Eyeing off the opposition in Spain

Posted Tuesday, February 06, 2007, 9:46 PM by Lonely Planet

Days 3 & 4: The Wheelers waylaid by a wayward ATM on the Plymouth to Banjul rally.

Sunday-Monday 4-5 February
Who are these people turning up for a pre-dawn breakfast at our hotel in Vitoria? The two German-speaking punk-looking guys turn out to be bus drivers for the Leipzig Opera. Our intention to leave 'early' doesn't work that well (I waste a quarter of an hour looking for a working ATM), although we still get away by 8.30am. And then we drive-drive-drive via Madrid, Granada and Malaga to arrive at Tarifa, just beyond Gibraltar and 1077km from our morning starting point. We've sat most of the day with the speedo needle at a steady 120kph, which left us in the slow lane with everything else whistling past us.



Lots of cars, some of them worse looking than ours, some of them much better, are already assembled and the entrants are already sinking cold cervezas. I like the French blue Renault 4 and the bright yellow American school bus. The next day we spend shopping and meeting our fellow travellers. Africa is a stone's throw away across the Straits of Gibraltar and a ferry company rep comes round to the hotel at 6pm to sell tickets.

- Tony Wheeler

Track progress and view a map of the route here.

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