When we moved out of our little casita at El Cercado after a month, shifting our belongings to the flat in Bérchules proved a bit tricky to say the least. We first persisted in taking our fairly large car as close to the front door as possible and as a result nearly burned out the clutch. As there was nowhere to turn the vehicle around in the narrow and steep backstreets (which, of course, had never been built with cars in mind), we had no option but to back the car out again (a difficult and lengthy procedure, observed by several bemused villagers, one of whom asked if we were lost). In addition to moving our stuff out, we cleaned the casita from top to bottom, ensuring we left the place as spick and span as we had found it. It was an exhausting day and we were very touched, and grateful, when Laura and her husband Salvador, who run El Cercado, presented us with a lovely surprise as our leaving gift: they invited us to stay in the luxurious honeymoon suite, complete with big jacuzzi and – how thoughtful – even a bottle of bubbly nicely chilling in the fridge. Throughout the day we had worked up a healthy appetite and after all that pampering in de luxe surroundings, we felt like treating ourselves to a lavish meal in the evening but – alas – Laura and family had decided to close the restaurant that night. They asked us to join them for a meal out at the burger bar down in Cádiar where we ´feasted´ on greasy burgers and chips, looking into one another´s blue-tinted faces and shouting at the top of our voices over the loud music throbbing out of the fridge-sized speakers. An evening of contrasts, one might say.
About two weeks later, Ian, myself and a couple we had befriended went to a cena de la castaña (a supper celebrating the chestnut harvest) at one of the restaurants in Bérchules. We had lots to eat and even managed a few roasted chestnuts washed down with some anis dulce (a sweet aniseed-flavoured liquor), despite having vowed never to let another chestnut pass our lips, at least not that winter. We had had an absolute bellyfull of the, initially, lovely things after collecting two rucksacks full during one of our mountain walks. I roasted some (we still have several kilos remaining) and subsequently puréed them to make a delicious if rich soup. It had also become something of an early Saturday evening ritual for our landlady to roast vast amounts over a big fire in the back garden. Along with other relatives and neighbours we were invited to join the peeling committee. The deal was that you could eat as many as you liked as long as you kept on peeling the chestnuts which would be frozen and eaten at Christmas. The novelty eventually wore off though and we soon concentrated on the peeling rather than the scoffing part.
Anyway, back to the cena: nicely replete (more with food than with alcohol I´d like to point out at this stage), we found ourselves walking home, accompanied by our friend Juan who was taking his dogs out for pre-bedtime walkies. We stopped to look at a refurbished village house in the street above. To be able to take it in properly, I took a step back but, unfortunately, where I tried to put my foot there was no road but a dark void. I tumbled down a vertical drop of several feet and would have continued falling, down another level into a field, if our friend hadn´t grabbed my arm which did cause a big bruise to appear the following day but luckily prevented any serious injury. The first thing I noticed was that I had lost one of my rings (luckily, Ian managed to find it the next day); the second thing was that, in trying to cushion my fall with my arms and hands, I had landed on my little finger which was now very sore and swollen. My ankle, too, was throbbing. Fortunately, I had been wearing boots, otherwise I might well have broken my ankle. Supported by Ian, I hobbled home and back inside our own four walls, as the shock wore off, I had a little cry because I really was in considerable pain. (My finger still troubled me months later.) Ouch.
