Bump and Grind

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‎There is something you need to know if you have any plans to drive in Spain. It seems that, probably as some sort of economic stimulus programme, Spain has started trying to cover every square inch of road with roundabouts and speed bumps.

Once they had finished with every street and every junction ‎ in towns they started building on all the back roads, trunk roads, service roads and even car parks. It isn't unusual to find a roundabout on a road where there are only two exits - in other words a previously straight road. 

Similarly, speed bumps (though speed mountains would be a more accurate description) can be found on straight roads, miles from any school or village.  ‎An extra cunning trick is to leave them tarmac coloured and display no warning signs.

The extra wear and tear on brakes, clutches and shock absorbers must have created a million new jobs in auto centres!  

In several places roads to nowhere have been built, compete with roundabouts and speed bumps. I think they must have watched Field of Dreams......if we build it they will come!

Having built a zillion roundabouts it seems they then de‎cided that each one should have some sort of 'feature'. All the obvious things like statues, fountains and shrubbery were exhausted long ago and now we have all sorts of stupid sculptures, agricultural artifacts, huge town names made out of moulded concrete etc. etc. It would be possible to plot a course the length of Spain described purely with the turn direction and 'feature' of each roundabout........though an occasional 'watch out for the huge bastard speed bump' needs to be thrown in to keep people alert.

We are a little north of Malaga, with just 3.5 days of route to plot, which should have us in Gib on Thursday.

The picture is just the view from our 45 Euro hotel (a supermarket, a busy road and some greenhouses). Last night we spent ten LESS.


Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the EE network.

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