Spain (1)

	Now we come to tell of the Mad bit. We were travelling down to climb at a site in Spain and stopped off at a tourist information centre. In the car park was a big-Merc-six-tonner-van-home with flowers and trinkets on the dashboard. This belonged to Edor from Belgium, who was travelling with a couple of mates. They came over to chat and told us that they were heading to a party at Aulas and asked us “Would you like to go, as you look like you would fit right in?” Having other plans, we said possibly and as they were leaving they mentioned the name of the nearest town. (OK, so I’m being a little unspecific, there are reasons). As we were on the Internet in the tourist info office, Jools and I decided that the chance encounter and invite was too interesting not to follow up, and so started a little search. We couldn’t find anything on the web with that name, so all we had was the name of the local town. It was, we decided, enough information to go on an adventure with. We managed to reach the local town the next day and drove around looking for signs to Aulas or signs of a party. I enquired in a garage of the local mechanic. “Parle francais, speaky English?” Much shaking of head. “Aulas?” I said. “Oh Aulas, si si, jibber jabber jibber jabber” he said gesticulating at the truck. He proceeded to draw a detailed map to Aulas and was very animated and pleased, as if the name brought forth good feelings. As we followed the map into the hills we started to ponder what we were possibly heading to, until we finally saw a small painted sign pointing the way to Aulas.

			The road narrowed and wound its way tighter and twisted until finally, it opened out into a stretch of fields and dotted ‘dwellings’. The Dwellings comprised of, old stone houses, new brick houses, tents, tepees, vans, lorries, trucks, caravans, and a Gypsy Trailer. I was starting to understand now why it was felt we would fit in. We drove up through the menagerie of motors until we found the big-Merc-six-tonner-van-home of Edor (sounds like a place in Lord of the Rings, we were actually not far from Aragón). The three Belgians were really pleased to see us, and we parked up next door.

	So what is Aulas? We were now to discover. Thirty years ago the small village was abandoned, it lay empty for twenty years until a few friends found it in passing, and took to occupy the empty houses. Now some may call it ‘squatting’ but I think this has too much emotive baggage attached so I will call it occupying. After some years they approached the locals and found the means to buy some of the properties.

	Over the next years more people came and the settlement has grown within certain limits. It is now ten years since it all started and there are many different families with children. It is not however a ‘Commune’ as every one has there own space and lives, but there is a community that has come to work together improving the amenities and administering to problems. It does however still have feelings of freedom to the place.

Every year the village has a party but this year was a celebration of a decade of Aulas. On arrival we felt a little like we were gate crashing a wedding, but as we met people who lived there like Willy, Ismael, and Michael we were made to feel so welcome. People were really interested in the truck and our travels. The next three days was a full-on party of music, theatre, food and drink. In fact, all the food was provided free for the whole three days. It was fantastic home-cooked food, from breakfast to supper, but as the music and drumming never really stopped for three days, breakfast and supper seemed to become one and the same. There was a huge fire at the centre of proceedings, and on the Sunday, two massive paella dishes were cooked on the hot coals.

On the Saturday the whole village was the stage for an interactive theatre and tour and even though we couldn’t understand Spanish at all, we laughed solidly for two hours (except for the pitch black ghost tunnel which was set up in someone’s house, it was worse than anything I have ever experienced at a fair ground). On the main stage there was a pantomime from the children of the village, which was framed, as any school play would be, by the beaming faces of the proud parents. This was followed by a play by the adults with lots of fire eating/juggling/throwing, and fireworks, framed by the wonderful lack of health and safety.

Everyone seemed to be harbouring some sort of talent for juggling, fire-eating or guitar playing (although no one combined all three by juggling with flaming guitars, which was a shame).


	Over the three days we made three good friends in Tim, Mary-Rose and Peebo, who did a sterling job of giving us a running translation of the fireside story telling, although the Columbian fella doing the telling was entertaining enough to watch anyway (a bit like watching Billy Connelly if you couldn’t understand Scottish). In all, a wonderful place to visit was Aulas, but as for living there, I could sense that it wouldn’t be the Nirvana that reflects from a brief stay, and all the trials of life would still prevail. I would like to revisit maybe in ten more years to see how thing evolved from today.