Where It All Began 9

Gran Canaria, Mogan

If you remember, this all started because I asked Gillian if I should get therapy? Her answer was an emphatic, “NO! It would be too traumatic for them!” So I wondered why.

I read recently that Gran Canaria in 1976 was equivalent to a third world country. I remember the day we arrived in Mogan, and to be honest there wasn’t much there. We pulled up by the beach, Pink Floyd’s Wish You Here blared out from John and Mudgut’s van as we unloaded the inflatable and began to put our wetsuits on. A crowd gathered until the local police chief pushed his way through and they began to disperse. It turned out we needed a license to spearfish, which we should have purchased on the mainland! Then came the “but.”😂 If we sold our fish to only one restaurant, he would allow us to continue. A little baffled, but with a sigh of relief, we agreed, and with a slap on our backs he left.

The fishing was good that day, and after a rest we ate some Cambells Meatballs and potatoes, we couldn’t afford to eat the fish, that had to be hawked around restaurants, or in our case sold to just one. We arrived there early evening, and as always went to the rear door. Usually the chef came out, he weighed the fish, we agreed a price, and shook hands. Not this time! The owner appeared, told us what he would pay, and explained it was non-negotiable. We took his money reluctantly, and were about to leave when Peter noticed a kitchen hand smoking a cigarette. He went to have a word and came back frowning. “It’s his brother,” he said. “The owner is the police chief’s brother.”

We needed a new plan, but for now we’d agreed to meet John and Mudguts in one of the few bars, as I remember there were only two. We chose the fisherman’s bar which was more of a shack. Aussie John was standing at the bar with his hands outspread. “El biggo, el bottlo, el wino” he kept repeating to a bemused, rotund barman. Mudguts seemed impressed and commented how his brother’s Spanish was becoming better by the day. I heard Peter sigh. “Dear Lord,” he pulled John away from the bar and explained that A. He wasn’t speaking Spanish and B. The bar only sold beer in small bottles from a chest fridge. We settled down with some beers, and half an hour later the lights went out. The barman explained that the generator on top of the hill supplied power to the village. It was an old generator! “It is ok, Miguel will fix it,” he told us. Sure enough within an hour the lights came back on, everyone cheered, the barman reached for a beer, downed it in one, and there was another cheer.

After the third beer Peter informed me it was time for a run. “Say what?!” Apparently I wasn’t spending enough time underwater and we would soon be diving to 75ft. So, I needed a bigger lung capacity, and to achieve this, I needed to run. I explained we were parked at the bottom of a mountain, which seemed to have no affect. Apparently running two miles up a mountain and then two miles back down again, was good for you, and it was too hot during the day. I should be grateful, I still remember that evening, and I was totally unaware that I would still be hitting the trails fifty years later.

When I returned to the van there was a towel, soap, and note on the tailgate. “Get a wash in the sea, and don’t wake me.” It was December and we weren’t leaving until March. I was an eighteen year-old male, did I need to wash? Apprently I did. It was one of many lessons I was going to learn over the next four months.

Happy Trails, folks. x