Mr Bean’s Dotty Adventure

We’ve had a few misadventures in Dotty that have in retrospect made us chuckle; driving down one way streets cheerfully waving back at the people waving frantically to us; repeatedly passing the same bemused old men sat on their park bench as we endeavour to find the way out of a town that has only about 20 houses; free-wheeling down hills hoping to eke out just a few more kilometres to the next petrol station; providing Sunday evening entertainment as I push and Jo fails to jump start. However, today we had one such adventure that had Jo and I thinking that perhaps we were to be the stars of the latest Frank Spencer/Mr Bean comedy. It goes something like this:

Scene One:

It’s raining hard and continuously (and has been for three days). The camera pans across lush green jungle, interspersed with the jagged remains of burnt trees. We get a brief glimpse through the clouds, giving hints of the huge mountains and volcanos around us. Everywhere there are torrents of water, tumbling and cascading down.

Along the road we see a white speck which gradually we discern to be a small van gaily decorated with the images of rock stars in sharp contrast to the grey skies around. It appears to be progressing more by leaping from pothole to pothole and the camera focusses on its bedraggled unshaven driver grimly fighting the wheel to stay on the least bumpy sections of road. Somehow we get the distinct impression that he has not washed properly for several days and that the only things more smelly than him are his clothes. He turns to mutter a few indecipherable words to his passenger, a woman who appears to have run backwards through a very wet hedge. She’s hanging on white-knuckled and her only response to her drivers comments is to look over her shoulder and shout loudly (and equally indecipherably given the clattering of the van over crater sized potholes) at what must be two urchins that this couple have rescued from some third world poverty. It’s hard to tell whether there’s more mud and water outside or inside the van.

Outside the van, we see that the couple have come to yet another of the stretches of road with work taking place on it. The van passes a couple of orange jacketed workmen  before slowing as it approaches a very muddy cross-roads with two large lorries approaching from the left.

Matt: They must be building something big here, there’s loads of work going on.

Jo: I just wish it would stop raining, the road’s getting muddier.

Matt: You know if this was at home they’d finish the road before building. These holes are getting bigger and bigger.

Jo: I think the road must run across the site here, there’s no other way to go and as usual we haven’t seen a sign since we left town and that was an hour ago.

Matt: You must be right – look there’s a man with a stop-go sign directing traffic.

As the camera pans forward,  an official looking man in an orange jacket, hard hat and stop sign steps into the road and the lorries pass. With not a moment’s hesitation and with the same officious air, he turns to the van and waves them on with his green go sign.

Matt: See, must be right, I’ll just follow these lorries.

The convoy passes a workers shelter  and out steps yet another orange jacketed workman. He glances up at the first then the second lorry and does a double-take and drops his coffee mug as the little, sometime white van follows with grimy children hanging out of rear windows waving.

The van disappears as the road descends steeply. We rejoin the action at the bottom of what can only be described as a muddy trench. In front of the van lies a pool-sized puddle that the smaller child would be happy to swim in.

Jo: Are you sure this is right?

Matt: Well the lorries are going this way and that man waved us on.

Jo leans forward and opens the glove compartment from where she produces some inflatable armbands which she hands to Will.

Jo: Right, Will put these on. Ellie get the shower gel out, we might as well wash as we pass through. It’ll be the first time in four days and we don’t know when we’ll next get the chance.

Will: Aww Mum, do I have to wash my face? That dog licked it yesterday!

As the van proceeds through the puddle, pushing a huge bow wave before it, we see Will leaning out the rear window wearing mask and snorkel. The radio can be heard playing ‘yellow submarine’. No sooner than they reach the distant shore, the two lorries stop. The driver in front lazily looks in his wing mirror and gazes back at the convoy behind him. He nearly chokes on his matte when he realises that the last vehicle is not a 20 ton excavation truck. As he reverses alongside the swinging bucket of the bright yellow digger, he wonders how much more mud that little van can carry. On his way back down the road, he stops next to the van, winds his window down and tells the occupants that they are going the wrong way (in rapid, gruff Spanish). The idiots just wave and grin back at him.

The scene cuts to the van, now with a roof rack load of thick brown mud scurrying back towards the puddle-lake. The windscreen wipers are working furiously to keep a small patch of window clear and through it we see the now even blacker faces of its occupants. In the back there is a small child, brown faced except for a white set of goggle imprints around his eyes.

Matt: ..but that man waved us through!

The van stops at the workmen’s hut and there is a brief conversation with the coffee drinking workman.

Jo: What did he say?

Matt: Not sure, but he pointed back to town and mentioned aeropuerto several times. We did pass one when we left town. In fact this road turned at the end of the runway. You know, I can just imagine us driving along that next!

Jo dissolves into fits of laughter at the thought of the little white van making its way past taxi-ing aircraft. The stop-go man once again waves the travellers through without a moments thought and we get the distinct impression that this is the village idiot on work experience.  As the camera fades, we are left with the sound of the two giggling at the thought of runways and the sight of the van bounding once again from pothole to pothole.  ….

Scene Two:

The little white van is speeding down a long tarmac strip. As it passes the control tower, a young girl with hair streaming behind is leaning out of the rear window waving.

Jo: Get back in Ellie before they notice us.

Matt: This must be the right way, I’m sure I saw some other car tracks and that looks like it may be another road at the far end. If only I could see clearly through this rain and mud.

Jo: Or perhaps if there had been any sort of sign..

In the control tower, there is a frantic burst of spanish from the controller, who almost chokes on his matte at the sight of the dirty white bus speeding along his runway. Through the mud, he reads the song lyrics written on it’s side. He turns to his assistant…

Controller: What does ‘Scuse me while I kiss the sky’ mean?