Godfrey Wenness

Plenty actually.

A true story by Godfrey Wenness from the Piedrahita XC-Open 2007 as posted on www.xc-open.org  

Firstly start with some hard core Spanish police who stop your first time pick up driver for touching the white line in the middle of the road on a windy mountain pass. 63 euros thank you...but wait he only has 55 euro´s on him. 1 hour later and in the company of another 4 police cars and motorbikes he finds another 4 euro´s in coins but its still not enough, 4 euro´s to go or they won´t let him leave.

Some locals start appearing and a boy offers to give him the 4 missing euros but the police don´t allow it (bizarre). Another 30 minutes of searching and he finds 4 euro´s in small change and off he goes...

Never 100% trust the in-car navigation! I walked for 1 hour to a high point on the road, had great radio contact, gave revised co-ords and the driver reckons he is only 5kms away but cant find the road I am on...hmmm. Ok I walk to the town and sms another set of co-ords and wait. The radio is a bit more scratchy but he says he´s in the town in between buildings. I give some landmarks but he can´t see them.

Then the bombshell...he uses the normal GPS GOTO and realises he´s in the wrong town by 5kms. The TOM TOM unit originally took him to the closest point on its known roads but there was no way to me from there. Always use a GPS GOTO to confirm the in-car units directions.

So there I was waiting in one spot on the main road entrance to a small Spanish town fully 2.5hrs after landing waiting to be "found". Then comes the next series of dramas ... both my radio which I was using on high powewr AND my phone are showing critical low battery...ahhhh. But wait, theres more..he finally arrives and says he has been on zero fuel for 50kms now because he has no money to buy any...no problemo we can go to a gas station now and I´ll pay..BUT..

We go searching for fuel, ask lots of old ladies sitting on the side of the road, drive in circles because there is a fiesta in town and there are detours everywhere meaning the directions we have need updating at every turn. Once at the fuel stop we see its closed - its 10.05pm - they close at 10.00pm..bugger !

Back into town to ask for the next nearest one while the bus is running on vapours. To our shock the next one is 50kms away..impossible to get to. We ask around for farm diesel..no luck either. Finally we give up and ask for a hotel or beds... not one hotel in town nor any private accomodation due to the festival..ahhhh. Sleeping in the back of a bus after a long days flying and wanting to be fresh to fly next day was not a good option.

A bit of lateral thinking, some phone calls in a noisy bar (are there any other types in Spain?) using Hans for Spanish language help and we found an old man who used to baby sit the owner of the gas station...another 30mins to find the fellow, get him out of bed, he opens the gas station, we get fuel, I happily hand over 20 euro´s beer tip to them both, and we are on the way home only 4 hours late.

What would XC-flying be without lifes little retrieve drama´s.