Lorraine Mace

Driven to the Edge

Some Spanish villages should be issued with a government health warning. Their narrow streets are delightful, as long as you’re smart enough to leave the car outside the village and walk in. Casares is one such place where the car should never go. Nestling in the heart of the Sierra Bermeja, Casares beckons the unwary traveller with its wide entrance road, which gives no indication of the quaint maze-like cobbled streets beyond.

Seeing the beautiful whitewashed village from the main road, Derek and I decided to investigate. Blithely, we drove in and found ourselves trapped in the town square before we realised our mistake.

A concrete mixer was occupying one exit, the way we’d arrived was one-way, leaving only a narrow street through which we were directed by a gnarled old man brandishing a walking stick.

The route, which was too constricted to permit turning, resembled a labyrinth. We soon lost all sense of direction in thoroughfares that even a donkey might shun. At one point a builder’s tip blocked the way. We had to reverse (wing mirrors folded in), execute a twenty point turn and go down an even narrower street than the one we’d left.

We eventually pulled up behind a small delivery van. Convinced the driver would show us the way out, we waited for him to drive off, staying on his tail through every twist and turn. If the van could speed through the minute arches, then so could we. Suddenly he took off like a rocket, turned a corner and disappeared from sight. I put my foot down; scared we might have lost him. We rounded another corner in time to see him disappearing up a hill as if practising for Formula One.

Not quite as fast, but still setting a good pace, I followed suit. About a third of the way up the hill, an almost vertical slope, the engine started to die. “I think you should try first gear,” said Derek. Telling him I was already in first didn’t exactly bring a smile to his face. The wheels were spinning on the smooth surface and a smell of burning rubber added to our driving pleasure.

Our choices were stark – a solid mountain wall on one side and a sheer drop on the other. The engine couldn’t cope with the incline and the tyres couldn’t grip the glassy surface. We couldn’t go up and we couldn’t go down.

Derek got out of the car hoping, by lightening the load, I could get some momentum. It didn’t help. By this stage the burning rubber smell and engine in distress noises had brought forth two villagers. They gave instructions (not one word of which I understood) on how to get the car down without crashing into the crags which jutted onto the road. Terrified of the drop on the other side, I put the car in gear, engaged the handbrake, switched off the engine and handed the keys to the nearest saviour. He shrugged and proceeded to bounce the car down the hill with the wheels turned at right angles. At the bottom he disappeared with our car and his friend gestured that Derek and I should walk to the top.

Thinking the car was going to be taken to the top by a different route, we began trudging up the steepest hill I’ve ever had to climb. When we were about halfway up, we heard the sound of a car being revved to within an inch of its capacity. Then came the whine of a missile as our little Peugeot 306 began its race up the hill. We jumped to one side as it passed, but it was slowing all the time. It was like watching a children’s film where the train is fast running out of steam but says: “I know I can, I’m sure I can.”

We wanted to cheer when it actually made it all the way to the top. Our Spanish hero waved off our grateful, but breathless, thanks with ¡de nada! and a sheepish expression. I think he’d actually enjoyed the whole experience.

Which was more than we had. The next pretty village we passed, we admired from a distance.

© Lorraine Mace 2005

 

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