So its down on the coastal path with our surprise guest kidnapped from the clutches of paris - Diego! Our comrade and honourary seventh member, and the only guy we know with a rabbit in the shower.
So we leave the smog of the city and the green dream of the Seine to travel south with seven in tow.
And its set to be an all night mission as the offshore surf hits Biarritz the next morning and cant be missed. Its a tough ride of little sleep and delirious driving shared between Gaz and Jodie for 14 hours, stopping at reststops to point at a map with one hand and steal sandwiches and redbull with the other. So we are all cracked out on caffeine and alex plays dj all night without a wink. as the sun rises we hit the rustic terracotta rooves and green peaked pyraneese mountains that tower over the azure aquatic atlantic. Its a piece of paradis, reminisscent of rio according to our brazilian buddy Diego.
We dive into the waves which roll in gentle and welcoming to our sleep starved bodies, taking turns for adrenaline kicks with the surf and body boards. Keeley wading through sun drenched shallow pools catching crabs. Gaz had a near death experience when, attempting to surf in overhead waves (and when i say surf, i actually mean lying belly down on the board, drifting aimlessly and still wearing sunglasses) he got stuck in a rip and dissapeared from sight behind a moving mountain of whitewater. Fortunatly Diego the proffessional was on hand, to wring his hands and then run the other way!
The next few days fill with rollercoaster rides on whitewater, picking precious gems from the shattered skull of the sea, eating steak sandwiches and drinking gin. We camped on the beach, made campfires in the rocks and scrubbed our clothes with saltwater. We check out San Sebastian in an attempt to busk on the sea front and make some money. Tiny winding streets bulging with beer and tapas, bustling with surfers and tourists, the sweet scent of hashish lingering above bars. The busking drew in a crowd until the early hours of morning, and despite the neighbours hurling pegs and pasta off the balconies in protest, we caried on.
A night in san sebastian turned into a trip to the cop shop when Alex got his bag swiped by a finely dressed thief. Gaz, Alex and Diego stormed like troopers after the culprit, until cornered like an animal the guy pulled out a blade. And not a wee box cutter but a hunting knife, luckily the police were chilling round the corner, heard the commotion and sauntered to the rescue.
Another strange night in san seb, when we spent the night wandering the hectic streets, stealing drinks and playing on the floor until gone 5am, with a crowd of revellers and a self assembled entourage of vagabond travellers like ourselves - hot on the kerouac trail across the open road, bursting through barriers of borders.
We stumbled blind drunk, following an old drunkard who assured us he could lead us to golden sands to rest our weary heads. However the beach we arrived at had a cold tide washing up onto the rocks and a rather strange and awkward threesome, as one fat, naked, middleaged guy attempted to join in a couples felatio by sticking his flipflop up the girls ass! We settled for a bench and stone floor and pretended to sleep for the long, torturous hour before the sun came up.
It was time to hightail back to Biarritz to meet up with Alexs dad, who was visiting on his way home from turkey to texas.
Still in a state of exhaustive all night long delirium he whisked Jodie and Alex away to spend several days in a hotel, washed and clothed them, and fattened them up with a feasts of cheese, pate, croissants, coffee, grilled fish, bayonne salad and white wine.
The rest of the gang hung out on the beach drinking stolen gin, throwing rocks, staging a beach olympics and eating more steak and beer baguettes. Alexs dad wanted to take everyone out for dinner, so it was over to biarritz to gorge on a full pizza each, at a real table, with real waiters. And then a staggering walk with bursting bellies round the moonlit coves and pirate island of the surf crashed bay.
It was Diegos last day before his return to the eiffel tower. We celebrated with another steak breakfast, but big wednesday had arrived a day late and the swell was pounding the land, and for the first time high tide hit our tent! It was blind panic as simultaneously the local police turned up waving their arms and asking us to relocate. Which was fair enough considering we'd been in permenant residence for well over a week.
Our friend Esther told us of a commune in the in the hills of San Sebastian. With highfilled hopes of teepees and fresh baked bread we whisked up the cliff face, stalling the van halfway and having to get out and push. Finally we made it to the twelve tribes community, to hot tea, fresh bread, omlettes and yes indeed, our very own teepee and caravan.
The commune was based upon the twelve tribes of Yashua (Jesus) they had communities all over the world in preperation for his return. They were very pure people, clad in long skirts, hard work and firm belief. Lots of children scampering about, most the adults had been born into this life and knew little of what they referred to as the outside world - including Lord of the Rings and Walt Disney!. We spent several days living as they did, well except for the 4am wake up call, the smoking ban, and forbidden alcohol rule. We helped in the bakery, feasted on a rich variety of organic foods, and drank copious amounts of herbal tea.
We celebrated the eve of sabbath with them, which consisted of singing and sombre dancing, reflective thought and prayer. Followed by an epic dinner of bread, salad, cider vinegar, home baked chicken pasties, and cake, washed down with organic fungi lemonade.
