After a wonderful trip right through the quiet countryside of Spain with Gus, our motor-caravan, we were shocked when we arrived at the Costa del Sol. Suddenly we found ourselves back in civilisation, where "McDonald's", "Burgerking" and "Wimpy" competed for the best spots near the beach. I even had to get used again to the hustle and bustle of traffic.
The coastal route was completely built up with time-share apartments, luxury villas and expensive hotels. Between the houses was a four-lane highway. With a bit of luck one could see mountains on this side, the Mediterranean on the other. Not exactly my cup of tea, but then, we weren't there voluntarily.
A couple of weeks ago, Francis, my wife, had a telephone conversation with her mother and found she had a surprise for us. She would come and visit us!
My first reaction was: "What! Already? We haven't been away for three months yet!"
It would have been better if I hadn't said that, because Francis was happy about her mother's visit and reproached me my lack of hospitability. Oh well, I didn't mean it that bad, only I kept myself busy all day and had never missed the family at all.
I had never thought it could be different from their point of view. Of course Francis' mother would worry about us; she probably hadn't the faintest idea what our daily life looked like.
"She has booked an afternoon flight to Málaga," Francis continued, "She doesn't know yet whether she'll stay with us or with Aunt Louise, but of course I said she could stay with us and..."
"To Málaga?" I interrupted, "But we're not going to Málaga!"
"I know that," Francis answered, "But she has already bought a ticket and, well, Málaga is not that far away."
To be honest, a visit from my mother-in-law is not the worst thing that could happen. In fact she and I get along quite well and I even call her by her first name, Susan.
Susan is just on the wrong side of seventy, looks like everybody's grandmother, although she never behaves like one. She loves to travel, has seen most parts of the world and is never at home. When she's not travelling, you can always find her at the bridge-club.
Somewhere in the afternoon Francis and I arrived at the airport of Málaga. I parked Gus right in front of the main-building and we had to wait a few hours before Susan's arrival.
The richest point of travelling with a motor-caravan is that we are always "at home", even right near a busy international airport. In spite of this I got the feeling we were "waiting". I felt jumpy and constantly checked the clock. Francis made an extra pot of coffee and panicked when I wanted to cut the freshly baked chocolate-cake.
While we waited I began to worry what the coming week would bring. The two of us felt quite alright living in Gus, but with three people...? The closer the moment of Susan's arrival approached, the more I worried.
I began to doubt if we had been right in inviting Susan, especially when I looked closer at the available space in our 'van. After I had bought Gus, I constructed a nice looking bathroom, containing a cassette porta potti and a hand shower. This bathroom was nothing more than a big cupboard, perfectly all right for Francis and me, but whether my mother-in-law could make do...?
Between the chassis of the 'van was a fresh-watertank of approximately twenty-five gallon, enough for the two of us for four days. But for three people...? Maybe Susan wanted to have a shower every day...?
And what about the nights...?
The longer the waiting, the bigger my problems seemed to grow. I suggested to Francis we had better go to a campsite for the rest of the week. At least that would solve the water problem. Francis didn't grasp what I worried about, but if it would make me feel better, a campsite it would be.
The plane arrived just on time and after a quarter of an hour we saw our guest clearing customs. It was not difficult to recognize her from the other passengers by her lushly grey hair, two suitcases and a bag, heavy as lead.
TWO SUITCASES AND A LEADEN BAG...!!!
What would she be carrying in those? I thought she knew we had very little space? I thought she would only stay a week? Did she have to bring such an extensive wardrobe just for that? Where would I leave all that luggage?
Carefully, after the first greetings, I informed after the contents of her suitcases.
"That is a surprise, Roger," Susan said, "I will unpack those later."
Whilst still at the airport we had coffee and chocolate-cake, but after a quarter of an hour Susan said in her innocent way:
"I don't want to hurry you, but for tonight I have an appointment to meet Aunt Louise. She invited me to stay with her, but of course I much more prefer to drive along with you two."
