July 31 - After a short flight from Bristol, we landed in Bilbao, N.Spain, home to some of Europe's best surf spots including the infamous Mundaka - arguably the world's best left hander.
The swell lines were showing off the coast as we made our descent by plane so we knew we were definitely in luck! After sorting out a couple of hire cars we hit the road and headed West. We arrived at a small town early evening and managed to squeeze in an hours surf before dark. With the sun well and truly down, the mosquitoes came out in force and attacked us for all we were worth - we were bitten more times at that one spot than on the whole trip combined. Luckily we didn't camp there!
There were ominous signs of Spanish driving practices everywhere we looked, as car wreck after wreck was left dumped along the verges of the motorway. We'd never seen so many smashed up cars and most of them were on straight roads!
Our first evening was amusing to say the least as our non existent spanish was severly tested in a local restaurant. This part of Spain is very much a non-tourist area and most people do not "Parlais the Englais" so a phrase book is handy - we'd left ours at home...
Sven did however, manage to did bring along a text book, full of useful phrases like "Me gustole el colure lilac" "I love the colour Lilac!" which kept us all amused. 'Sun' to his credit gave 100% and even brought along a 'Learn Spanish' cd which we played in between 'Zero7' and 'The Thrills'.
We eventually established that the restaurant had no chicken, ham or eggs on the menu? Whether the delivery cart hadn't made it over the mountains that day or not, we'll never know...but we ate well, nevertheless!
"The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain" - No it doesn't - it falls mainly on us and at whatever beach we happen to be visiting! It rained on and off intermittently, sometimes heavily for the first 3 days and was frequently foggy or misty early morning but we were eventually rewarded with some mid week sunshine which gave us all a boost.
There was a local hostel just down the road, so we crashed there for the night and hit the road again, early next morning. The waves were small and clean but we knew we could do better!
The sun came out (briefly) and we found a cracking little spot at 'Playa de Laredo' that got us all very excited! A long stretch of beach just around the headland from 'El Brusco'. The beach had a number of good peaks breaking between 3-5ft, clean with light offshore winds. Most of the pack went in and attacked the lefts whilst Wilky and Catman ventured off to investigate a deeper bank, holding a nice looking right hander.
Sadly the tides were a bit deep, the wind swung cross shore and within hours, it had become a shadow of it's former self. We met up with some Aussies who we'd chatted with at a nearby 'Super Mercado'. They seemed quite relieved to see some other foreign faces over there and we arranged to meet up and camp but with a dying swell, decided to push on further West and into Asturias.
After a night of local culture and the odd 'San Miguel' we were back on the road by 10.30am and heading for 'Liencres' - a long stretch of coast open to all kinds of possibilities. We worked out the swell was coming from a NNW direction so this seemed like a good place to search out a rideable wave.
We arrived at Liencres to grey skies, 2-3ft surf and a light onshore breeze. The horizon had plenty of swell lines so we decided to give it a go. It tuned out to be a fun little session as the waves began to get hollower on the dropping tide and everyone caught plenty of waves.
We packed up and decided to check out 'Playa de Meron' nearby but it was a little too crowded for our liking and looked very slow so we hit the road again towards 'Llanes' or 'Janets' as it became known.
Our Spanish pronounciation this trip was poor - I put it down to sleep deprivation. At one point, Sven thanked a lady in pigeon Italian, with a heart felt "Gratsi Mamamia"!
It was here that we encountered our first stumbling block and depite constant warnings, 'The Dentist' insisted on taking the electronically chipped car key into the surf, insisting it was safe in a waterproof jiffy bag!
Yes, you guessed it - the car wouldn't start. Luckily we had Sven, who leapt into action pushing his knowledge of GSCE Electronics to it's limits ( pressing every button in the car). The engine suddenly spluttered and turned over and we were on our way! After an hour or so of driving, we stopped to re-fuel at a local 'Super Mercado' in 'Llanes' where we planned to camp but the hire car had other ideas and gave up the will to live.
No amount of trying would re-start it. After a long day at the wheel, this was the last thing we needed. A fairly amusing phone call ensued, with 'The Dentist' chatting to a Spanish employee from the rental firm in Bilbao who didn't speak English. The guy on the other end of the phone couldn't understand basic numbers in English for our car registration so it wasn't looking good. We grabbed a local lady walking past and with enough hand gesturing, she was able to work out our dilemma.
It was a bit like a scene from Micheal Aspels "Give Us A clue" but within the hour, a mechanic had towed it away. Unfortunately, the two listed drivers were forced to drive back to Bilbao the following day, to collect a fresh car...
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