Long live the bakery!

By noon, the thermometer shows a cozy thirty degrees in the shade, and it's time for a siesta.

We urgently need bread and water.

After the Aragon dam is almost empty, we hardly have hope of finding a drinking water source. But hardly had I thought of this, when a sign on the winding road points to a well.

The hero grabs the canisters while I guard our trailer with the valuables.

The parking lot is currently being used as a construction waste dump, and the operating excavator driver cheerfully waves at me.

On his second round, he very kindly explains that I should please close the doors of the car and the caravan because it gets very dusty when he dumps the load.

I thank him for the friendly reminder and am very proud to have understood Señor so well. And this, considering that my last Spanish course was at least twenty years ago.

Encouraged by this positive experience, I have no hesitation and inquire in the next village about a panadería. 

Two elderly ladies stand by the garden fence exchanging news. The Señoras shake their heads in unison and simultaneously overwhelm me with a rapid-fire stream of directions in high-speed Spanish, making me quite dizzy.

I only catch snippets like 'aquí no' and 'a la tienda'.

So I explain to the hero that we need to go to La Tienda.

In the local bar, the first road crew has already arrived for their lunch break and taken seats at the tables in the shade of the colorful awning. The guys cheerfully wave at us as I search the GPS for the place with the baked goods.

Zappa takes the turn-off to the next village. I start having doubts about the correctness because this hamlet is even smaller. After eight kilometers past endless harvested yellow fields without tree or shade, we find ourselves in narrow, empty alleys. Here, absolute siesta silence prevails.

It occurs to me again that la tienda means shop, and the hero cleverly suggests that he suspected long ago that the business is located in the first village.

I'm already getting creeped out by the maneuver at the next fork in the road. But the hero gets out, inspects, checks, and assesses. I offer to assist as a guide behind the long vehicle, but I only receive a gruff response from which I gather something like 'Proceed, straighten up, back around the corner' . 

I look back and see an ultra-narrow alley leading steeply up the mountain. He wouldn't dare...?

At the same moment, the trailer rolls forward a bit, is braked, the gear is engaged, and we maneuver backward uphill into the narrow road. Hopefully, there are no cats there!

Beads of sweat are dripping from my forehead. 

The hero casually shifts into drive and rolls comfortably around the curve out of the village, which clings to the hill like a swallow's nest, back to the starting point.

And now, of course, comes the classic: 'Where the Kangoo fits, the caravan surely fits too.'

In the bar, cold drinks are served, and no grocery store is to be found anywhere.

In front of every second house, two to three old gentlemen sit on benches in the shade, watching the passing traffic and waving and cheerfully laughing at us.

Just before leaving the village, I spot the sign for Supermercado on the GPS at an extreme zoom. Next to the bar.

So turn around. This time there is plenty of space since the farmer has to turn around with the tractor as well.

Past the benches with the old men. Waving and laughing.

We park by the roadside and walk to the bar. The construction workers wave, laugh and are happy. 

A young man is drinking coffee, looks up from his newspaper, laughs, and nods at us relievedly. 

The two seniors on the bench across from us wave, laugh, and point to the building next to the bar. 

A Señora with a shopping bag crosses the street, waves, laughs, and gestures for us to discreetly follow her.

She opens a door to the back entrance and behold! La tienda is found! 

In a small storage room, everything needed for living can be found. Next to potatoes, huge onions, and large green heads of lettuce, colorful cans of all flavor varieties are lined up on the shelves. Toilet paper and toothpaste are available for purchase, as well as bread, cookies, and sweet round cakes.

Behind the counter stands a small chubby man in a red apron who waves, laughs, and warmly greets us. 

After he settles the bill for Senñora’s butter, milk, and flour, Señor turns to our wishes. 

We choose a mega pack of SuperXXL eggs and I order two loaves of bread. The boss explains to us that he has only one bread that is big, the other is unfortunately just little.

Then he is happy for the opportunity to speak English with us because he doesn't speak it very well and needs to practice. My Spanish is also muy mal, and we both respond laughing in the respective language we both only know a little bit about.

Happy, we leave the small supermercado, the gentlemen on the benches are delighted, waving, laughing, and happy that we finally have something to eat.

Meanwhile, the whole village has worried that two blind German tourists with a caravan can't find la tienda, wander the streets completely starving, and bring misfortune and disaster upon the little village.

A bit exhausted, we take the next dirt road to the small reservoir we discovered during our detour. 

The thermometer reads thirty-two degrees in the meager shade of the little trees. 

We open the caravan windows wide, so the wind can cool us off a bit and blow the annoying flies out to the other side as much as possible. 

Now we are going to have a siesta at least until five o'clock. And Andalusia? Tomorrow!