(Parts 1 and 2 can be found here and here, respectively.)
Night was falling fast: by the time we gave on the bathroom and got on the highway, it was already dark. I gingerly tiptoed past a speed trap, all the while keeping my eye on the Suzuki Vitara that, mercifully, didn’t bother pursuing us. Just as well, too; I wouldn’t know what “do you know how fast you were goin’?” sounded like in Spanish, anyway. Speed cameras, which the GPS system thoughtfully warned us about, were everywhere: on the tops of tunnels, in the bushes on the median, mounted secretly in the back of vans, underneath Avatar billboards (I saw 15 in one day—5 of which were at the same bus stop). I slowed down to 50kph every time the annoying beep emanated from the dashboard, but soon gave up as soon as I saw traffic flying past us. Evidently the Spanish have far less to lose when it comes to racking up traffic violations.
Eventually we were stopped by a tollbooth, and being late after a long day and not wanting to dice it up with traffic, we pulled into the first lane we saw.
There was no booth here—no tollbooth collector, no ticket dispenser or digital readout showing how much we owed. Nothing was on the machine except a small card reader, which we gawked at like it was the monolith from 2001. “What the hell is this?” My dad asked out loud to nobody in particular. “Where do you put the money in?” He fumbled through his wallet for a credit card then slowly stuck it into the slot. The LCD screen swore at us in a string of gibberish. He tried it again, magnetic reader up, to the left, to the right, and down. No reaction.
I looked behind us. Three cars had queued up behind us, part of the evening rush. Next to us, cars were whisking through their toll lanes with aplomb. In front was a solid arm barrier. It was a flimsy-looking piece, mounted by a mere two bolts, a little above hood level. Slamming on the gas and lurching forward would be quick and effortless. Couldn’t do much damage to our car, right? Sure, they might catch us on videotape, but by the time they got around to tracking down the paperwork we’d be 39,000 feet over the North Atlantic. “Go for it!” I suggested, half seriously. What other option did we have?
“Do something!” my mom yelled, leaning forward and slamming her hand on the emergency blinker. Almost instantly, the drivers’ angry faces were placated as they slowly shuffled out of the toll lane, in reverse. There was no honking or rapid-paced cursing. We joined them in backing out of the lane, then dashed across three lanes in almost perpendicular fashion, swinging the car around to another lane with an actual human being in it. In Massachusetts we would have been tarred and feathered as a warning to others.
Dramatic highway ordeal over, we stopped at a rest area that sold beer, condoms, hardcore pornography, Bacardi Breezers, and the entire Twilight series in paperback.
We bought none of those things. Instead, we drove past Barcelona and headed straight for the airport, our road tour of southeastern Spain over, away from the crowds and into the magnificent scenery that I didn’t bother photographing. Finding a gas station proved to be tricky: we circled the same roundabout 4 or 5 times, up and down a grid of rainy streets in a nondescript industrial park, underneath the massive upright tanks of the nearby Estrella Damm brewery. I didn’t even know why I was in such a rush to get rid of it. We had the car until noon the next day, evidently.
And it wasn’t a particularly bad car, either: sure, it was painfully slow, and downshifting on the notchy gearlever to wring that extra hidden burst of speed soon grew tedious, but I expected as much from a car with less displacement than a Big Gulp. It proved to be a surprisingly comfortable highway cruiser, riding smoothly and competently fending off crosswinds, 20-wheel trucks and mad Peugeots. After 350 kilometers, the fuel gauge had barely registered a dent. And since buying gasoline in Europe involves a second mortgage and a firstborn daughter, we were more than grateful for this.
And I could drive it a damn sight better than my old man.
- Blake Rong
That sounds like a great rest stop – except for the Bacardi Breezers and Twilight novels. And please put up a wallpaper version of that first picture for them HD-monitor types.
Come on, "In Rome do like the Romans do", you should have drank 1 bottle of wine before noon and 2 bottles during afternoon, used speeds up to 140 kph and enjoyed highways that are, it seams, uncontrolled by police.
When I rented car in south of Spain and asked from car rental guys how much I can drink and drive legally they looked to each other perplexed and after some seconds said "uh….not too much". And off we went with a Renault Clio and cold beer they sold us.