There’s A Story Here

A bit unusual but as we were busy most of the day packing up and driving I didn’t have an opportunity to take many pictures - bgleyna was able to take some good views of our scenic drive from Cáceres to Burgos.  However, the story concerns our trip to Europe along with my confident and positive outlook concerning the availability of Autogas (LPG) in Europe.  Of course it will be no problem - loads of people have cars that run on autogas and it will be cheaper there.  Our Camper van has the luxury of none of those big propane bottles but has its own LPG tank for cooking and heating and the fridge.  

Well, as it turned out, I was right, a lot of petrol stations carry autogas.  However, when I went to connect the nozzle in France on the way down, there was no way it was going to fasten on.  After a brief chat with the helpful attendant and a frenzied search on Google, it turns out there are no less than 4 different ways to attach an LPG nozzle to a tank - and none of them work on a Brexit Camper van!  So we managed to get down to M and D’s in Portugal and didn’t have to do any cooking, but I began the quest to find out how I could procure the right adapter for Spain or Portugal or even France.  After an hour of searching and cross referencing I managed to find an LPG specialist in Valodalid.  But when I called them the guy on the end of the phone spoke no English at all!  I mean zero.  And my Spanish wouldn’t even pass muster in a conversation with Fawlty Tower’s Manuel.  The phone went dead!  So I composed an email in English and used google translate to turn it into a Spanish missive.  This went off the same gentleman more in hope than with any real assurance of success.  I basically asked him if he knew how I could fill my UK bayonet fitted LPG tank with gas.  Next day - nothing.  Then 2 days later, an email in Spanish.  Out came google translate - copy/paste and hey presto, it read “I can sell you an adapter for Spain and Portugal.  Hoorah!  And so today, on the way to Burgos we stopped off in Valodalid.  But horrors!  It’s Spain.  3pm and the place was deserted and the shop had iron railings and bars on the windows.  Back to the email and what looked like a cell phone number.  I called and once again the illiterate non Spanish speaker is on the phone with my good friend who speaks excellent Spanish but no habla ingles.  So I’m saying “autogas, bayonetta, adapter, me, aqui!”  There followed a veritable waterfall of unintelligible Spanish words followed by “ten minutes”.  Turns out my good autogas parts dealer was fluent in English intervals of time!  Sure enough, just ten minutes later he turned up and without complaining at all about my waking him from his siesta, at least if he had, I wouldn’t have understood anyway.  He proceeded to sell me an adapter that works in Spain and Portugal and as a bonus, a different adapter that works in France and Italy.  Seems the EU has not quite got its act together on autogas.  Oh and by the way, there’s another different way to connect but I was unable to discern which other countries used that one - perhaps Albania?  Anyway, long story but a happy ending and we then proceeded to the nearest station handily listed in an app called myLPG.eu.  I thought I was going to have more language problems with the garage attendant, but it turned out to be another surprise as I told her I spoke Portuguese and she proceeded to tell me that she was from Manaus!  So a little conversation in Portuguese! - and now we are relaxing in a forest just outside of Burgos!