Of course, that includes hay for your donkey! by Ronald Mackay
My first overseas trip was in the summer of 1959, the month I became 17. Foreign exchange regulations limited the sum I could take out of the UK to £30 sterling. I had £20. My plan was to hitchhike from Scotland to Morocco and back withing 30 days, a distance of 5,000 miles. That £20 had to cover all expenses and any emergencies.
Back then, we Scots were thrifty. I saved the 10 shillings I earned weekly by delivering medicines for a pharmacist after school. Besides, £20 was a substantial sum in 1959. I felt confident I could execute my plan successfully.
***
Scottish children came by wanderlust honestly in Scotland in the ’40s and ’50s. Reading about stories of foreign travel was part of our growing up: Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Travels with a Donkey”, Wilfred Grenfell’s “Adrift on an Ice-Pan”, David Livingston’s search for the source of the Nile, and Alexander Mackenzie’s first recorded crossing of North America.
Closer to home, one of my great uncles had plied a sailing ship between Dundee and Archangel. We listened to our aunts’ and uncles’ romantic tales of living in India, Malaya, Nigeria, Nyasaland and New England. Great Britain had a great merchant fleet so we were familiar with shipping lines that served the world and the exotic ports they visited. The start of our own wanderings was simply a matter of time.
***
I carried my 20 one-pound English bank notes in a money belt and changed a note only when absolutely necessary. For immediate expenses – little more than bread, cheese and the fee for a night in a Youth Hostel -- I carried coins in my leather sporran.
The ferry from Dover to Calais had set me back a sum and the Youth Hostels in France cost more than the single shilling charged in Scotland, but I made up for these unavoidable expenses by subsisting on baguettes and cheese.
Spain, when I reached it, offered greater savings than France. Food was cheaper, so I could allow myself one meal a day. I’d scan the menu for the cheapest dish, usually chickpeas, lentils, or eggs fried in olive oil. All were nutritious and came with rice. I filled up on crusty bread.
In Spain I couldn’t rely on the Youth Hostels. Many had been commandeered by the organization of Young Falangists dressed in blue and red. When I tried to register for a night, the warden would dismiss me: “Spaniards only!”
I soon found a better option – the pension. A pension meant anything from a small inn to a rented room in an enterprising family’s home. The typical charge for a cheap pension – una pension barata – was 14 pesetas. That sum bought me a tiny spotless room with fresh sheets. There might be no electricity, but if there was, it provided for a single 30-watt bulb.
My hosts were usually delighted to have a kilted Scot for the night even though he spoke little Spanish and would devour anything set in front of him. I remember two pensiones with abiding affection.
***
Rain was drumming down when I reached the town of Lorca in the region of Murcia. A friendly trucker dropped me, wet and uncomfortable, at the bus station. It was only 7 o’clock. I wanted to reach Almeria that night and was willing to forego my evening meal for a dry seat on a bus.
“Last bus gone!” The head behind the window apologised.
“When next?”
“Tomorrow, 6 a.m.”
I looked out at the rain. “Is there a pension barata nearby?” The ticket clerk pointed to a nearby sign: Pension del Rey.
There was a queue at the desk. My turn came. “Un dormitorio muy barato, por favor”, I asked.
“Twenty-four pesetas, señor.”
“Nothing cheaper?”
“Nothing cheaper, señor.”
My eyes travelled from the receptionist back to the rain.
Catching my disappointment with the price, the receptionist offered: “Señor, would a shared room interest you?”
“How much?” First things first, I thought. Whatever “sharing” means can wait.
“Twelve pesetas señor.”
“How does sharing work?”
“Two beds, señor. If nobody asks for the second, you still pay only 12 pesetas.”
I hesitated.
“But if a traveler arrives, I must rent him the other bed.”
Again, I looked out at the rain. “I’ll take it.”
He took my passport and registered me. I squelched to the room, claimed one of the single beds, removed my kilt and shirt, hung them to dry, and went to bed hungry.
***
In the middle of the night the door burst open. I shot up to see a huge figure, dripping wet, dressed in a green hat and an enormous cloak stitched from raw sheepskins. A huge mastiff stood at his side. The beast looked at me apologetically as if to excuse the intrusion.
The shepherd, for that’s what the giant was, took a startled look at my kilt stretched out to dry and began to back out of the room.
