A TRIP TO SPAIN We arrived at Tilbury at 10 a.m. on Friday, 3rd April. In halfan-hour we were through the customs and aboard the S.S. Highland Brigade which was bound for South America, via Vigo and Lisbon. The days of the voyage were spent playing chess with Mr. Nasor from Zanzibar and a Spaniard, and playing Hoop-la with Mr. Finsh from Bradford. We arrived at Lisbon on the 7th, having had a quick look round Vigo the day before. We were soon through the customs and out into a large car park. An interpreter found us a taxi and sent us off to the city centre cautioning us to watch the meter. After tramping round the streets for an hour with rucksacks on our backs, we got tired of Lisbon, so we asked the way to the station and took the first train to Badajoz. We arrived there at eleven o'clock that night, sick of wooden seats and the sight of cork trees. There were customs at Badajoz, because it is only 3 miles inside the Spanish frontier. We yawned our way through the formalities and set out from the station down a side street. After five minutes walk we ended up in the town rubbish dump. After going a little farther we came to some open ground. We made our way up a hill hoping to get a kilometre out of the town to obey the camping laws. We came up to the top past a farm house. Suddenly the whole place was illuminated. I turned round and was dazzled by a searchlight. "Keep on walking calmly," I said, "or they might shoot or something." We went back over the brow of the hill and then ran back to the bottom, as if all the devils in hell were after us. After an hour of wandering through back streets and ploughed fields we camped by the railway line ! Next morning we got up after a freezing night—we had no tent— and went to the station to leave our rucksacks. After a bun, an orange, and some foul wine we went over the river into the main part of the town. We looked round the castle, which had been so knocked about by Wellington that there was nothing to look round. Then we looked for a bank to cash a travellers cheque. We went to Banco Hispano Americano. It turned out that we needed passports to cash them. Mine was in my money belt, so I had almost to take my trousers down in the middle of the bank. We eventually found our way back to our camping site and spent another cold night, from which we were woken by dogs barking. They were two farm dogs chased by a police dog. A minute later a policeman with a rifle and various other assorted arms came down the railway line. He watched us getting up for five minutes and then came down to us. I thought he would run us in for being so near the frontier, because Portugal was just across the valley. However, I gave him some port which made him quite friendly and he soon went away.
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