their 'hood, but I suspect it's all just so.

And then on to Puerto Banus at the west end of Marbella Bay. A friend was here a couple of years ago -- the experience still haunts her. I asked for a list of the best things to see or do, and got a blank txt message in reply. I'm guessing it was a holiday spent, at night anyway, in the warren of clubs and bars behind the port (not her choice): there's a Lineker's Bar, of course; a dozen Oirish Pubs, his'n'hers strip clubs, 24-hour Full English Breakfasts and Sky Sports on the big screen wherever you turn. It was empty in daylight: the vampires come out at night. Yakk.

The strange thing is, this is all a mere vodka'n'Red Bull-fuelled chunder away from the waterfront and the port itself: multimillion pound yachts; Ferraris and Bentleys and Lambourghinis nose-to-tail; designer shops, designer Roosian girlfriends, the smell of serious money. More than a world away from next door. Interesting to see.. once.

But the beach was lovely.

I suspect the Holiday From Hell involved so many night-time nightmares (and consequent Drinking To Forget) that the days were spent under the covers hiding from the world.. and those good things Puerto Banus has to offer.

--

Part Two: In The Afternoon

I raced back to the campsite loaded down with a freshly-minted suntan, lots of beer and cheap house red. Last night my new chums Tim and Connie had offered, in passing, and in their cups, to cook me a steak this afternoon. They were among the 'Permanents' in the campsite bar who made me so welcome on my first evening in Camping Buganvilla.

Not giving them a chance to change their minds (or to have forgotten the offer), I bore down on their caravan carrying the booze. Luckily, Connie recognised me: "Afternoon Dave," she offered brightly. "Do you wanna cold 'un?"

I did. It's thirsty work sunbathing.

I also managed to remind her of my real name without embarrassing her.. but by the end of the evening, as she sang and danced along to another Westlife song and showed off her collection of tattoos, I realised she was a stranger to embarrassment.

That came after a bloody steak on the barbecue.. which in turn had followed several courses of sausage, chicken and lamb burger. Tim, bless him, is a butcher, (my hero!), and he was treating us royally.

"It's a dead trade in England," he told me. "Nobody goes to the butcher's for their meat any more. Over here? They love it. A lot of the Brits who've moved here, they've done it because the country's changing too fast for them. When they find an old-fashioned butcher here, they're over the moon."

Tim's boss has three shops on this stretch of the coast. They're all doing great business.

They don't have a single Spanish customer.

It's not just Gibraltar and the Algarve (and, err, New Zealand.) The whole Costa del Sol is, somehow, a genteel recreation of Britain circa 1962.. though somehow it's also a Hogarthian horror show of Britain-as-booze-addled, football-shirt-wearing, sprawling, brawling, spewing freak show.

Connie and Tim live here with their son, Richie. He's enrolled in a local school with only one other 'ex-pat' pupil. So unlike Tarifa, where so many of the incomers keep themselves socially and institutionally removed from local life.

Money's tight, the caravan must seem tiny at times.. but then they live outdoors almost every day of the year -- on the Costa del Sol, with a sea view, and a community of like-minded souls all about them: Dave and John and Tina & Rick and Billy & his dad and Alan and Jasmine and Jasmine's mum and Freddie and Pete the Brummie. Status Quo's former manager keeps a motorhome here: "He's lovely."

(Pete the Brummie makes curries for the campsite bar: his 'Madras' was hotter than any curry I have ever tasted. Inedible. I mentioned this to him. He took it as a compliment. Pete the Brummie has a tendency to fall over when he's had too many whiskies. This happens not irregularly. The regulars bought him a crash helmet to wear when he's on one. We should all have friends like that.)

Did you notice? They're all British names. The Permanents stay in their tribal groups, by and large. Thomas, a German, is an honorary Englishman - he drinks like one, and sings Bee Gees songs when he does so. Otherwise, the German Permanents stick together and drink in a German bar down the road.

Then there's "the Dutch", who, I was told, tend not to come in to the bar. As I walked around the site today, I saw Swedish, Finnish, Belgian and Norwegian caravans and mobile homes. Not a single Dutch number plate. No wonder they avoid the bar!

Part Three: In The Evening

This is a bit of a blur, on account of the good time spent all afternoon, and a lot of the night.

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