Brazilian Ju Jitsu

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This morning we’ve booked a half day tour to the Cuevas de San Jose which are about forty kilometres north of Valencia. Our guide introduces himself as Joaquin, and one of the first things he tells us is that we shouldn’t drink the water that comes out of the taps here. He doesn’t explain why. We’ve been here for five days now, and we’ve been drinking tap water constantly. We both feel fine for now, so we assume we’re probably going to die a slow lingering death. If so we decide it might be better to live in ignorance for whatever time we’ve got left and opt against asking too many more questions. We hope the day will improve from here.

The bus takes us past Valencia’s iconic City of Arts and Sciences, which Joaquin tells us was first conceived in the late 1990s in an attempt to attract more tourists. He tells us it includes the world’s tallest opera house. He then adds that it’s not the biggest opera house, that’s “in Sydney, in Austria…. wait no in Australia …. the place where the kangaroos are”. The whole precinct looks spectacular. It’s apparently been a raging success, and is estimated to bring more than a hundred million Euro additional income to Valencia every year. We make a note to be sure to pay it a visit.

The Caves are near the town of La Vall d’Uixo in the coastal foothills, and are apparently notable for having the longest navigable underground river in Europe. We’re told that we’ll be going on an 800 metre boat ride interspersed by a 200 metre walk, the latter through an abandoned course of the river. It is indeed spectacular, with all the usual offerings of stalactites and stalagmites, plus some features known as chimneys - limestone formations which have developed as water’s seeped through large cracks from the surface more than a hundred metres above us. Parts of the river used to flow through the cave in siphons, so they’ve had to blast out three sections so that the boats can get through. We’re told it’s only about sixty centimetres deep in the shallowest section, so the boats don’t have keels, which makes getting in and out of one without the whole thing tipping over a slightly interesting exercise. We’re told the river’s over ten metres deep in parts.

We’re told that we’re not allowed to take pictures for most of the ride “for our own safety”. It seems they did let people do that at one stage and it was “a disaster”. The cave’s very narrow and low in sections, and we’re warned to keep looking ahead at all times so we can see the rocks coming and know exactly when to duck. Our boatman doesn’t speak any English. He’s constantly barking warnings about ducking and weaving to avoid us smashing our heads open, or I assume that’s what he’s saying. The boat seems to be going quite fast, so by the time Joaquin’s translated the warnings the danger‘s usually past. In the days when photography was allowed most of the photographers were apparently more interested in looking at their screens than minding their heads. We’re not told how many deaths or cases of concussion they had then, but I suspect the local ambulance brigade would have known the road up here quite well. And it seems that getting bashed to death by rocks isn’t the only thing we need to worry about. We scrape the bottom hard at one stage and Joaquin tells us that we’re now in the Titanic and should expect to sink very shortly.

On the bus on the way back Joaquin tells us a bit more about the history of Valencia. He says that the Holy Grail, the actual cup that Jesus drank from at the Last Supper, is on display in the Valencia Cathedral. He tells us there are three other Cathedrals scattered around the world that also think they’ve got the Grail, but he assures us that their claims are all false; the real one is here in Valencia. He goes on to tell us a long complex drawn out story about the process the Valencians went through to validate their claim, which included getting linguistics experts to translate the inscription on the base of the cup, which was apparently a bit tricky because it was written in some ancient language that everyone has trouble even identifying. I’m not quite sure how you can translate something if you’re not even sure what language it’s in, but maybe that’s what linguistic experts do if they’ve got nothing else on. Joaquin is now building to the climax. What did they come up with? There's a long pause….. and then ”Made in China”. Groan. No apparently they really came up with “Jesus is Saviour”, or something like that.

We have a long siesta and then head out for a late afternoon walking tour of the city centre, to be followed by wine tasting and tapas. Our guide introduces herself as Paula. She takes us past buildings and through squares we’ve seen already, before stopping in front of what was apparently for a long time recognised as the world’s narrowest building. It’s about the width of a single doorway, and about five storeys high. I wonder how you get off the ground floor; there’s not nearly enough room for a set of stairs. Ladders perhaps, but you wouldn’t want to be trying to move any large furniture, well not that you could anyway, it wouldn’t fit though the front door. Apparently it lost its title when they eventually got around to knocking some holes in the walls so that it’s now part of the building next door.