"Of course," Francis answered quickly, whilst stabbing me in the ribs, "We would like that too. Where does Aunt Louise live?"
"She told me on the telephone her apartment was not far from the airport, a small village called Marbella. Can we go there now?"
"Marbella...?" I exclaimed, "That's not close to the airport at all. It must be forty miles away from here!"
After that remark I found myself staring at two pairs of sparkling, angry eyes.
I stowed Susan's entire luggage on our bed above the cabin and after that I followed the busy N340 to Marbella. Francis remained in the back with her mother. Unbelievable how much those two had to discuss.
I had no idea where exactly I had to drive. Susan had given me an address, remarking:
"Aunt Louise said, it was close to a large golf course."
I'm in for a long search, I thought, but started to breathe easier when, close to Marbella, I saw road signs indicating a nearby golf course.
Too early, because it was not where Aunt Louise lived. She didn't live at the next golf course and neither at the third. And all that time Francis and her mother sat in the back, chattering throughout. Now and then one of them informed sweetly if I hadn't found the apartment yet.
Finally, after an hour of searching, asking and driving around, I found the right golf course. Aunt Louise lived in a fine apartment-building somewhere between the eight and ninth hole. She invited us in with a well-meant:
"Where have you been so long...?"
It was rather late when we left. Beforehand I had asked Susan if she objected to sleep "on the street" or would she prefer to go to a campsite?
"Oh no," she had said, "I would like you two to do exactly as you always do."
Do as we always do? Surely that would be impossible with three of us in a space of seven by fourteen foot. But alright, if Susan had no objection, no campsite for us. I drove to the boulevard of Marbella and there I parked Gus.
First we had to unpack the suitcases. I put them on the table and parcel after parcel appeared. Unbelievable what Susan had brought us: tea, chocolate-flakes, Edam cheese, smoked sausage, peanut-butter, sauerkraut, coffee, gingerbread-cubes and even several chocolate-letters.
"All of them typical Dutch titbits you cannot buy in Spain," Susan assured us. I hadn't missed them, but when I saw this exhibition I got an acute appetite and so, in the middle of the night, we sat on the boulevard of Marbella, around the table eating sausage and salted liquorice.
For the next hour nothing came of sleeping. Mother and daughter never seemed to be out of words. It was as if they hadn't seen each other for three years instead of three months.
Only when all three of us started to yawn it was time for bed. I had worried for nothing, the cramped space proved no problem. By means of lowering the table I could turn our couches into a comfortable double bed, but happily Susan preferred to sleep on the long couch. That certainly made a great difference in rebuilding the interior each night and morning.
After we had undressed feeling a bit strange, we climbed into our bed above the cabin and went to sleep after a chaste kiss.
The next day we drove on to Estepona, a small fishing-village. Near the harbour was a market. When Susan got out of the 'van, she slipped of the step and made a nasty fall. After I helped her up she said with a face distorted by pain:
"Please, do not worry. I am all right."
She wasn't. While we lounged over the market place I noticed she had trouble keeping on her feet and now and then she had to lean on me.
Hobbling and moaning we went back to Gus. Now I was glad I had taken a course in first-aid before we left Holland. I sat Susan down on the couch and took off her shoe. Her foot was all red and swollen. I applied a firm roller-bandage and told her not to lean on that foot for the time being.
In the course of the afternoon the pain in her foot grew worse and I became afraid Susan might have broken something. The only thing I could do was to look for a doctor and ask his advice.
Just outside Estepona I saw a first-aid post, a small white-washed wooden building with a large, red cross painted on the outside. I stopped Gus, went inside and found myself in a bare, wooden crate. In the middle stood a metal table, where four men in battle-dress were playing cards. In a side-room a completely dressed fifth man lay asleep on a bunk-bed. The radio blared hard-rock music and I had to shout to make myself heard.