The next morning, after an interrupted night´s sleep, I installed myself on the sofa, drugged up to the eyeballs with painkillers, book and TV / DVD remote control in hand and cat on lap. Ian was out and about and when he popped in briefly to grab the car keys, mumbling something incomprehensible, I barely glanced up. He was back only a few minutes later and, with a fairly serious expression on his face, announced that he had some bad news. Not more bad news, please …. Overnight, somebody had smashed into our car which had been parked in the church square but instead of leaving a note, the culprit had simply left a badly-dented tailgate and a shattered rear windscreen for us to sort out. In situations like these, you need a friend and luckily we had one in Juan (my guardian angel the previous evening) who really was a great help. He went to the guardia civil (civil police) with Ian where they reported the damage and an official statement was taken. He also let us use his garage until the damage had been repaired, so the car was out of harm´s way and safe in case of a downpour (rare here but with our recent track record of bad luck a sensible safety precaution). The entire village was quite shocked that something like that could happen in quaint and friendly little Bérchules. We did start to wonder if somebody somewhere was trying to tell us something. (“This is a local square for local people…… .”) Various rumours as to the identity of the culprit started circulating and everybody we spoke to was pretty convinced it was a certain dumper truck driver who apparently had a history of carelessly ploughing into any vehicle standing in his way. “Oh yes, this has happened before. You should never park THERE.” (It would have been helpful if we´d been warned about this maniac before he made a mess of our car.) Of course we couldn´t prove anything; there were no witnesses, so we didn´t really have a leg to stand on – in my case, not for the first time.
A local insurance broker recommended a bodyshop near Granada which we duly contacted for an estimate. The paperwork was sent off to the insurance company in Germany (where the car had been bought and insured) and they authorised us to go ahead with the repairs. As paint codes seem to be non-existent in this part of Spain and as we did not really want to find our car with a non-matching tailgate (you can just see it happening though, can´t you?), we had no choice but to embark on a 90-minute drive to the bodyshop (inhaling diesel fumes through the open space where the rear windscreen had once been), simply so they could ascertain the exact shade of paint that was required to spray the new door. And then, home again. A funny thing happened on our way to the bodyshop though. We´d left the motorway making our way to our destination even though we weren´t 100% sure where exactly we were going, when we noticed a man in the car behind, wildly gesticulating at us for no apparent reason. (Surely he wasn´t trying to draw our attention to the fact that our rear windscreen had fallen out?) We decided it was probably safer to pull up at the side of the road and let this obviously deranged person get past. He subsequently overtook us, but still waving his arms about as if to say “Follow me.” A thought occurred to me: “Might it be somebody from the bodyshop who is trying to show us the way?” My husband looked at me as if I were as mad as the man in the car but nevertheless decided to follow him and, lo and behold, the ´maniac´ led us promptly to where we needed to go. It turned out that he really was from the bodyshop. Even though Granada is a big place, I suppose that at any given moment there aren´t that many German-reg. silver Nissan X-Trails driving about with a smashed rear end, so he had guessed where we were heading.
We were car-less for several weeks and started feeling a tad trapped in the village to say the least. Having to walk everywhere really brought to light yet another problem we were faced with – Ian and the extreme altitude simply didn´t get on. (Bérchules claims to be the third highest village in Spain, situated at some 1300m above sea level.) As a consequence, we started thinking more and more that we might just have to relocate to another, lower, area within Andalucía. Eventually, after about two weeks of waiting, we were told we could take the car to the bodyshop where the repairs would take about five days (originally we had been told that they could do it while we waited but - surprise, surprise - this wasn´t possible after all). We combined the drive to Granada with a trip (in a hire car) to explore the western Granada province which was an absolute disaster; that tale will be told some other time.
On the whole, señor dumper caused us a lot of hassle in terms of wasted time and money. The insurance company deducted a hefty excess fee and didn´t even pay for the hire car. Needless to say, our lesson learned, we have since been very careful where we park our car. Spaces are at a premium in this small village and if you don´t want your car to be damaged by a dumper truck nor used as a public toilet by the local pigeons, the options are somewhat limited. We´ve managed to discover a safer spot in the upper village square with very little passing traffic, which we now refer to as position A. If I told you that we are sometimes reluctant to go anywhere by car for fear of losing our favourite parking place, would you shake your head in disbelief and mumble ´Sad people!´? Right, I´d better not tell you then.
Hasta pronto.
Our car after its encounter with a dumper truck