“Buenas noches, señor.” I tried to allay his fears. “Soy Escocés! / I’m a Scotsman!”
He paused, uncertain. His mastiff looked up at him as if to say, “A Scotsman’s OK.”
“Hombre con falda.” I explained. “A man with a kilt!”
Like most Spaniards, he’s heard of Scotsmen who wore skirts and played the gaita similar to the bagpipe of Galicia. My explanation and his dog’s approval reassured him.
He smelled foul and his dog stank, but the sheepskin cloak reeked like a herd of wet sheep.
By 5 a.m, I was delighted to bid farewell to both master and mastiff.
Relishing fresh air and enjoying a cortado I waited for the bus to Almeria.
***
The rain had stopped once the bus reached Almeria and I took up my hitch-hiking position at the side of the road, determined to get as far as Malaga. Back in 1959, there were no highways in Spain and the few vehicles were often travelling no further than the next village.
***
Though Malaga appeared to be a beautiful small city, there were still a few hours of daylight left and so I decided to hitchhike further. A woman driving a TR3 sportscar passed me, reversed, and addressed me in polite public-school English.
“I’m driving only as far as my villa in Torremolinos. Any good?”
I’d learned it was wise of accept any lift going in my direction no matter how short.
She told me about a world I hadn’t known existed -- a tiny collection of well-to-do English people who had built villas in and around Torremolinos. Whenever their lives in England permitted, they enjoyed the sun and the blue Mediterranean.
“Torremolinos might not provide you with a pension that meets your budget,” she warned me. I’d told her stories of Youth Hostels, pensiones muy baratas, and my previous night’s encounter. She’d listened dumbfounded by my world that she could barely imagine. So, I bade her farewell and resumed thumbing.
After thumbing for an hour, I was dropped off on a dirt road on the edge of the Fuengirola. As usual, my swinging kilt and ex-army rucksack attracted a growing group of barefoot, laughing children who invited all-comers to join in the fun.
“Una pensión muy barata?” I asked the eldest child who might have been 8 years old.
“Si, señor!” She gestured me to follow her.
We arrived at a tiny whitewashed cottage with pots of scarlet geraniums at the door. The sunlit beauty took my breath away.
“Barata?” I asked, wanting confirmation that this would not cost me more than the 12 or 14 pesetas I was used to paying.
“Si,” the child nodded empathically. “Muy barata.”
Hearing our voices, the woman of the house came to the door.
“¿Dormir. Una noche?” I queried.
She was a goodlooking woman in her 40s dressed entirely in black, a common sight back then.
“Si!” she said, shooing the children away with a wave and a smile.
Her swift response told me that she was anxious to get a client. I feared however, that her price, given the tidy beauty of the cottage, might be beyond my means.
“¿Cuanto?”
“Diez pesetas.”
“¿Cuanto?” I couldn’t trust my ears. It can’t be only ten!
“Diez pesetas.” A look of uncertainty entered her eyes.
I still wasn’t sure I’d heard correctly. It can’t be that cheap! I’ve never paid less than 12 pesetas and then the accommodation has never been as attractive as this!
“¿Quieres verla?” Interpreting my hesitation as reluctance to pay so much, she thought, by showing me the room, she might overcome my reluctance.
I followed her into the spotless, sparsely furnished cottage and into a tiny bedroom of the kind I had previously only seen in paintings by Beatrix Potter. The uneven walls were perfectly whitewashed. Sun glinted through a crack in embroidered curtains drawn against the Andalusian heat. A white crocheted coverlet met the whitest, crispest pillowcase I’d ever seen. On a wooden table stood a jug of water in a white bowl with a blue hand towel beside it.
“Diez pesetas,” She repeated, regarding me anxiously as if fearing my refusal.
I drew in a breath to give myself time to absorb the beauty and enjoy the bargain so courteously offered. She continued to mistake my hesitancy for reluctance.
With an appealing look, she added, “Of course those 10 pesetas include fresh hay for your donkey!”
Of course! I smiled at the woman and, to her relief, nodded my approval.
How else might a young man of limited means travel in Andalusia in 1959?
A donkey in Spain 1959
Working the land, Spain 1959
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Grape harvest, Spain 1959
Harvesting dates in Elche near Alicante 1959
Bullfight ticket August 1960 Malaga Spain
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