The Middle of Nowhere in Spain

Haha that title can be read a couple of different ways...

Anyway, our two-day trip to Cuenca wasn't actually anywhere near Cuenca at all... My flatmate Giulia (she came along too) said that when she asked people where we were she got a different answer every time! So I looked it up on Google Earth when we got home. We went to a place called Cijara which is pretty much all about the huge dam there. It's not even a village. The trip was free because the local government wants open-minded people (ie international students) to learn about this river project and how we can Build a Brighter Spain or something. They're trying to connect this river with some others so it'll flow all across something or something. I wasn't paying too much attention because I was dying from the heat.

So we met up at a plaza in the middle of Ciudad Real to leave at 9am. The buses turned up about 9:10, and we finally got on the road shortly after 9:30. At ten to ten we turned around and headed back because some people had been given the wrong time by the international office! Sigh... So we finally got there at 12:30, sorted cabins out and headed to the main area for a briefing. This was where they told us about the river project and we walked over to the dam which was right beside the camp, and they gave us caps which was great because I hadn't gotten around to buying a sunhat!

We had lunch at two and it was incredible. Tables set up in a marquee with the sides open to let in the breeze and table service with metal cutlery! They brought out all this tapas, which is esssentially finger food, and when I was totally full they handed out the nicest chickpea and meat soup I've ever had. I couldn't finish it but wow it was certainly not the sort of camp lunch we get in NZ!!

Then we had some activities, which turned out to be an orienteering course! Well, more like a mini-rogaine as they could be done in any order. There were the usual orienteering flags but they had marked the activites on the map too and you got extra points for completing them. There was kayaking, abseiling (down the dam, actually!), mountain biking (to collect more flags/controls), rockclimbing, and archery. It was a really good time. It's been so long since I've done any orienteering! The map wasn't so great though, they'd marked the power lines on it (it took me a while to figure out what they were!!) and the fences around the camp weren't marked at all. And the start was in the wrong place. And they didn't differentiate between open fields and bush with knee-high grass. It was a mess. I mentioned it to the guy when we got back and he didn't seem to care. But it was still a lot of fun! We had two and a half hours to do the activities and find the controls, and they were very good at creating the atmosphere, they played music the whole time and it was quite loud, you could hear it from the top of the dam. It felt very friendly.

One thing I did find strange was that when we pulled into the camp there was a police car and several policemen standing round. (Spain has three different police forces, more in some regions. This was the Guardia Civil, which is an army-based sort of force.) It sorta seemed like a deportation camp! But when I asked what they were there for I was told that 'we were in the middle of the bush' and they were there to make us feel safe. The most I ever saw them doing was making sure we weren't run over where the orienteering crossed the road. We weren't in the middle of the bush at all. If you could even call that bush! It seemed like overkill to me. Amanda (the other Kiwi) said 'they'd probably have kittens if they saw what we do in NZ'!

Anyway, dinner wasn't quite the same, I always forget that lunch is bigger than dinner over here, but it was still really good. More finger food and some rolls. We headed back to our cabin quite early, at 11:30, but some people were up til 3 at least. Maybe it was the free wine...

So the next day breakfast was at 9. This was definitely no school camp! Some people didn't make it til 9:30. And we were supposed to leave at 10, but we didn't get away til almost half past. I knew it was coming, but sometimes this spanish time thing really gets annoying. We drove for about an hour, went for a half an hour wander up a hill, visited a garden nursery, then had lunch. Lunch was pretty similar except it was at a cafe, not from a catering van in the camp, and they had icecreams which were free too. It was all free!! Amazing. I had a kit-kat cone, I don't know if they're available in NZ but I'd never seen them before. It was good, although they also had lemon sorbet packaged in actual hollowed-out lemons! They gave us beer and sangria (pretty much sweet red wine) and between that and the sun, and the fact that I drink very little over here (my tolerance has nose-dived! I spose that's a good thing.. :S), it only took about three glasses before I was feeling the alcohol!

And all too soon it was time to get back on the bus. It was a couple of hours back and they put on the film 'White Chicks', it was good entertainment I suppose. There were groups there from the other campuses of UCLM too so we met lots more italians, some people from Turkey, there was even a girl from Australia there, she'd grown up in Venezuela and her family emigrated to Brisbane a few years ago. Lots of interesting people!

So I'll put some photos up on Facebook and post a link to them as a comment. I hope everyone in NZ's going well!
Hasta luego..