Number 38 Spain 1980

Interrail in Spain 1980  

 

My first independent trip abroad was in 1980. With a friend I cycled around Spain. But after all what happened on this trip I am surprised today that I still was so keen on travelling afterwards.

We had come to Madrid on an interrail ticket and after 3 weeks the friend had gone home with the bicycles from Granada. I wanted to make some more good use of the ticket and after a short, adventurous excursion to Morocco I wanted to go to Ponferrada, at the border of Castille y Leon to Galicia in the north of Spain. At that time it was the starting point of one of the last steam operated railway lines in the western part of the world.

A long distance express to Cordoba and railcars to Granada and Algeciras in the station of Bobadilla

After a chaotic arrival on the ferry from Marocco and a night in Algeciras I took the first train in the morning up north to Bobadilla, and from there to Cordoba. Of course there was no internet at the time and my information was limited to a very rough railway map, which showed a line going straight up north from Sevilla via Caceres, Plasencia, Salamanca, Zamora to Astorga, From there it was only a short trip west to Ponferrada. You will not find that route on the map today any more since they have closed down the entire line between Plasencia, Salamanca, Zamora and Astorga (https://www.renfe.com/es/es/viajar/prepara-tu-viaje/atendo/como-solicito-el-servicio/mapa-estaciones-atendo). Probably there was not enough money to built a network of high speed lines and at the same time maintain the service on the minor lines. A development which does not only happen in Spain.

At the time travelling with an interrail ticket was much easier. Today you need reservations on many long distance trains, but then you could just hop on and off.

My map showed that when coming from Cordoba I did not have to go all the way to Sevilla to change for a train up north. I left the west bound train in Los Rosales, a station not far east of Sevilla, where the northern line still branches of today. There I hoped to catch a northbound train, at least as far as Merida, where we had passed through on our bicycle trip just a week before. An historic town with a number of well-preserved Roman ruins, where I would not mind to stay again.

My problem was my budget. It was limited to something around 100 DM for another week of travelling. I counted on sleeping on night trains and buy the odd sandwich from time to time. There were no ATM’s at the time and anyway, I was a student and permanently broke. On the other hand, I was almost without luggage. But what I had was very strange: a sleeping bag, a bottle of Carlos V cognac, a botijo, one of the typical spanish terracotta water bottles, very few clothes to change and my SLR camera. The camera was still functioning, but only in the infinite distance setting. In a little scuffle in Tanger, Marocco, I had hit it on the head of one of the rascals who wanted to steal it.

And indeed soon after my arrival in Los Rosales a north bound train pulled in. I saw the board announcing the destination, Llerena, but had no idea where that place was. The sun was almost setting and so I made myself comfortable in the hope that I could spend most of the night on the train and then change on another train after this one had finally arrived in said Llerena.

So I awoke quite startled when the conductor came to kick me out of the train only two hours later. We had arrived in Llerena, a little town 100 km south of Merida. I found myself in the middle of the night on a deserted platform in the pouring rain. The station was closed and so I made my way into town to find a place to sleep. After wandering around for a while without finding anything I passed a post of the guardia civil. My father was a policeman and therefore it is my conviction that it is the task of the police to help people. I walked into the office and asked in my basic Spanish if they knew a place where I could stay. And indeed, they were helpful and an officer walked with me to a house where somebody had a room with a number of beds where I could sleep for a small contribution. I considered to open the bottle of cognac but eventually I didn’t.

Morning in Llerena, the north-bound express arrives 

I slept well besides an interruption by some drunkard who noisily occupied one of the other beds and immediately started to snore. It was still raining when I boarded a stylish railcar going north at about 9.30. The railcar was quite full but I got a seat next to a lovely girl studying in Salamanca. The long hours to Salamanca passed in a wink. You don’t have to have many topics when you have to discuss every word in Spanglish due to mutual misunderstanding. We bought each other a couple of coffee’s from the train bar and when the train finally pulled into Salamanca I was about to ask her to give me a guided tour of the town, which we had visited just a good week before. But I didn’t have a shower in days and my financial situation was so deplorable that I was afraid I wouldn’t even be able to afford to buy her a couple of drinks. I considered the sacrifice of the bottle of cognac. So she left on her own and that was good for her.

Three of the railcars in Salamanca

Because, a while after leaving Salamanca the train stopped somewhere on the track in the middle of nowhere. The stylish railcar had broken down. It took several hours until a Diesel engine slowly appeared from the north and towed us into the next station where they had a short replacement train waiting for us.

