Illicit vacation: the rain in Spain hardly dampened this holiday��when compared with the impact of the other surprises

Twelve days in Spain to finish off the summer seemed like a good idea at the time. How could I resist? Our four adult children were keen on the idea. How often can we expect this to happen in the future? And, although I had visited Barcelona, I had never visited Spain's Basque region. Here was my chance.

The first indication that we were on the vacation from hell occurred in Minneapolis at customs. Everyone cleared quickly; I was last. The customs officer scanned my passport, looked at me and said, "Your passport has expired." Mine was the only passport I hadn't checked. I was suddenly very aware of his large gun and handcuffs, as visions of 72 hours of secret detention, FBI questioning about possible al-Qaeda links, and a quick trip to an iron cage at Guantanamo Bay danced in my head. But he smiled, "As a Canadian citizen you don't need a passport to enter the USA but you might not get on your flight to Amsterdam." We went through hell awaiting our Amsterdam flight, making plans about what I would do if stopped. And if I made it onto the Amsterdam flight, what if I were stopped in Amsterdam or Madrid? Luckily, in all cases passport inspection was visual, not by scanner. It was with great relief I visited Madrid's Canadian embassy to arrange for a new passport, somewhat troubled that in these times of heighte ned security I had traveled half Way around the world without a valid passport.

The drive to San Sebastian, punctuated by an overnight stop at Burgos, was uneventful. And our first four nights in the San Sebastian campground, a beautiful mountain perch overlooking the city, were almost tolerable, despite the loud partying in the many languages of the backpackers. Then the rains of biblical proportions came. By four AM we were soaked. We abandoned the campground for rooms in the old city. We wandered the city, shopped, looked at the sights, drank what has to be, along with that in France and Italy, the best coffee in the world. But worry nagged at reports of flooding in France and Germany, and areas of the Basque region. Then the Spanish government decided to outlaw the legal wing of the Basque separatist movement, the Batasuna party. The armed struggle group, Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA, translated as Basque Homeland and Freedom) is already proscribed - accused of political assassinations, kidnappings, and robberies. This decision to ban the parliamentary party resulted in a series of confrontations, including a peaceful demonstration in San Sebastian that was broken up by baton-wielding riot police. We huddled in our rooms listening to the nocturnal urban symphony of broken glass and tear gas pops. In Bilbao a larger demonstration was met by rubber bullets, tear gas, and baton charges, as the Spanish edition of The Herald Tribune reported, while the proBatasuna demonstrators fought back with umbrellas.

We left for Madrid hoping to find some sunshine (and me hoping to avoid washed out roads as reports continued about swollen rivers). As we hurried toward Madrid, finally submitting to the Spanish freeway cruising speeds of 140-160 km/hr, we had a flat. If you think cruising with the traffic at 160 is scary, try driving on a doughnut spare at 80 or 90 while every car, truck and bus in Spain is racing past you honking.

After arrival in the old city of Madrid, we looked forward to a full day in the city, sightseeing, shopping, and enjoying the sun in the outdoor cafes in the many squares. Our group separated in the morning, agreeing to meet at midday for a picnic in Madrid's famous Parque del Retiro.

Alas it was not to be. As three of us waited over coffee and newspapers in an outdoor cafe, the others rushed up to report the latest disaster. One of my sons was robbed in an internet cafe, losing his passport and airline ticket. Our plane was leaving at noon the next day. The next 20 hours were scenes from Kafka and Catch 22. The emergency line at the embassy said "please leave a message and your phone number" as we stood at a pay phone on the streets of Madrid, necessitating frantic calls to Ottawa. A replacement airline ticket and temporary passport required a copy of a police report. Such reports were only available from an obscure police station, which proved hard to find. Then the police computer crashed. The airline's agent was out of the proper ticket stocks. And so went our perfect nightmare in beautiful downtown Madrid.

The next morning as we awaited the temporary passport, while another of our party was retrieving the airline ticket by cab, three other Canadians came in to report stolen passports. There was what amounted to a book of condolences on the embassy table wherein Canadian after Canadian had reported similar crises, some with less good humour than we mustered.

We made it back, but on the return flight I was haunted not just by the terrorist threat, but by a news story I read on the flight from Amsterdam to Minneapolis. It noted how many times fighter planes had been authorized to shoot down passenger airlines since September 11th. Now I had a new fear to add to the mix: some fighter-jet cowboy shooting us down because our navigation or communication systems failed. In truth, my pain of Spain came mainly on the plane - there and back.

John Conway is a political sociologist at the University of Regina.

COPYRIGHT 2002 Briarpatch, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group