Five Stars for Tres Estrellas

From Barcelona

Well, we made it to Barcelona. It took a little while actually getting here on July 4th. After about 3 hours of riding our very nice and (ah!) air-conditioned bus, I suddenly awoke to find our bus stuck in traffic. Up ahead, giant dark clouds of smoke were billowing out of the forest. I can only assume that there were terrorists blowing up trees in the national forests of Spain. Damn terrorists. So for two hours, our bus was stationary. I was ready to take matters into my own hands and jump ship if I had to. I´ve watched enough episodes of "Man vs. Wild" and "Survivorman" to bail myself out of this sticky situation. Remember: if your stranded in the middle of nowhere, look for a stream. The stream will lead to a river, then the river will lead to a path, then the path will lead to a road which will take you into civilization.

But then the bus got rerouted by some cops and we were once again on our way to Barcelona, so I had to repress my survival instincts once again. But there will be a time when they come in handy, I tell ya. There will be a time.

Due to the long delays on the bus, we made it into Barcelona rather late. This city is very confusing when you´re plopped right in the middle and all the signage is in Catalan. They made the full conversion up here, unlike that pesky Valencia where they couldn´t make up their minds. After wandering around awhile, we finally found our L95 bus and headed 12 kilometers south of the city where our campground, Tres Estrellas, was awaiting.

Camping Tres Estrellas is a big improvement over that Camping Puçol dump we were at prior. Tres Estrellas is a 1st class campground, and now I think I´m starting to see why. This place actually feels like a campground where people aren´t living like white trash and actually bring in their RVs or their tents. We figured we´d be the only ones bringing in tents like last time, but when we arrived, I felt like I was in a tent city at Bonaroo. Lots of young travelers like ourselves were camping out, and it actually felt like you were in the outdoors...except of course for the airport next door with Aerobus planes zooming over your head and all the cars whizzing by on the interstate highway. But other than that, it was a beach-front paradise.

Our first night at Tres Estrellas, we had the tarp off the tent to let the air get in. Then at 4 in the morning, I awaken to find Eric shoving me, saying that rain is coming through the top (I wear ear plugs anytime I camp, so I´m virtually in my own sensory deprivation tank and unaware of everything going on around me. I could be on fire and probably sleep through it). So we slap on the tarp, go to bed, and in the morning I have to bail water out of the tent out with the only towel I have...some nasty wash rag I picked up from the Netherlands couple who roomed with us back in Madrid. It might be disgusting, but it does the job. We then had to air out everything in the tent so we didn´t die from black mold.

Camping Tres Estrellas has some real character to it. They have activities for the campers to do in the evenings. A few days ago, they had "Movie Night" where they showed that wonderful American classic "Little Man" starring the lovable Wayan Brothers. I didn´t get to see it, but I´m sure it was much better watching it in Spanish than in English. They also have flamenco dancers and karaoke here (my goal here one of these days is to sing "99 Luftballons"...the German version). We haven´t been able to partake in any of that, since we always manage to get back to the campsite at 9 pm or later and then spend the next few hours at the barbecue grill making a feast. Our first night, we had grilled chicken breasts, baked potatoes and tossed salad. Last night, we had German sausages that we somehow fashioned into a Philly cheese steaks. They were dang good. I´m talking tasty sandwiches there. So even though we´re out in the Spanish equivalent of "the sticks," we´re still managing to eat good. We´re also off of our fried breakfast kick from Alicante and actually having heaping bowls of healthy cereal in the morning with chilled milk out of a bottle. I don´t like that milk in a box that they have sitting unchilled on the store shelves. It tastes like someone took a white crayon and melted it in some water.

There´s some odd stuff about this campsite as well. Yesterday while making sandwiches, some floppy eared white rabbit came out of nowhere and started running up towards me. I thought I was hallucinating from the previous night´s Estrella Damm cervezas. The thing came up to my toes and about bit them off, so I kept throwing bread at it to appease the beast. I´ve seen "Monty Python" and I know how these rabbits can get. If that thing goes for my jugular, I´m toast. I then ran away from the wild rabbit. Then when I was trying to leave the campsite, it appeared again! Well, I wasn´t going to let this rabbit push me around, so I started chasing the little vermin around a tree, yelling at it until Eric told me to stop before its owner came and cussed me out. I don´t think it has an owner...I think it´s the campsite mascot. But I still don´t like it. If I see it again, it´s my dinner for the evening.

There´s another unusual thing about this campsite. While we were going out to the bus stop to catch the bus into Barcelona, I noticed this one girl really primped up about 50 meters from the bus stop. It looked like she was ready to party on the town in her little mini skirt and halter top. But she was sticking her leg out, like she needed a ride. I thought, "Boy, what a silly girl. She´s right next to the bus station, and it´s only 1,25 € to ride. She doesn´t have to hitchhike. She must really be bad off." But then I looked at all the other greasy ragamuffins like me from the campground looking like bums, and then I looked back at the little tart who obviously wasn´t a camper. And then after seeing a car pull up, invite her in, and not get back on interstate but instead pull off into the woods, my puny brain finally put two and two together.

We´ve got "highway hookers" outside our campsite! Holy crap! As we rode a few miles down interstate on the bus, you could see dozens of these brazen hussies, lining up along the road for clients. As you got closer to the city, the clothes on these floozies became less and less until they were just wearing bikinis. I´m amazed at how many "painted ladies" are running around this country. The book on Spain that I´m reading right now puts the figure at around 30,000 or so. I guess there must be a lot of love going around this place...and a lot of disease. Take your pick...gonorrhea, syphillis, lupus...we´ve got it all here. All styles, all colors. It´s also interesting to note the differences between the dirty little whores from city to city. In Madrid, they´re very picky about their clients, and they dress very conservatively in jeans and long sleeve shirts. Here in Barcelona, it feels like you´re walking around South Beach, Miami during Spring Break.

The people at Tres Estrellas have been a hoot to watch and interact with. We found a couple of college students from UT-Knoxville (Tennessee) up here. They were the only Americans we found, so we talked and received some good travel advice from them about France. They there´s the fun German enclave right beside our tent. These eight German guys gather around a picnic table every night and drink beer and sing and cheer. Oh, they´re having a grand time! The other day we awoke to find a towering pyramid of San Miguel beer cans on the ground. The next day, we found that the tower had fallen, and several of the Germans were passed out on the ground. All mighty empires must fall one day, I guess. Then there´s the poor Australian girl who was chatting up the two clueless British guys. She was trying to get away from her square parents in the RV and so hooked up with these British blokes, hoping to lose her virginity, and the two Brits didn´t even realize it, started yawning, and said they had to go to bed, leaving the girl with a dumbfounded look on her face. Oh, it´s like a soap opera here at Tres Estrellas, I tell ya.