When I had explained my problem, all five of them rushed outside. My mother-in-law saw them coming and joked they came to get her, but when they all entered together and crowded around her, she got frightened. One of the men, who was obviously the "leader of the pack" looked at her foot, pushed a bit here and pressed a bit there, which made Susan wince in pain. The five men looked worried, consulted each other and concluded:
"Broken! You'll have to get her to a hospital."
By the time I had found the hospital, the pain in Susan's foot had grown worse and she wasn't able to walk anymore. I had to bring her to the ward in a borrowed wheel-chair.
The doctor looked at her foot, pushed a bit here and pressed a bit there, which made Susan again wince in pain.
"Most probably a broken metatarsal bone," the doctor concluded, "But to be certain I'll have to make an X-ray."
Half an hour later he came back with the negatives. Fortunately Susan's foot wasn't broken, only heavily bruised. The doctor applied a new bandage, wrote a recipe for pain-killers and told my mother-in-law to keep her foot absolutely still for at least a week. Susan...? Sitting still for a week...?
The next morning we woke up with the sound of rolling waves crashing on the shore and in the incoming light of a beautiful sunrise, Francis made breakfast. Susan said the pain in her foot was gone, but I knew her well enough to know she had better stay inside the 'van for at least a few more days.
Susan had said we should do as we always do, so as a matter of course, Francis and I picked up a book and hid behind the pages. After an hour Susan, who had started to read a magazine trying to adjust, asked:
"You are not reading the whole day, are you?"
If it were up to me I would, but if Susan had a better suggestion...? While I asked that question I laughed inwardly, because if there was something my mother-in-law loved to do, it was playing cards. Her eyes started to shine and within two seconds a deck of cards appeared on the table.
I lost the first few games and soon found out my mother-in-law was cheating as best as she could. She pretended to make little mistakes by accident, but I knew better. Susan might have grey hair, but her grey matter was still in perfect condition. If she cheated like that while playing bridge at the club, they would surely throw her out. Or do all those old-timers cheat?
To show Susan Spain had more to offer than the Costa del Sol we drove across the mountains to the towns of Ronda and Ecija. Every night we stayed in another village and I made sure Susan had, from her position on the couch, a nice view of the surroundings.
"Even from a roadside café you could not see better," Susan commented and quite right she was. All my doubts about her stay in Gus proved unfounded. She fitted in easily and slowly a new pattern arose in our life, with playing cards every day, eating well and particularly lots of chatting.
"Gus is no five-star hotel," Susan said, "but the service could not be better!"
After a few days Susan started hobbling around again on her bruised foot and by the time she would leave us the pain was completely gone. The evening before her departure I had parked Gus close to the harbour of Málaga.
The beautiful weather of the previous week was clearly over. Dark clouds started to cross the sky and at night the winds came on. Gus was shaking on its wheels and we were rocked to sleep by the constant ticking of raindrops on our roof. Late at night a heavy thunderstorm broke loose over our heads and the remainder of the night it kept raining cats and dogs.
In the morning we heard on the radio that south-east Spain had been hit by very heavy weather. Indeed, a few hours later, when we left Málaga for the airport, we saw a tidal wave had flooded the highway between Málaga and Torremolinos.
Strange, we had heard the broadcast, but none of us was prepared for the enormous havoc we saw on the road. Walls had crashed, houses had disappeared under water and cars had been flooded off the highway. In fact, the countryside looked a heap of rubbish! And to think the tidal wave had passed us within a mile!
As always, when you're not personally affected by such a disaster, we acted like sensation-hungry tourists and pointed out to each other the fallen walls, the washed-out cars and the many shops full of mud. Only when I saw that the road to the airport had been closed I became really startled.
"Don't you worry," I said to Susan, "I'll get you on board of that plane one way or another!"
I succeeded in reaching the airport by a long way about and by the time we got there, checking-in had already started. Susan had to hurry and we had hardly the time to say goodbye. Her last words were:
"I had a wonderful time and will come again soon!"