The replacement train after the railcar broke down

With several hours of delay we arrived in Astorga. It was dark again but there was still a train west for the one hour trip to Ponferrada. For the third night in a row I arrived in a sleeping town, and for the second night in a row in the pouring rain. A woman had left the train with me and I asked her about a place to stay. Even though it was very late she walked with me into town and waited outside a cheap hotel to see whether there was space for me. When I had settled in my room I considered to open the bottle of cognac but eventually I didn’t.

The collection of unemployed engines in the shed in Ponferrada 

Some impressions of the old workshop

One of the spanish broad gage engines of the PV

The PV is a narrow gage railroad which was built to transport coal from the mines in Villablino down the scenic valley of the Sil river to a power station and the main line in Ponferrada. There is a beautiful video on Youtube about the history and future of the railway (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMeE4gJnNx4).

PV had its own station in Ponferrada. It was still raining when I walked there the next morning. But the disappointment was great. There was no action. All the steam engines were standing in the yard, cold. Eventually I found somebody to ask and he told me that there was a strike and therefore no traffic today. Maybe tomorrow. 

Abandoned engines in the shed

That left me with a problem. Staying another night in the hotel would bring my finances very close to zero. But it was still raining and sleeping outside seemed no option. So that basically meant starving for my hobby.

The correo, the last passenger train of the PV

Things brightened up considerably when I came back in the afternoon. The sun came out and the shop staff were busy firing up the engines. Nobody took any notice of the guy stumbling around between shunting engines in the oily mud around the tracks. This workshop looked like it hadn’t changed since they had opened the line in 1919. There were engines built by Baldwin in Philadelphia in 1919, various of Spanish origin of around the same time, but the star was number 31, built by Maffei in Munich in 1913 and perfectly maintained.

The Baldwin engines start to work again

One of the coal trains has arrived

And there was the antique train set of the correo, wagons right out of the wild west with wooden interior and open platforms. I was reassured that the correo would leave tomorrow at the time it had left for the last decades, 12.15, to arrive at Villablino, 62.7 km away, at 14.30. The return trip was scheduled to leave at 15.48 and arrive back at Ponferrada at 18.03, early enough for me to easily catch the night train to Madrid at Ponferrada station, the following night take another night train to Barcelona, another one the following night to Nice, go from there at daylight via the Tenda line, which had been destroyed in WWII but recently reopened to Milan, and take another night train back to Germany. But that is another story.

The correo is ready to depart

The correo was the last of the number of passenger trains the line had operated to ferry the mine workers up and down the valley. It was the task of the star engine number 31, while the other engines spent their time hauling hopper cars full of coal down the line and shunting them into the power station or the cargo yard of Ponferrada. The railway also had a couple of spanish broad gage engines to work in that part of the yard. So when I came back the next morning everything was back to normal and there was a lot of activity on the line since they had to make up for not operating for a while.

There was one other railway buff on the train. The few other passengers were locals who used the slow train to go to one of the villages along the line. Even though the line is only just about 60 km long, the engine had to refill water several times, which made the journey even slower. And then number 31 had a problem and had to be exchanged for number 15, a younger version of the same construction, which had brought a train of empty coal cars to a huge loading bunker. Despite the delays I made it back on time to pick up the bit of my luggage at the hotel and catch the night train to Madrid. The bottle of cognac was still untouched.

  

The water has to resupplied regularly even though it is only 60 km to Villablino 

  

I took the correo on May, 6^th 1980. On May 10^th the railway stopped the passenger service. In 1981 the first Diesel engines appeared on the line and some years later the fire of the last steam engine was extinguished. In 2012 the operation of coal trains ended. Today the rails and the modern hopper cars which replaced the ones I had seen in 1980 are slowly overgrown by the weeds.

  

Number 31 has to be exchanged for another engine

 

They have built a fancy museum which houses a selection of the rolling stock still active at the time of my visit. One of the steam engines is even operating. Unfortunately it has only got a couple of meters of track. Next door the old coal fired power station was turned into the museum “fabrica de la luz”, factory of the light. Plans to run a tourist train out of Villablino down the scenic valley of the Sil were not realised so far. Many of the other engines are preserved elsewhere and one of the Baldwins even made it to the island of Mallorca. The others were dumped and the rusty remains still are visible on the terrain view of google maps. A symbol for the disappearance of the world of coal and steel to be replaced by one where virtual reality is more important.

