Cape to Camino: Road to Santiago...

Friday morning (14/9) called for a very early start to pack up the room and walk the 400m to the bus station at "Oriente grande" and we duly arrived just after 6am, only the find the office doors closed. The friendly rival service next door said they will arrive in about 30 minutes. One hour later at just before 7 a friendly lady with enough English capabilities arrive, receive our tickets, no security check or identification check agains our passports, or credit card, and no assigned seats, at that stage we were supposed to be the only passengers on the bus until the next stop. But we still had another 30 min to wait before departure so our next priority was coffee. I entered the entrails of the underground public transport system looking for a coffee bar. Although there are many I found only one open, ordering Cappucion take away. Take-away coffee is obviously a foreign concept here but an innovative barman provided me with 2 delicious Cappuccinos in plastic Super Bock beer glasses, double stacked to prevent us from burning, and a straw as a teaspoon.

The bus arrived finally with a driver who adamantly refused Marelize's hand luggage and we had to remove all valuables such as cameras, wallets, passports in order for the bag to go in the hold. Not happy but just after 7:30 we left on a 11 hr bus ride to Santiago in Spain. All along the way I was impressed with the effective generation of green energy, with gracious wind turbines to be seen all over well into Spain. We have limited experience of this in South Africa as the only one I know are on the Klipfontein road between Stellenbosch and Malmesbury, and on the road between Darling and Yzerfontein rd on the west coast.

The total distance is about 500 km but took 11 hrs because of the frequent stops to load and offload passengers, change drivers, and stop for lunch. Then one also gets inconsiderate people who speaks at the top of their voices to their fellow travel parties or for hours on their cellphones......Thanks to Steve Jobs & Kie, earphones, and amongst others The Parletones, Michael Buble, the City of Angels sound track, and Mathys Roets, international political events was averted.
The route took us past famous places such as Porto, Valencia ( on the river boardering Spain) and Vigo(photo below)

We eventually arrived in Santiago around 5pm, found our Hotel with the help of a friendly "noa hablo ingles" speaking taxi grandfather .More about our hotel when we arrive back in Santiago next week. First afternoon recognizance revealed a "rugby store" complete with a Springbok Jersey in the window