When they retired for bed, we continued celebations of our own style in the teepee, in which whisky and romper stomper were the perpetrator, and Gaz fell on his head again!
Sheepish at breakfast and stinking of liquor, the young girls giggled behind their fingers, and im sure the elders prayed for us, except the main man of the household who grinned and told us he had been born in a bar. Another eve of ritual dancing and singing, potato salad and tea, they showed us a film of their heritage, which was, believe it or not - woodstock! Whilst we looked around the subdued atmosphere for signs of tye dye and mushrooms. Also the anti abortion and anti sex before marriage literature that plastered the girls bathroom didnt propagate free love.
The next day after being clad in new shoes, woolen pullovers and what Gaz called jew pants, the tribe gave us 2 loaves of bread and waved us away through the desert path of Madrid.
The A1 was Gaz's favourite road, of cragged yellow rock, deserted steeples, wide open plains of burnt sienna landscape, and silhouettes of black horned bulls on the horizon. Madrid crept into view beneth a bright globed sun and we found ourselves in the apartmemt of our first couchsurfing hosts. Boisterous american boys who went straight out and bought 40 litres of beer. It was definately a change from herbal tea. We smoked and drank up a storm until the sick ran out our ears. Yet on return to check the van we discovered the window had been smashed! Thankfully nothing stolen, but still ducktape and binbags would not suffice in detering future thieves.
The next day was certainly a nauseous one, hangovers and dry heat are a bad mix. Still the guys we were staying with rocked - Alex, Cougar, Angelo, Dave and Caterina (italian pole dancing legend) who on her first private performance for the Uncle Meat crew, fell straight off the pole backwards.
We tried a busking set, but Gaz violently sicked up his organs across the street, maybe due to the fact that in his words, he needed some vitamin C, then proceeded to buy chocolate milk.
We tucked him up on the train homewards, met up with our respective hosts and then - HELL YEAH - time for the five euro bar!
Five euro entry and free drinks from 10-12. We hit the bar at 11pm, so had to throw them down fast to get our monies worth. It was a strange race of gin, vodka and whisky. Way over the dozen each mark. Alex vomited in epic proportions more then his body weight all over himself and had to be carrried back to bed.
The next day we piled in the van with an extra Caterina in tow for the show at Sala Arco in San Juan, stopping along the route to get the missing window replaced.
The highway was a strip of burnt gravel through fields of gold where white grapes grow on the scorched vine. Ghost town after ghost town passed through our vision until we finallly hit a place hinting of life - San Juan. We'd arrived at the venue a day early and minus one vital character - Louis the Lip. Things seemed sketchy for several hours as we rehersed on the empty stage. But finally the bullet was bit and the decision made, to play the show Whiskey Bastard style.
Caterina was an absolute life savers, no one in the town spoke English and so she was our translator and even took the money on the door to the show, while Ole (the venue owner) stood gawping and anounced that she could have anything she wanted!
The venue had put us up in the backstage area, beds and showers but no natural light, attributing to the fact that the next day we slept in way past siesta.
It was the night of the show, they stuffed us full of pizza in a room with a parrot who loved smoking Hashish. Snake Sister a budding riot grrl band whos lead singer was enjoying her Birthday party and whos bass player is the owners son, played first and then we hit a two hour set starting at 2am. They dug it, danced, sang along and bought shots to us on stage in homage to Barrels of whisky. We started with songs from the busking set and slowly worked it into an electric menace, swapping instruments mid song while the stage was invaded by the members of the audience banging drums and screaming Aaarrrggghh for Doctor Death!
We also did an interview for Alcazar TV, with Caterina translating all our answers as her own because she was too embarrassed by our retorts. Afterwards there was drinks flowing like water, half a bottle of rum, another half of gin, 8am and the barman reopened business to serve us our bedtime beverages. We collapsed into a langorious sleep.
The next morning we awoke to screams of laughter and horror from Keeley. Stumbling into the bathroom bleary eyed, we all met with the monster mystery poo! Someone had collapsed their digestive system blocking the brand new toilet, shit was not the word. It took Wilson and Caterina, the only brave souls, four or more hours and many implements - spoon, screwdriver, stick, tray and treebranch to part push, part scrape the offending article out of sight. Leaving only a murky brown pool as evidence that we dared not flush for fear of another overflow and a sweat, tear and god knows what else stained Wilson and Caterina.
Still the poo remains a mystery, it must have been one of us, but as to who the culprit is yet to be unmasked - our only clue being that amongst the monster poo we found a twelve tribes leaflet....
We left the venue in a hurry but a promise to return, back to Madrid and our former couchsurfing buddies.
Catastrophe stuck, whilst chilling with american movies, the van got smashed into again! This time in an attempt to be clever the perpetrator had stolen 2 mobile phones and a bucket of money.
