Just one more wine post:
As we passed through stone outcrops in southern Rioja and Zaragoza province, we noticed lots of chambers excavated into cliff faces. At a little place called Quel, we found out what at least some of them are.
Many of the families of Quel, as in other towns in the area, own underground bodegas. They've burrowed into the cliffs to make caves where there is a constant, moderate temperature suitable for making and maturing wine. At Quel the bodegas are excavated into a hillside on the opposite side of the river to the town. The hillside is studded with doorways like a Hobbit village, and small brick sheds cluster on the hilltop. In Quel they drop grapes down chutes in the sheds into the underground bodegas. All the equipment and apace for maturing wine is inside. The Quel bodegas are being mapped and restored so there were interpretation boards (but no bodega open to view). Many looked abandoned, but everywhere we went there was a strong smell of wine.
The other good find in Quel was a coin operated public weighbridge (bascula municipal). We put 50 cents in the slot and got a printed ticket to confirm we're legal: 3.33 tonnes. That means we can buy 170 kgs of wine and ham. At that moment it started pouring with rain. Good timing – we set off to find a spot to spend the night.
It wasn't easy. We tried a few unsuitable places then started to follow signs for Parque Bardenas Reales, a biosphere reserve, hoping to find a visitors' centre carpark or similar. It was raining really heavily. Bardenas Reales turned out to be a barren treeless expanse of rough grazing looking (as far as we could see in the dusk) like Welsh uplands. It was getting dark so pulled off the road into a layby. We saw a lane running down into the valley and thought it was worth a quick look in case there was a more sheltered spot. The van started slipping, the ABS kicked in, the lane looked rough. Not promising, best not go too far. We'd already gone too far. Tried backing out but couldn't see well enough to keep on the track, so tried a 3 point turn ... wheels spun. Stuck! It was almost dark now, there were not even any bushes to cut and shove under the wheels, and even if we got moving on branches we had 200m of greasy lane to negotiate. Hopeless. Van leaning over badly. Pelting rain.
We no longer any choice about where to camp for the night, so we settled in and spent the evening checking our recovery policy, looking up 'stuck in the mud' in the Spanish dictionary and generally planning our escape and trying to keep the mud out of the van. (Scooby went out just before bedtime and came back with his feet caked in mud – big clods of sticky clay between his toes; not so easy to keep the van clean!)
The following day started cold but dry, and soon warmed up. The place looked much more attractive in the strong sunshine. We started to implement our recovery plan; had breakfast, packed up, found the towing eye and R walked up to the main road to find a milepost to say how far we were from Tudela.
Just before phoning for help, we decided to have one more go at driving out as the sun had dried the clay a little. We put stones under the front wheels, rocked the van out of its mud hole and got facing in the right direction. Good, at least that will make the tow easier. Tried to get moving up the hill but slipped, then got some traction on the stubble of someone's crop, got some momentum, turned and got moving on the lane! Hearts in mouths, we got up the lane slipping all the way and miraculously popped out onto the firm tarmac of the main road. We set off triumphantly back towards Tudela, with blocks of hard clay flying off our wheels and shattering on the road.
After that we fled to Zaragoza's immaculate new municipal campsite where we spent hours washing towels, mats, the van and ourselves to get back into reasonably respectable condition.
The lessons learned? Lesson one is that this van is really really bad in slippery conditions. You can't get away with taking liberties like you can with our usual small light car. It feels deceptively like a car on the road, but it's more than twice the weight of our Fiesta. Lesson two, don't panic. Time, and the Spanish sunshine saved us in this case without having to call out a camión grua. Lesson three is to make sure you pick your spot for the night while there's still daylight. That's getting more tricky as the days shorten, but we're certainly taking more care.
A little while after this we headed up into the Pyrenees to visit the beautiful Ordessa y Monte Perdido (the lost mountain) National Park; the scenery was stunning and we were surrounded by snow topped mountains. However, as we headed up, and up towards the car park the road started to get a bit snowy, and slippery, and then more snowy and slippery … Remembering our mudhole experience we turned round and headed back down to warmer ground – we didn't fancy a night spent stuck in the snow!
We have now learned our lesson and bought snow chains for the van.
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