Happy end!

It's Monday.

After the morning coffee, we stumble into the office of Motor Tarrega, the workshop where we've been camping all weekend. We are greeted by everyone in a friendly and somewhat sympathetic manner. El jefe himself takes care of our problem today, after making it clear that he only speaks Spanish and Catalan. I assure him once again that we need to go home and work, after which he consults with his men. Yamal, the German speaker, informs us that they unfortunately cannot help us because they do not have the necessary diagnostic equipment and this could be an electronic problem, where they could potentially cause more damage than repair. We need to go to a Renault garage.

Upon seeing our desperate looks, Señor Chef personally takes care of our worries, picks up the phone, and tries to find us a solution with the experts. He first speaks to the workshop 100 meters around the corner, but they resist as before: only by appointment and the next one is not available until next week at the earliest! Then the Padrón calls his old buddy in Andorra, who now runs a Renault garage there. And oh wonder: he will inspect our Kangoo tomorrow if we bring the car today. Yamal conveys the joyful news to us with a happy expression on his face and we are about to burst into jubilation! But as always, don't count your chickens before they hatch, because as soon as the words are spoken, the boss takes a step back: the towing service won't take us to Andorra! That's abroad, and not part of the EU, it will cause trouble with customs and the police, no: we won't find a Spanish grúa that will take us there.

We sink into ourselves, but el jefe still has an ace up his sleeve: he calls Lleida, where there is a large workshop with many employees and endless possibilities. If they can help us, it's in Lleida. We wait. He makes the call. At some point, he hands the phone over to his secretary, it rings, we wait, the ringing is on speakerphone, we wait, it rings. After what seems like an eternity, the young woman gives up. Yamal has to explain to us again that today is a holiday in Lleida and no one is working. Only in this city is probably some special saint or devil worshiped on this Monday! So: mañana!

We trudge to La Seu and think about the sun, café con leche, and croissant for a ridiculous price. And think and think. Eventually, we decide that Susanne now has to become a member of ADAC, because Zappa has already annoyed the club. So I fill out the online application to be transported home at the last moment by the yellow angels in case of emergency. Because we are at the foot of the Pyrenees and any sensible connection to the workplace departs from Barcelona. And that seems like an insurmountable 180km. And lo and behold: the next moment, the ADAC greets me as a new paying member by email and I can count on their help from mañana 00:00.

Now we continue our hike for today, buy bread, and wash ourselves in the Rio Segre to have our dinner on the N260.

It's Tuesday.

After the morning coffee, we stumble into the office of Motor Tarrega. The conversation with Lleida is quickly done, the saints have been worshiped enough today, now it's back to business. Yes, if we bring the car today, it will be hoisted and diagnosed in the afternoon. We need to quickly digest the unbelievable, as Lleida is 130km south of here, not exactly a stone's throw away! I'm worried that the ADAC will tell us that they will tow us to the nearest garage, but we have already been standing in front of one for four days and the next available appointment is probably only next month. That's why I let Zappa do the talking and in the meantime I go to dispose of our trash - the bin is in front of Renault...

When I come back, Zappa tells me that the lady on the phone has agreed to arrange a towing service and will be in touch soon. We go to the office of Motor Tarrega one last time to pay our bill, after all, they sacrificed some of their time to our robbers' den. But Señora looks at me puzzled and asks her colleague. He has written down one working hour and shrugs his shoulders. In the end, everyone agrees that they couldn't help us, so we shouldn't have to pay anything. I am speechless and so is Zappa when he joins me. It's not like they didn't do anything and almost the entire team helped us! They don't even accept a tip from us, so in the end, we all fall into each other's arms and say goodbye with a small tear in our eyes.

As we stand in front of the Kangoo again, the mobile phone rings and the yellow angel reports that he can't find a towing service, the distance is too far! Has the whole world really conspired against us? Have we celebrated too early and do we have to go back to the office of Motor Tarrega because we will stay outside their gates for another week? The young woman promises to search for a nearby Renault garage with prompt service and to get back to us.

I would now love to go buy bread, but that takes too long. So we wait. After another nerve-wracking half hour, the phone rings. The ADAC has found a tow truck, but it costs 540 euros and the club only covers 300 euros...

Now that doesn't matter anymore, bring on the towing service, we need to go to Lleida, to this wonderful garage! Una hora later, we sit high up in the car of a young man who takes us through various rural areas to the city of our dreams.

After two hours of driving, he drops us and the Kangoo off and disappears so quickly that we can't give him our share of the ride or a tip. It's lunchtime and so we take a siesta. We sit in front of a huge car dealership factory workshop, which quickly receives the name Château-Renault in our vocabulary. Behind us, traffic roars on a four-lane Autopista, and on the opposite side of the road, two monumental grain mills operate incessantly, day and night, as we will find out. We have to shout to communicate, but it doesn't matter, the solution to our problem is close by.