The replacement engine arrives at the loading station with an empty train

It is a pity that they did not preserve the station and the workshop in the state it was in 1980. It would not have cost any money except for the fence which is obligatory everywhere nowadays. That would have given a much better picture of what happened here for almost a hundred years, how people had to do hard work in a dirty, dark and smoky environment with tool engines lacking basic safety features. 

The trip back

After I returned home the camera lens was quickly repaired for little money and I used the Konica T3 SLR for another 15 years. No other of the 6 SLR cameras I owned afterwards had such a tough life and survived for such a long time. The bottle of cognac only survived until I returned home. But I still have got the botijo which survived the long way home. A souvenir of my first interrail trip. 

Number 37 Greece 1984

Lesbos 1984

“What cannot be said will be wept.” - Sappho -

Around 630 BC the poet Sappho was born on the island of Lesbos. She is regarded as one of the great ancient poets and probably wrote about 10.000 lines of poetry, of which only 650 survive. Sapphos most famous work is the Ode to Aphrodite, which is the reason Sappho and her island became symbolic for the love between women. However, the lore has it that Sappho eventually married a ferryman, Phaon.

You could say Lesbos is symbolic for love.

Coutryside church and its interior

“Although only breath, words which I speak are immortal.”  -Sappho- 

On 10.9.2020 the island suddenly appeared in the frontpage headlines when fire broke out in the refugee camp of Moria holding close to 13.000 refugees. And this is not the only camp on Lesbos, but the biggest and the one with the most appalling conditions. The refugees had been trapped on the island after a treaty in 2016 between Europe and Turkey removed their route to the continent.

The news reports speculate that the fires in the camps were laid by refugees and some Afghan men were arrested for arson. But the question is why the refugees were held on the island in the first place without looking for a solution elsewhere.

“You will have memories
Because of what we did back then
When we were new at this,
Yes, we did many things, then - all
Beautiful...”
- Sappho -

I visited Greece with a girlfriend in autumn 1984. We wanted to visit some of the aegian islands. I had read a guidebook and what today would probably be called the bucket list was long. Far too long for a trip of 4 weeks. To Lesbos we came by chance…. after arrival at the airport in Athens it was the first and cheapest flight we could get. 

Taxis at the airport

If you look at the map you will see that Lesbos looks like it is going to be swallowed by Turkey. The strait separating it from the Turkish coast is only 5 km wide and the big Turkish town of Izmir is only 92 km away. The airport is at Mitilini, the island capital, which faces Turkey. In view of the relations between the two countries this is not a favourable location. 

Mythymna and its castle

Mitilini is a rather big place, so we took a bus across the island to Mithymna, a little town overshadowed by the enormous Molivos castle. A lot of people have passed through here, Greek settlers fought with the Persians over it, the Romans arrived, the Byzantines lost it to the Latin empire, later the Genuese were attacked by the Venetians, and eventually, the Ottoman empire conquered it in 1462. It only became Greek after the second Balkan war in 1912. In the second world war it was occupied by Italians, who set about to plant of what is left of forest nowadays. What the others left are three impressive medieval castles, a roman aqueduct, byzantine monasteries, neolithic sites and, of course, antique greek ruins – and there are fields of petrified wood.

About a third of the population of 86000 lives in the capital Mitilini, the remainder is spread out over all the little towns. Life back then was quiet. There were tourists on the island in 1984, mostly of the back-packing kind like us. There were few big resorts or hotels. Many people let simple rooms to the visitors. The waterfront had a couple of cafes and restaurants where you could enjoy the view of the sea and the fishing boats. At daytime the old men sat in the shadow and refreshed their memories. Old farmers came in from their isolated land in the countryside and sold fruit to the tourists. The beaches were unspoiled, empty and there were plenty of hidden coves even in walking distance to Mithymna where a young couple could have their privacy.

