Adventure Post: Madrid and Una Nocturna in Illescas

We had two days to spare in Madrid after Colmenar Viejo before we headed to Illescas. We spent the first day doing an audio tour of Madrid. We had done a walking tour the last time we were here, but we wanted to see what our audioguide app had for us. It was a completely different tour, which was nice. We started in the Puerta de Sol, walked down the Calle de Postas, made it back to Plaza Major, and...got sidetracked. The tour mentioned a toro bar, La Torre del Oro, on Plaza Major, and even took us inside. Well, we just had to check that out.

La Torre del Oro is located on the northwest side of Plaza Major. If you blink, you'll miss it, and you definitely don't want to miss it. Inside, the walls are COVERED in bullfighting memorabilia. Pictures of famous matadors, intense cogidas, and even the last moments before a matador died in the ring. Bull heads adorn the walls, and above the stairs which lead down to the basement is a case containing items which belonged to El Cordobes, a famous torero whose son carried on the family tradition. The menus were even shaped liked capotes!

We grabbed a drink there (because why wouldn't we?), and then noticed they had Onetoro TV playing in the corner. That totally derailed us, because now we were engrossed in a corrida while drinking beer and wine in toro bar. Now this is the Madrid we were looking for! The corrida was in Malaga, where we were going in a few days. One of the barmen noted that we were talking intelligently about the corrida with our eyes glued to the TV, and offered Jo one of the menus to take home as a souvenir. We could have spent all day there drinking and watching corridas, but we convinced ourselves that we should continue the audio tour. So we did.

The next day, we went to tour the Las Ventas Plaza de Toros. We had tickets for right when it opened, because we had to go to Illescas that night for una nocturna, a nightime bullfight.

The Las Ventas tour was 15 euros each, and it was absolutely worth it. We watched videos on how the bulls are raised, watched workers cover the sand in anticipation of coming storms, and hung out in the callejon. They have something called virtual toreo, which is virtual reality bullfighting, so of course we gave that a try (there are videos in the photo album (linked below)). That was a lot of fun, both to do it ourselves and to watch others. We got to see the capilla, which was much smaller than we anticipated for such a large ring, and Jo bought a capote keychain at the museum gift shop. At the end, there is the museum. It is full of paintings, sculptures, and personal items of bullfighters. The audioguide really enhanced the experience. We learned about the progression of bullfighting regulations, the history of various ruling regimes' attempts to stamp it out, and got introduced to some famous women toreros. Unfortunately, pictures are not allowed in the museum, so you'll just have to visit it yourself!

After the bullring, we ate lunch, bought snacks and alcohol for the fight, and headed to pick up our rental car. Thus came the beginning that was the comedy for the night. We had rented a car in Spain before. We didn't need passports, and Jack's digital driver's license was accepted with no problem (Spain has had digital driver's licenses for several years now). Not this time. This company wanted our passports. They were willing to accept Jack's passport card, but they were unwilling to accept his digital driver's license. They said it was no good in Spain (something we knew to not be true). Jo didn't have her passport (and doesn't have the passport card, because it's really not that useful of a document), because we didn't need it before, but she did have her driver's license. Not good enough. They refused to rent to us. We think it is because we had scheduled the rental for 30 minutes before closing, and they just didn't want to put in any actual work for tourists before closing. In any case, we decided we would just take an Uber to Illescas, and we would Uber or taxi our way home.

Well, the fight came and went. It was, to date, Borja's best work with the capote and muleta we had seen so far, but definitely not his best work with the estoque. He struggled quite a bit to get the kill, and you could see his frustration with himself on his face. He was awarded an ear for his work with the capote and muleta (the crowd demanded it), but on his walk around the ring, you could see that he was unhappy with himself. After him, we watched one bull get returned to the corrals because of a physical problem (it was stumbling and unwilling to charge the matador), and watched the senior matador be awarded a second ear. Two ears means we could be carried through the puerta grande by fans, which neither Jo nor Jack thought he had earned. Evidently, neither did the crowd, because there were only a few (less than five) people that came down to carry him out. All in all, it was a good night, and good first nocturna.

But then we boarded the struggle bus with first class seats. We couldn't get back to Madrid. There were no Ubers available on the app, even though we could see them around everywhere. Jack asked one with his window down if he was working that night. He said he was, but when asked if he could take us to Madrid, he said no. Unbeknownst to us, we were in the middle of patron saint activities, so the Ubers were all staying local. So then we tried cabs. We couldn't find any along the roads, so Jack started calling around (he speaks enough Spanish to get around). None of them were willing to take us back to Madrid. Several didn't even answer the phone at 01h30, despite the huge crowds at the festivities.

We didn't panic, but we were both starting to get irritated, both with the situation and with each other. To say we were having difficulty getting back to Madrid would be an understatement. This wasn't just difficulty; it was outright inability. On top of that, we were tired, only Jack knew Spanish, and the large number of people in one area was sucking down the bandwidth, making using our phones almost impossible. The frustrations were starting to come out.

We decided to see if we could get a hotel for the night. Jack called around, and nope. All were full (and by "all" we mean "both," because the town only had two). No Uber, no Cabify, no taxi, no hotels. We were truly stuck. Jo was ready to just sleep in a park. She was wearing a dress, and jack was wearing a white polo, so it wasn't exactly the best option, but considering we currently had no options, it seemed like the one we would have to take. Jack suggested, as a last-ditch effort before we sought refuge under the night sky (and rain clouds), we walk to a hotel that was about 10 minutes away and ask the concierge if they could help us get back to Madrid. We did, and the guy told us, "you are in luck! After you called, someone cancelled their room for tonight. It is just for one night, but would you like the room?" Yes! It was 80 euros, which was more than we wanted to spend, but it was an air conditioned bed, breakfast in the morning, and, most importantly, the only option available. We took it. Keep in mind, we were in our bullfighting clothes. Jo was in a dress, jack in a polo, and all we had on us were an empty cooler of alcohol, Jo's purse, and our sweaters (which we always take to corridas). Jo saw they had a gym, and exclaimed, "Oh! They have a gym! Wait...I can't go to the gym in a dress..."

We slept in our undershorts and sweaters that night, got up, had breakfast in the morning, and got a taxi (which was an hour late) back to Madrid. No rest for the weary, we had less than an hour to pack up, check out, and get to the train station to get to Sevilla. We're not sure how we managed to "trash pack" (in skydiving terms) everything into our bags, but we did.

Welcome to long-term travel. Sometimes everything goes according to plan. Sometimes nothing does. But we agreed: if that's the worst thing to happen to us so far, then we've actually had it pretty good.

Where we stayed: Room007 Ventura Hostel / Complejo Paris (unexpectedly...)

Jo's Favourite: The bullfight? I mean, isn't that the whole reason we went??

Jack's Favourite: Same as Jo, but also getting a hotel at 2 a.m. so we didn't have to sleep in the rain

Top Lesson Learned: "Shit'll buff"

Google Photo Album