Train Ride From Hell

First a caveat. Leea and I have ridden buses and trains all over Spain, and John and I rode buses and trains for a good part of our trip three years ago. I have never had an unpleasant train or bus ride in Spain, until . . . The Train Ride From Hell:Granada to Valencia.

On Saturday we got up before the dawn for the journey from Granada to Valencia. If either of us had any glimmer of a clue of what the day would be like we may have just rolled over, gone back to sleep, and felt destined to live out our lives in Granada in the Sacromonte as gypsies. Leea actually said she could picture me living there.

It was about a fifteen or twenty minute walk to the train station with our luggage and back packs.All went well until we reached the train station and Leea went to get café. There were travelers fifty deep at the café bar. So she came back. After the next train left, she tried again, got her café only to discover that our train was boarding early. We have to board as soon as possible because luggage space is very limited on trains. So she gulped down her café, much to the chagrin of her taste buds and we ran to the train. We got our luggage stored and got to our seats. A few minutes later two women came with twin one year old boys who sat in the two seats behind us. The boys began kicking the seat backs, banging the snack tray up and down, coughing, sneezing and spraying germs. These two screamed or cried for about eight hours. Then they would reach over the top of the seat to try to pull my hair or hit me on the head. Their fingers grabbing at my hair brought memories of the terrible night with the cockroach in my hair. I was tempted to treat these lovely little boys the same way I did the cockroach.

They were quiet for about thirty minutes when they passed out. At times one or the other would let out a few sustained shrieks and people would turn and stare. What was worse is that when we got to Valencia their father met the mother and kids at the station, so the mother had already done this trip once and knew how horrible they would be, but decided to inflict them on a whole train car full of people nonetheless. I did have some sympathy for the two women, they looked frazzled, but my sympathy ran out about six hours into the trip.

For some reason the train had to stop a couple of times to change engines and add cars. For the first leg of the trip, the car was like a meat locker. Then for the rest of the trip it had little or no air conditioning in the middle of Spain, in the middle of summer. And you cannot open the windows. Think of going through Fresno in the summer with no air conditioning, all the windows rolled up, fifty people in a small space, and don't forget the screaming children.

The one saving grace was that the percussionist from the Wednesday night flamenco show was on the train across the aisle and two rows up. This was some nice eye candy for the trip. Everything about him was gorgeous. When the boys shrieked he would turn and smiled at one or the other of us. Almost made me want to poke them with a pin so they would shriek some more.

By the time we reached Valencia we were exhausted and I had a headache. We stopped at the tourist office got a map, used the servicios, and had a cup of café con leche. I went and bought tickets for our trip to Barcelona on Wednesday and the lady at the ticket counter told me in Spanish, of course, that I looked much younger than my passport picture. It was like “welcome to Valencia.”

As our cab was leaving the train station it was blocked by a police car whose officers were trying to check the pulse on a drunk who was passed out on the sidewalk, having wet himself and the sidewalk. I was thinking, I might know him. And me with out my Spanish Big Book. Oh well. We thought he was dead, because the officer shook him a couple of times and he didn’t move at all. He was alive though, at least he still had a pulse. I was thinking, there but for the Grace of a very loving God, go I; and the whole nightmare of the train trip from hell seemed somewhat less important. In fact as Mike M put it, “At least it wasn’t the train trip to hell.”