Not so smart though considering both phones were broken and the bucket full of coppers. Still a massive ballache for us and another trip to the scrapyard. Where they told us not to come back for fear of having no windows left.
Still the next night was Caterinas last before her departure to Oslo and we wanted to
celebrate.So it was on to El Tigres the infamous tapas bar for several hundred plates of snacks; croquettes oozing with hot cheese, salted and spiced meats, hunks of bread, wedged fried potatos with curry sauce and gallons of beer and Tintos. Too full to be drunk but still an awesome night.
The next day we went on a sightseeing walk with our new friend and fellow couchsurfer Brina, after a night together bonding over the genius work of Larry David. The days task was a bottle of wine to match every monument. We made 5 monuments and 5 bottles of wine.
Alas it was time to leave our new self appointed home in madrid to make room for more couchsurers. So we swapped Mark (who was staying to party in Madrid) for Brina and headed down to the walled Medevil town of Toledo - Alexs favorite place in the world.
Toledo is breathtaking, behind walls deep in the desert, hopscotch crumbling cream apartments curl up the winding cobbled streets, illuminated gothic cathedrals perch crookedly on the hillside, a raging river of whitewater transcends into a serene pool of marble, reflecting the ripe peach sunset streaked with fingers of
colour.As the moon ascends like mushed banana we crept down to sit beside the dam and watch smoke rise from the surface. We imagine the sound of splases as fat silver fish making dark circles in the black water, and create a makeshift fishing line from wire, a stick and a safety pin. Unsurprisingly nothing was biting - maybe something to do with the tuna bait....
We slept beside the river, beneath the trees, and the planets winking and whispering above us.
The morning came with cannon fire and we raced like coyotes back to Madrid to play the next gig at the Picnic bar, It was an early start and an early finish, but a good looking venue, a full house and fancy mojitos to boost.
As night descended upon us we were struggling to find room at the inn, everyone mnaged to blag a bed except Alex and Jodie, who were forced to trail the city streets for nine hours awaiting the sun rise. At 10am when light finally tipped over the Palace Real, they dropped in exhaustion on a park bench, only to wake up having been molested and robbed!
Thankfully that was the day we said a final farewell to Madrid...well for the next two months at least.
it was down the roughcoast to Valencia with high hopes as we were staying with two Glasweigens from couchsurfers - who loved books, music, cooking and had a swimming pool!
The house was beautiful, set amongst orange groves, the air scented with zest and jasmine, thai basil and tea leaves. the clouds like the pearl backbone of a whale and palm trees swaying softly in the warm kiss of an evening breeze.
Our host was a great chef, sadly the pool resembled an algae pond without a hint of blue.
The guys wanted to take us to a members bar which offered free drinks, free food, nintendo and internet all night long. It sounded to good to be true.
And it was...
Undoubtedly the weirdest place we graced on this trip was the Lucky Strike bar, endorsed by lucky Strike cigarettes, who not being allowed to advertise, pile their money into these freebars to promote their brand.
Which would work if you could imagine plush armchairs, cigars and brandy. However this place was neo modern, plastic, stamped and branded, the beer served in a thimble - and ultimatly you feel like you've sold your soul to the devil. Almost to eager to invite us back the next day as we were 'treasured clientele' they wanted us to celebrate Wilsons birthday there.
On the day of his 28th we rushed to the supermarket and returned laden with enough food for a chinese feast, enough beer to fill a bathtub and enough gin to reduce us all to tears. However we were coerced into returning to the dreaded twilight zone that is the Lucky Strike bar under the threat of blackening our hosts name if we didnt comply.
We went with the promise of champagne and cake. When we arrived we were forced to participate ina smokers workshop which wasnt the fun it sounded with nazi staff in polka dot dresses, and left everyone coughing up lungs under a strict tobacco regime. The cake arrived but due to the birthday boys butter fingers wound up splattered across the floor before anyone got a slice.
Half drunk on thimble sized glasses of champagne and watery beer, 100% bored, we decided it was time to leave.
But alas as we returned to the street we discovered our beloved van had been towed and couldnt be retrieved for 5 days!
Penniliess, downtrodden and with a gig in Alicante the next day we began the two hour traipse home. The final kick in the gullet was when our so called respected hosts would see us on the streets by saying we could stay with them no longer.
Thankfully the all too wonderful Coyote Bar in Alicante pulled through for us with big hearts and train tickets. they payed for us to travel down to the gig, fed us an amazing turkish meals and plied us with free cocktails all night long. They even agreed to put us up for a further three days so we could busk and make enough money to get our big red van back.
So with moonlight on the marine, rocks of gold and the azure stretch of the mediterranean we busk with all our soul.
Will Uncle Meat and the Highway Kids finally we reuntied with their van?
Watch this space.