Benidorm: August 14: Tuesday
Woke in cool of morning with that usual dazed feeling, as if crawling out from a spider's web, fought upright, and revived over coffee and bananas with milk and sugar. Ted shopped for fish, bread and wine while I dressed: black linen skirt, white jersey, red belt and polka-dotted scarf to be bright and wifely for Alicante. We walked down the street, threading through fresh horse manure and the delicate peppering of goat droppings; sky blue and clear; mountains purply and cloudy-secret through favorite vista of knife-bladed green palm fronds. Old El Greco madman, thin, cadaverous, in faded red and white striped shirt, sitting as usual by water faucet. Donkey cart loading barrel of fresh water and four jugs full. Warm fresh bread smells from panaderia.
Walked past watermelon shop and wine shop to outskirts of town to begin hitching to Alicante. Bay mild blue, streaked with glassy patches of calm; boats drawn up along shore; sun beginning to heat up. Stood in dust in spotted shade at roadside; no cars for a while; bicycles and motorbikes only; bikes with box of red-crested cocks loaded on back; large hunk of swordfish steak; bundie of green-leaved branches. Crowded cars, then. Finally, two Spaniards, dark, not talking or trying to communicate to us, stopped; man next to driver got out and opened door as if he were chauffering us. Cool, pleasant ride to Villajoyosa through dusty reddish hills; overtaking donkey carts. Got out at their last stop: square of Villajoyosa, dusty, slummy; past tenements, held together by moming glory vines and geranium roots in gaudy pots; houses painted bright blue and red with white borders around windows.
Villajoyosa more industrial; passed lots of garages; business just starting; plasterers casually tossing trowels of cement on wall, turning to stare at couple strolling down road; Ted in fine new khaki cotton shirt and dark pants, face pinked with sun; me tripping in wicked black heeled toeless shoes. Heat blazing now, no shade. Walked far out of town to almond groves thick with ripe nuts: green furry pods split on trees, showing brown pocked shell of nut; group of almond-pickers, their bamboo poles leaning up in trees, sitting in shade over wine-break: dungarees and sombreros; black-clad women; stared curiously too. Beyond them, we shook down a few almonds and Ted cracked them open between two stones. We sat on dusty wall and munched, rising to thumb cars; either too full or snobby; guardia civil in black patent-leather helmet & heavy green uniform biked past; we hid nuts. At last, as heat grew, a bleached blonde French couple with curly black poodle stopped to pick us up, going through Alicante.
We sat in back patting poodle, observing glimpses of blue sea through dusty red hills; reckless French driver, queer, soft, in delicately striped-textured white long-sleeved shirt, colored sunglasses and close-cropped metallic blond curly hair, looking very bleached. Wife, pretty, rounded chic French type, much bleached blonde hair, grown out dark at roots, pulled untidily back with several tortoise shell combs; narrow gold wedding band; browned with sun; arched plucked eyebrows and lively brown eyes; very merry and chichi. Man asked in accented English if we were English, and advised us that we'd have to hitch inland after Alicante, there were no coast roads.
We squealed around danger curves, passing lumbering trucks and two-wheeled donkey carts into the outskirts of Alicante: ancient fortress on hill overlooking city; clothes drying on bushes; then, beach, short, packed with people so thick under gaudy striped umbrellas that you couldn't see water; cheap garages; noisy avenue of palms; shrunk to biteable size after night-mare of first arrival, traumatic night walk along quais, and sleepless blaring room. Got out of French car, they wishing us bon voyage, and turned right on main avenue by white-coated policeman and little yellow streetcars.
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