Almeria Medio Maraton – T minus 1 day.
Bing.
My phone alerts me to a message, and I’m pretty sure I already know what it is. Yep, Ash has pulled up outside my hotel and is awaiting the pleasure of my company and the exchange of witty, scintillating banter on the trip to Gatwick Airport and thence to Almeria. OK, well those were not his exact words, which were ‘am outside’, but the sentiment was clear.
It is 5:15 a.m., and as I leave my room, the hotel’s hall lights flick on in sequence, directing me to the exit as if insisting in some passive/aggressive form on my departure. The hotel is silent and seems deserted, a sort of hostelry Mary Celeste. I drop my room key at the empty reception desk and take my leave.
Stepping outside I am greeted by a biting, icy wind, but am grateful that Ash’s Ford is waiting there – even in the dark I know it’s him by the thud of Motörhead emanating from the vehicle and which is threatening to wake the local residents. A stray cat scurries away with a mix of disgust and fear, whilst insects, attracted to the headlights drop stone dead on contact with the blast wave from Iron Fist.
My suitcase is quickly stowed in the back, and I sink gratefully into the passenger seat where for a moment I fear I have somehow wet myself until I realise the warmth I’m feeling is because the seat is electrically heated, not something we normally encounter nor need in Australia. Here though, on a dark morning in the south of England in the grip of winter, it is welcome indeed.
In quick succession we collect Duncan (CharlieCat5) from his digs, arrive at Gatwick Airport, check in our bags, clear security and catch up at Jamie’s Bakery for coffee with the many others joining us on the flight to Almeria.
After the drama of my flight from Dubai to Gatwick the day before, this short EasyJet leg to Spain was mercifully free of incident. On arrival in Almeria however, the usual Spanish cultural visage of amusing charm masquerading as slow, unravelling chaos was immediately in evidence. Ash and I were quickly off the plane and found passport control totally devoid of any officials and so we waltzed straight on through to baggage claim. An apparently unconcerned uniformed border official sauntered past us, coffee in one hand, newspaper tucked under the other arm and who then nonchalantly opened the passport control booth, forcing about 200 other passengers who hadn’t been as quick off the plane as us to queue interminably whilst this lone official checked their travel documents in between sips of coffee and glances at the back page of the paper to read the latest Barca match report. Yep, we were definitely in Spain. Hola!
Taxis to the hotel and check-in by contrast went smoothly. With time to kill before meeting Antonio our Almerian host at the expo/race number collection, Ash, Andy, Mel, Suzie and I quite naturally went in search of cerveza. A nearby bar seemed to fit the bill: dark timbers, exposed beams and the usual array of top shelf booze could have placed it as a bar anywhere on the planet but for the huge shoulders of jamón hanging overhead. Foaming half-litre glasses of Estrella Galicia completed the scene: we were in Spain, we had beer and we were content. The bar staff and the few customers were quietly cheerful and we happily chatted about the race to come, our various experiences of Spain and a slightly more earnest discussion about low-carb diets and training, and the role of beer in both.
A little later the bar suddenly filled with boisterous, enthused locals, talking loudly and casting quizzical glances at our small group of five seated at our table in the corner. I was trying to interpret some the looks we were receiving – not aggressive exactly, but neither were they the usual, friendly interactions of the more normally charming Almerians. Then the TV behind was switched on and all was revealed. An important match was about to start and clearly we were sitting at a favoured table of the football fans. No matter, it was time to head off to the expo anyhow. We drained our glasses and hiked to Medio Maratón Cuidad de Almeria Feria del Corredor: the Almeria half marathon race expo.
Ash and Andy had warned us of the shambolic, head-shaking, bizarre nature of the expo, but really nothing could have prepared us for the utter madness of it. Antonio was to meet us there, which was of paramount importance, as nothing about the process was exactly smooth, nor was it logical, and translation was difficult. We arrived a little ahead of Antonio however and so began the process as best we could without him. The first step was clear enough – head to the desk that corresponded with your race number, show your ID and you were then handed your race bib and a wrist band. The purpose of the wrist band (or maybe it was an ankle band?) was a mystery, and remains so to this day, despite the volunteers’ efforts to explain it with a mix of Spanish and sign language. Confused, I muttered ‘Si, gracias’ and walked off in the wrong direction, completely bewildered as to what to do and where to go next.
Hang on though, a couple of our group had already succeeded in getting their goody bags and pointed me to other side of the expo. The bottom part of our race bibs had some options listed on them which we had apparently requested when we paid our race entry fees weeks earlier. Most of us couldn’t remember what we had ordered, although I did recall ordering the commemorative 20th edition T-shirt. My race bib said ‘option 9’ so I went to the appropriately signed desk on the far side of the stadium, showed them my bib and was - ta da!- handed a goody bag. Nothing however, was going to be that straight-forward.
Standing in a small, bewildered huddle in the middle of the expo stadium we compared the contents of our bags. Most had received the regular T-shirt we all expected to receive as being included in the entry fee. I had no T-shirt at all, but I did get a towel, a pack of tomatoes and a small, black article of apparent apparel, the purpose of which I could not fathom, despite the best efforts of the more knowledgeable among us to explain it to me. That no-one was willing to demonstrate its use only compounded my confusion.
Fortunately at that moment Antonio arrived to save the day. It turned out that to receive my commemorative T-shirt, I had return to the same desk twice. Huh? Yes, go back to the same person at the same desk, and sure enough, at my second appearance they happily gave me the requested shirt. We were all still perplexed as to why only some of us received the regular race shirt, but it seemed that ordering and paying for an additional item such as my microfibre towel or the commemorative shirt negated our eligibility for the free one. OK, well let’s just mark that one down to typical Spanish charm and move on. Antonio ensured everyone received at least the items they had paid for and we all left happily enough, if not just a little more bewildered than when we arrived.
But as to those tomatoes. Almeria is renowned for its tomatoes and other produce grown in city-sized fields of plasticised greenhouses, all carefully tended to by small armies of (apparent) African immigrants who pedal to and from the various greenhouses on a huge fleet of bicycles that would do Amsterdam proud. I know this because two years prior when Mrs MLCMM and I passed through here on a trip through Spain and Portugal, our GPS insisted on navigating us through this ocean of plastic with bemused, pedalling workers laughing at the crazy tourists apparently lost in their strange, alien and labyrinthine vegetative metropolis.
Tomatoes, then, are a symbol of Almeria, and where other cities proudly proclaim ’I [heart] NYC’ (or whatever), here the burnished brass signs at the roundabouts and on the tourist trinkets instead proclaim ‘I [tomato] Almeria’. It’s all very eccentric and utterly charming.
With race numbers and goody bags satisfactorily secured, the next item on the agenda was a search of the town for rioja and tapas before retiring relatively early ahead of the big day.
I returned to the hotel tired and happy, falling immediately into a deep, restful sleep, dreaming bizarrely of being lost in Rome and feasting in local ristorantes, whose owners all seemed determined to force-feed me free meals. Not quite so bizarre a scenario as Almeria, perhaps, but odd enough to keep me interested and asleep.
Fab Fun Feb