We’re taken down a long narrow alleyway and through a fancy doorway and emerge into a large church. They’ve kept that well hidden. I hope the congregation knows it’s there. It’s the thirteenth century Church of Saint Nicholas and Saint Peter, and we’re told it’s particularly notable for the frescoes on its walls and ceiling. They are indeed spectacular, and have apparently only been restored to their former glory relatively recently.

Paula tells us again about the amazing engineering feat of diverting the entire Turia River after a series of devastating floods. The straw that broke the camel’s back was the 1957 event which killed somewhere around 400 people and flooded the entire city. The diversion left the city with a very wide and completely empty river bed to work out what to do with. Some at City Hall wanted to turn it into a freeway, but most of the population was horrified by that idea, so they ended up going with the popular solution of a ten kilometre or so long strip of parkland, with bike paths, playgrounds, picnic areas, etc. Paula tells us that her parents used to take her there all the time when she was a little girl. This led her to believe that all river beds were like this, so she apparently got very confused when they took her to another city where the riverbed had actual water in it.

So it’s off to wine tasting and tapas. Conversation is a bit slow to start with but once the group gets going there’s no stooping us. There‘s fitter and turner ex-Navy Irishman Ian from Cork. He spends his leisure time on the world’s Brazilian Ju Jitsu (what??) circuit. He explains that this is normal ju jitsu, but the Brazilians have added a few niceties such as being able to break your opponents fingers or strangle them with their own clothing. He shows me a video. I’m surprised he’s still alive. He tells me that he’s been to Australia and spent fifteen days driving down the coast from Cairns to Sydney. He says he even saw a crocodile, which doesn’t sound all that remarkable until h Turia River after a series of devastating floods. The straw that broke the camel’s back was the 1957 event that killed somewhere around 400 people and flooded the entire city. The diversion left the city with a very wide and completely empty river bed to work out what to do with. Some at City Hall wanted to turn it into a freeway, but most of the population was horrified by that idea, so they ended up going with the popular solution of a ten kilometre or so long strip of parkland, with bike paths, playgrounds, picnic areas, etc. Paula tells us that her parents used to take her there all the time when she was a little girl. This led her to believe that all river beds were like this, so she apparently got very confused when they took her to another city where the riverbed had actual water in it.

So it’s off to wine tasting and tapas. Conversation is a bit slow to start with but once the group gets going there’s no stooping us. There‘s fitter and turner ex-Navy Irishman Ian from Cork. He spends his leisure time on the world’s Brazilian Ju Jitsu (what??) circuit. He explains that this is normal ju jitsu, but the Brazilians have added a few niceties such as being able to break your opponents fingers or strangle them with their own clothing. He shows me a video. I’m surprised he’s still alive. He tells me that he’s been to Australia and spent fifteen days driving down the coast from Cairns to Sydney. He says he even saw a crocodile, which doesn’t sound all that remarkable until he adds that it was in someone’s backyard swimming pool.

Then there’s the Korean honeymoon couple. It seems they’re taking the sort of honeymoon you take when the boss will only give you a week off, but you want to travel to the other side of the world and visit eight different widely spaced cities. It sounds like they’re spending most nights sleeping on buses between destinations. I’m not sure that’s sounding overly romantic, but they do seem to be holding hands a lot - so maybe this is only day one.

Then there’s the Cahill family from Sydney, Dad Tony, Mum Joanne, and their two daughters Zoe and Ashleigh. Ashleigh‘s a professional dancer who lives in Madrid with her Italian Peruvian boyfriend (apparently half of Italy escaped to Peru at some stage to get away from Mussolini). The family’s on a “meet the boyfriend” expedition, and the boyfriend is now apparently terrified.

And then there’s Miranda from California, who looks about twenty five but tells us she has two teenage children - I think people must age differently in California. She’s climbed sixteen thousand foot mountains in the Andes requiring the use of ice axes, and is here with her sister who is in turn here with her son who’s here for school.

Anyway, we’re evicted from the tapas venue when we were just warming up, so we all reconvene at a pub where we get stuck into the local rocket fuel, a concoction known as Valencia Agua. As often seems to happen when you over-imbibe with people who you didn’t know from a bar of soap a few hours ago, the farewells get tearful, with lots of aggressive hugging and kissing and exchanges of contact details. Tonight’s been a real highlight, but we’ve got an early start tomorrow morning and I’m not at all sure how we’re going to feel then…..

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