At The 'Ritz [ - Boo]

So we find ourselves in Biarritz; Queen of France's South Coast Surf Towns. And by Queen I do mean a compact dirty, bulging bitch of filthy restaurants, more American tourists than you can swat away with a tennis racquet and very random surf conditions. But it's kind of okay when the weather's good, which it isn't.

After a short jaunt into the Pyrenees we motored-on-up (and down and up and around many, many bends) to Northern Spain's surfing coast. We arrived in San Sebastian late in the evening on Thursday to find our expectations of the place rather wrong; instead of some kind of colourful, retro surf mecca the place is like a corner of any other bustling city stuck on the sea front with average surf beaches. So we climbed up a cliff in the Yellow Submarine (van) and parked up in a strange recreation / car parking area and cooked and went to bed with one eye open cos there was some super strange vibe in that place and the ground was messier than the Soberton kitchen floor.

We awoke super early in the morning and took a walk around and wondered if our initial feelings about the place were wrong; maybe it's not such a bad buzz after all. That was until we walked close to a picnic table where a strange woman was sitting, at 7am, all dressed in black, seemingly reading a book or writing. We walked nearby her and I hollered a 'hola!' to break the ice around the place to no response. Again I hollered and still no response. Feeling a bit leery, I walked within 2 footsteps of the lady and said 'buenos dias' to still no response even though she was sat up straight, moving around and reading and stuff. Something about this situation was strange; it was like if she turned around there'd be no face just the face of Mumraa from Thundercats or something and we'd be doomed. Add this to the strange atmosphere atop that cliff to the South-West of San Sebastian and we got suitably spooked enough to motor down that steepest of downhill roads as fast as the little Yellow Van could manage without rolling off one of the edges (his wee brakes not being what they perhaps once were).

From there we drove for a day up and down steep cliffs, stopping only for roadside showers and 'Maxibon' Ice Creams and arrived in Bilbao early afternoon. We walked around and snapped too many semi-artsy-but-not-really photos and then headed north for a small beach called 'Playa la Arena'. This is a nice enough beach if you minus the huge, stinky Petrol refinery which discolours the waters, the Hoards of people such that you can't see much sand and the boy racers zooming around the car park til 4am. Actually, it's not much different to Coney Beach but with more hideously overweight people, if you can believe that.

However, next morning we awoke early to some super clean waves, as good as any I've ever had, and without much competition for the peak at that. We decided la Arena was worth braving the crowds and noise for if the surf was like this every morning so we spent a day getting baked in the sun and eating Maxibon ice creams.

Next morning we awoke to similar waves and paddled out only to be joined 30 minutes later by a team of grumpy local longboarders and the peak was suddenly over crowded with only 3-4 waves per set so maybe you'd get a wave every 45 mins if you were stubborn enough to out-paddle one of the locals, which we weren't.

Having experienced Spain thus (not to mention getting stuck at the bottom of a strange Basque meadow for 4 hours; we'll write that story another time), and with Buddy's (we christened the van 'Buddy' with Nick, etc. last week to much fanfare and Sangria!) exhaust sounding ready to pop if we take him up another incredibly steep hill, we decided to head back to classy France, via the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. The Guggenheim is an awesome building but boy oh boy does that building's architecture make you dizzy; there's not one straight wall and all the floors are at different levels and the art is bigger than life too, to the point that I had to sit down once or twice and have a couple of sugar-breaks to get my head straight again.

We headed back to France and made Biarritz in 2+ hours.

So now we're sitting in Buddy, in a car park at I'lbarritz beach just south of Biarritz Centre-Ville and it's been raining for the last 3 days and we're not feeling entriely super-stoked with the summer's weather so far. I'd say we've had 30% sunshine, 70% shite and camping in the rain isn't for the sunshine-loving, let me tell you.

However, we just now listened to Dave's first solo Super Surf Show! and, By Jobe, the motherfucker actually managed to raise our spirits! And let me tell you something about that man Dave Bowen: he's got more shit in his head than he has nicotine coursing through his veins but equal-and-more comedy talent and a knack for writing which will one day make him rich and me his Butler, no doubt about that.

So tonight we are drinking to good weather and less of the messy surf of the last few days for if not, we shall most definately be boarding the plane to some sunny island, surfable or not, to enjoy our skin a bit more and the innards of our van a bit less; we shall keep you posted.

Some pics from Spain, etc: