{"id":2882,"date":"2022-02-27T21:56:38","date_gmt":"2022-02-27T21:56:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=2882"},"modified":"2022-02-27T21:56:38","modified_gmt":"2022-02-27T21:56:38","slug":"spain-2-cops-and-robbers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=2882","title":{"rendered":"SPAIN 2. COPS AND ROBBERS!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tenth off the ferry, we had been told to expect someone to check our temperatures and our hard won paperwork. And, naturally, very long queues!\u00a0 Well, of course, there were no such health checks and consequently, no queue!\u00a0 And could we get anyone to so much at glance at our TCS QR codes?\u00a0 Of course not.\u00a0 The immigration officer wouldn’t even take them folded in our passports.\u00a0 If only he knew the blood, sweat and tears (and fibs) that went into getting them sorted!\u00a0 Thanks Jeremy and Lucy!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Anyway, we were off!\u00a0 And once out of Santander, the almost empty motorway towards Salamanca became almost deserted.\u00a0 Just like the M25!\u00a0 A really easy drive.\u00a0 After a couple of hours down the A67, we hesitated in a very quiet picnic area.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

One car, one lorry and us.\u00a0 We were there less than 10 minutes.\u00a0 A quick pit-stop and a stretch of legs and back on the road.\u00a0 Ten minutes later a car pulled along side of us gesticulating wildly.\u00a0 Apparently,\u00a0 something was falling of the back of our caravan!\u00a0 Instinct said pull over and check.\u00a0 Common sense and Glenda said don’t stop.\u00a0 It’s a con.\u00a0 Matey boy drove ahead, stopped and we had to swerve past him.\u00a0 He then passed again and got out on the highway pulling out a fluorescent tape from his car in front of us to try (again unsuccessfully) to flag us down.<\/p>\n

VERY disturbing!<\/p>\n

We had heard on the boat about highway robbers stopping unsuspecting foreign motorists on deserted stretches of roads and stealing from them. Anyway we continued towards our first campsite, but about 40 km short, we had a blow-out on a caravan tyre.\u00a0 It transpires, that our tyre had been spiked at the rest area.\u00a0 The man from the lone car did walk very close down the side of the caravan – but didn’t think anything of it at the time.<\/p>\n

So that was a really nasty shock (from which we haven’t fully recovered several days later).\u00a0 Very fortunately,\u00a0 the blow-out happened 100 metres before a petrol filling station.\u00a0 And with no threat to anyone, although it could have had really serious consequences.\u00a0 It’s frightening to see how little concern these gangsters have for their victims and anyone else caught up in the consequent accident.\u00a0 I managed to get us to a smoking halt on the forecourt of the Repsol filling station.\u00a0 After that, I have to say I lost the plot – but luckily Glenda soon got us organised calling the Red Pennant emergency help-line in the UK.\u00a0 Then it was just a two hour wait (as it got dark) for the RACE breakdown man to arrive.\u00a0 Another British couple stopped at “our” garage in a dreadful state.\u00a0 They had had a tyre punctured on the same stretch of road\u00a0 as us at about the same time.\u00a0 They had been robbed of everything – money, phones, tickets and passports.<\/p>\n

Two friendly policemen pitched up, but it soon became apparent that our lack of Spanish was a total hindrance.\u00a0 Eventually, we convinced them that we didn’t need any help.\u00a0 For the record, we discovered later that there is an dedicated English-speaking emergency police number for Brits in peril in Spain!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"Anyway, the short story was that Mr RACE got the spare wheel installed, told us to go slowly to the nearest campsite and get new a new tyre the next day.\u00a0 By this time it was pitch black.\u00a0 It was going to be fun breaking into our camp ground and setting up in the dark!<\/p>\n

Next morning, with assistance of the campsite receptionist and Red Pennant insurance (who were brilliant), we ordered two new tyres from the local garage.\u00a0 Every stage of the job takes so long to make sure the correct grade of tyre is purchased, that the wheel hub hasn’t been damaged and that the two new tyres are to go on the van and the remaining road tyre is transferred to the spare.\u00a0 At least we seem\u00a0 to be getting better with Google Translate.\u00a0 We even know a selection of useful Spanish words (including new, old, tyre, this, pressure, black, waterproof, mastic and thank you!)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

We had a half-hearted meander around the old part of Tordesillas while waiting for the tyres to arrive.\u00a0 The town is situated on the North Bank of the River Douro.\u00a0 The place looked interesting enough but, to be fair, we weren’t really in the mood for sight seeing!<\/p>\n

But as Glenda keeps telling me, when you fall off a horse, you get straight back on.\u00a0 So we are going to give it a go, but it’s taking a few days for us to recover.\u00a0 I guess that’s the sign of getting older..<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tenth off the ferry, we had been told to expect someone to check our temperatures and our hard won paperwork. And, naturally, very long queues!\u00a0 Well, of course, there were no such health checks and consequently, no queue!\u00a0 And could… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spain-22","category-travels-in-2022"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2882"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2882\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2900,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2882\/revisions\/2900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}