Punctually at 3:00 p.m., the gates open, I go to reception and am greeted kindly. They are informed and Señor Martinez takes care of our patient. He goes with me to the Kangoo and at a secret signal, four black-clad, muscular, attractive, smiling young men join us and push the car into the sacred halls. The whole thing reminds me ominously of the Borg, to which Captain Picard from the Starship Enterprise would soon belong too, and I suspect that our robbers' den is being assimilated... It will take about two hours, explains Señor Martinez, who is extremely courteous, speaks French with me, which makes communication much easier, and offers us a coffee. But no, we go to buy bread first.

After the shopping, Señor Martinez welcomes us back with a paper printout on which a Google translation explains to us that the fuel pump is defective, the spare part will be delivered tomorrow, and the robbers' den will be ready to go on Thursday noon. The Borg will push the car back to the parking lot so that we can sleep in it, out of reach of the alarm system. Señor Martinez bids us farewell, saying that we can be tourists tomorrow and wishes us a lot of fun doing so.

But first, we need to wash ourselves. We scouted a path to the Segre and now walk to the river past the grain mills and the San Miguel brewery, amidst trucks and beer barrels. Tonight won't be as peaceful, as the grain drying from the mills is blowing incessantly, the traffic roars past us, and we must constantly be on guard not to trigger the alarm system of Château-Renault. Apart from that, we make the big-sounding watchdog of the small neighboring workshop nervous with our door slapping.

It's Wednesday.

We have our morning coffee in the car today, so as not to disturb the customers of the car dealership too much. Then we hike to Lleida, admiring the illuminated cathedral all night long, and now we are heading there. After walking five kilometers on pavement, we reward ourselves with café con leche and croissant at a ridiculous price, and then we continue to the only sight in the city. Above the rooftops of Lleida, a church towers, which has been converted into a fortress over the centuries. We spend several hours here in the sunshine, but eventually, the Segre calls us to swim.

In this night, a car transporter with brand new Peugeots joins us, Château-Peugeot is right next door. So it's not just us who have an eye on the alarm system.

It's Thursday.

We transform the robbers' den before even having our morning coffee, and as soon as we finish, the black Borg are already next to the car and pushing it away. It will be ready (assimilated?) by 11:00 a.m., Señor Martinez explains to us, and we go - no, not to buy bread, but to the river again. Who wants to pay their bill smelling bad?

And behold, at 11:30 a.m., it's ready to go again, I insert my credit card into the device, the friendly lady chats with me about the weather, Señor Martinez shows us photos on his phone of the burning Notre Dame in Paris, and then we're on tour again! Unbelievable, we're driving! After one week! A heavy burden lifts off me, we even have enough time for the return journey and can even visit flea markets in France, hard to believe!

Now we drive into the national park where we got stuck on the first col. Along the way, we admire the scenery, incredible views, mountains, valleys, and picturesque villages.

And once again, I didn't get the bread quite right. That's the problem with bread in general. It's either too little or too much, it becomes hard and crumbly or doesn't last enough. If I buy fresh bread, it's the first one to be eaten because the old one is hard and crumbly, and the fresh one will be the same tomorrow. No matter what I do, it's always wrong! On the way to the national park, the bread is once again almost gone, and we should get some beforehand because a bakery is not guaranteed in Spanish mountain villages. So after siesta, we drive to a village on the N260, it's 3:30 p.m., but no shop is open. Only a lonely older Señora tries to sell vegetables and eggs by the roadside. I ask her where I can buy bread. She communicates to me through toothless teeth that it will take until the village bakeries reopen. And offers me her bread! In a bag, she has fresh, sliced, easily chewable white bread from the local Panadería and sells it to me for one euro, as she can get some more later! I am speechless and would love to buy a few eggs from her as well, but there is currently no need for that. With fresh, soft bread, we set off into the mountains and wave goodbye to her.

In general, the friendliness, helpfulness, and uncomplicated nature of the Catalans have reconciled us with this Spanish region. After two weeks of touring Catalonia, we were not exactly fans of this region, too much tourism, too much dryness, too little exciting landscape. And the constant demands for La República catalana with the unmistakable symbols in every little village annoyed me quickly. And answers like "I only speak Catalan too" to my "Yo hablo muy mal español" didn't seem funny to me at first. But when an employee of Château-Renault tells me not to worry, after all, he doesn't speak German either, I understand the humor. We have met wonderful people here, and that through a series of errors in the Kangoo's fuel pump, muchas gracias, Renault!