El Campello has two markets - one on Sunday and one on Wednesday. They are at different locations - very close to each other. And both use the same two dirt parking lots. I had bought some great salted mixed nuts at one of the markets last October - so I wanted to go today - Sunday to see if the "nut guy" was there.
You can walk from our apartment to go to the markets - but it is all up this very steep long hill, so we drove. I remembered the entrance to the dirt parking lot that is the closest. The pavement of the road just drops off into the dirt of the parking lot - and every year the drop gets deeper. Our rental car is a BMW which is very low to the ground. Of-course we bottomed out - but were able to keep going. Michael, knowing that the parking lot is covered in uneven pebbles, stopped to let me out and went to park the car. As I waited for him to park the car and walk back to me - it seemed like every other car scrapped the bottom of their cars on that drop off.
As I waited and time went on and on and no Michael appeared, I noticed a crowd of people gathered a ways off in the parking lot. I could not see what they were doing, but they were all standing around and watching something. Finally I called Michael, and low and behold it was him! He was stuck in the mud. All the people gathered around were trying to help him get out of the mud. I wish I would have had the presence of mind to take a video! There was one person trying to communicate with Michael using poor English. Every one else spoke Spanish. There was much discussion - he should back up - no he should go forward - put the piece of metal behind his front tire, no put it back. I could guess this all from their gestures. Finally someone showed up with a hoe like implement and dug out behind his two front tires. Then the instructions were to gun the motor and go backwards - and that finally got him out. Everyone clapped and high-fived and went off to their cars. Except the man with the hoe who kept giving Michael more instructions in Spanish. I have to add that a lot of the men who had been trying to help with directions or to push had mud on their clothes. Michael's car had clumps of mud all along the edges plus spots all over the front of the car.
I watched Michael's face as he kept telling the man "si, si", but I knew he didn't understand a word the guy was saying. Michael and the car were on a small patch of hard dirt. There was a parked car to one side. Two other sides had very large deep mud puddles. We managed to do about an 8 point turn and got the car turned around to a very narrow spit of dry dirt right next to the parked car.
After we got the car turned around - the guy in the parked car across from us decided to leave his parking spot - and immediately got stuck in the large deep puddle between our two cars. Now the entrance lane was completely blocked. The people trying to get into the parking lot were not happy. The one in front tried to pull between the stuck car and us - right into the puddle Michael had just gotten out of. I put my hand out and yelled No, No! the driver shrugged at me - "Well where am I supposed to go!" He did stop though. I can't imagine how long it would have taken to get everyone out if he had gone forward and gotten stuck in that same puddle. Because then none of us could have moved forward.
We finally got out of the parking lot - I thought we would just go home, but Michael pulled into the second parking lot - It was completely dry and level - not even one pot hole. We walked back to the market and made a quick circuit of what was on offer. No nut guy available. So we went home.
