Summer 1970

What was the cheapest and easiest way to see as many countries as possible in Europe? Go on a camping trip with one of the companies that do Europe. We (my twin sister and I) chose Autotours because they also squeezed in Greece and Turkey on their 9 week tour. Amazingly, you can still do similar holidays today. Contiki Tours was the rival company in the 1970’s and although Autotours is no longer operating, it is: https://www.contiki.com/

Paris here we come!

First stop Paris. Oh boy, were we excited at the thought of visiting this most romantic of all cities. My memory of how we actually travelled from London to Paris, has been squeezed out by what happened after we arrived. It was a boiling hot summer’s day. We had been allocated our little (very little) tents, into which three would have to sardine. Most of us had never camped in our lives before so the driver and courier were supposed to instruct us on how to put them up. But there was an impatience to get out there and explore Paris, so this was a rushed affair.

The Short Straw

Then of course meals had to be considered. 30 campers, 10 tents; each tent’s occupants would take turns to cook the evening meal. We drew the short straw for the first cooking night. Instead of going to explore Paris, we had to go shopping for food – bugger. None of us had done any cooking to speak of.  We had no idea how to cater for 30 people. We decided that a nice lamb chop with some salad might be the easiest.

The driver took us to some sort of abattoir. None of us spoke French. Did we make “baa-baa-ing” noises to indicate that we’d like lamb chops? Somehow they understood us and they showed us some that looked good. But they were way too expensive for our budget. After much bumbling and mumbling – did we hear ‘cheval’? – we were taken deeper into the abattoir where bigger carcasses were hanging. What were they? By now, we just wanted to get the hell out of there. So we let them hack off a pile of chunks/ ‘chops’? for us. Was it horse meat? We would never know. Blast furnace heat hit us in the face as we emerged from the refrigerated meat market. We bought some salad stuff and headed back to the camp. We could see huge storm clouds building. Maybe some rain would be a welcome relief.

Dinner disaster

Did we manage to see anything else of Paris that day? I can’t remember. But I can remember the disaster that was ‘dinner’. As we headed for the small blue cook tent, the storm broke and the rain came bucketing down. We discovered that the only frying pan was a dented wobbly aluminum thing that was only big enough to take max two ‘chops’ at a time. In no time at all, the tent was leaking. One of us was the fryer. There was serious spitting as drops splashed into the frying pan. One was the salad maker and disher-upper. The salad bowl kept filling with blue dye and this had to be poured off before helpings could be spooned onto individual plates, along with a ‘chop’. One was the runner. No use trying to hold an umbrella as well. We were all already soaked. It was a dash across the muddy campground, dodging lightning bolts, to deliver the soggy dinners to 27 expectant happy campers, huddled cozily in their tents. There was much cursing and swearing as we worked our way slowly through that pile of meat. The air too, turned blue in that leaky tent. Were there complaints about the food? It would’ve been justified. I have no memory of that. It felt like forever before we were finished. And then we still had to wash up. We were exhausted and couldn’t wait to get into our sleeping bags.

Wet and miserable

But when we got to our tent, the fly sheet hadn’t been pulled tight enough and everything, I mean EVERYTHING, was sodden. Then our tent mate announced she had something to tell us. “Don’t be shocked”, she said. Then she pulled off her wig.  The poor woman had had alopecia and was as bald as a coot.

My thoughts, as I dozed off in my soggy sleeping bag, squished between the wall of the tent and my twin were: “If this is camping, I’m going back to London tomorrow, and to hell with the money I’ve forked out”  But the next day the sun came out, everything dried rapidly – and it wasn’t our turn to cook. And we were in PARIS – let the fun begin!

If you enjoyed this ‘not so fun’ travel story, here are some more:  https://footeloosefancyfree.com/young-and-careless/ ‎ https://footeloosefancyfree.com/scratching-and-scratching/ ‎