“What is beautiful is good, and who is good will soon be beautiful.” - Sappho -

Simple little motorcycles were for rent in the town. We did some excursions to the east to Skala Sikamineas and to the west to Sigri. The eastern part of the island is covered in forest and 11 million olive trees hundreds of years old. The western part of the island is rather barren. The Italians did not stay long enough to get the chance to also plant a forest here. Except of the main island thoroughfare to Mitilini most of the roads were unpaved and there were quite a lot of rocks in the middle of the track. This made driving with two people on the little bike a bit tricky, in particular at night, and since the light went on and off at random. However, the little mishap occurred on the paved road, when I had to leave the narrow pavement to avoid a car coming the opposite way. I was blinded by the light and did not see the little step down between the pavement and the shoulder. We were very slow but the bike still fell to the side and one of the utterly attractive legs of my friend was burnt on the muffler. It was not a bad wound, no reason for a hospital. If wearing long pants nothing would have happened at all, but putting that in words was a mistake.

“frequently
for those
I treat well are the ones who most of all
harm me”
- Sappho - 

Eventually we left the little town to go back to Mitilini by bus and look how to get to the next island. On the way we wanted to visit the little town of Agiasos. Lesbos has its own Olymp, the highest mountain, which towers over this historic town. We left the bus to look for a connecting ride since Agiasos is not on the main road. The bus had just left when I discovered that I had left my camera bag including a part of our money or traveller cheques (that was the time before credit cards and ATM’s) in the luggage rack of the bus. Fortunately we were able to flag down a taxi quite quickly and caught up with the bus in the main bus station in Mitilini. The bag including the valuables was still there. 

In the bus station in Mitilini

My friend, who had travelled around the world for a year without anything like that ever happening, could not understand such stupidity. It did not make sense to go back to have a look at mount Olymp and so we had to spend almost a day in ugly Mitilini. When looking for a room, an old guy approached us. He offered us a cheap room in an ugly building in the harbour. It was only for one night and so we accepted. When he handed us over the key he asked whether we would have any plans for the afternoon. We didn’t and so he invited us for a trip to show us this part of the island.

“If you are squeamish
Don't prod the beach rubble.”
- Sappho -

After a while he showed up in a battered but beautiful old three wheeled Mazda transporter. There was just enough space for two people next to the driver on the bench and SHE had to sit next to him. He drove us to some scenic sights around Mitilini and the more beautiful the places he showed us became, the closer he got to HER. When I put my arm around her back to claim my space he decided that her knee was a place better suited for his hand anyway. Again a thing much less urgent when wearing long pants, but I kept my mouth shut this time. When we arrived at a beautiful beach he suggested that we could go swimming here but we declined politely.

Eventually we got back to Mitilini without a fight. For the night we moved the heavy cupboard in front of the door. After we came back it turned out that the filmroll with the pictures of the trip with our old friend was overexposed or ruined during development. Like everything I kept it. Today's digital means do not make perfekt, but visible....  

The waterfront of Mitilini

“I want to say something but shame prevents me
yet if you had a desire for good or beautiful things
and your tongue were not concocting some evil to say
shame would not hold down your eyes
but rather you would speak about what is just”
- Sappho - 

More than 30 years will have changed even a remote island like Lesbos. However, from remoteness the island suddenly moved into the epicentre of the refugee crisis. Due to the proximity to the Turkish mainland and the Syrian and Iraquian conflict, several vessels full of refugees arrived daily.

I think it exceeds the level of tolerance which can be expected from a population of 86000 on a previously remote, almost arcadian island when it is overwhelmed with about 15000 strangers in a short period of time. Moria became Europe's biggest camp. As comparison: it amounts to a bit more than 1% of the population when a country like Germany accepts 1 million refugees. In Lesbos it summed up to almost 20%. People started to complain about vandalism, looting and burglary. 5000 of the ancient olive trees were cut for fire wood. Makeshift extensions of the camp started to mushroom into the surrounding hills into what became known locally as the Moria jungle.

In those years since 1984 the islanders have become utmost dependent on tourism. As early as 2016 tourism had dropped by 70%. Hotel rooms were empty, flights were cancelled by tour operators.

 

“their heart grew cold, they let their wings down” - Sappho - 

village band playing the syrtaki

Now, after the camp burned down, politicians suddenly cry out for solutions. There were initial offers to accept at least a part of the unlucky refugees of Moria and relieve the islanders. But they drowned in a sea of bureaucratic discussions between governments and different levels of administration. Eventually a replacement camp has been set up in a remote bay – on Lesbos. A week ago the number of corona cases amongst the refugees had risen to 240. The problem is left with Greece and with the inhabitants of the island.

My friend of the time studied law and became a judge. She now is a specialist on immigration and asylum law and decides on admitting immigrants.

 

“You may forget but let me tell you this: someone in some future time will think of us”
- Sappho -