Chapter 3

Cádiz. Underneath the dusty skin of the beautiful city, enchanting music pulses through its veins. There are eight kilometres of beach where, under the relentless afternoon sun, skin damage can be easily acquired. I recline in a hammock on the rooftop terrace of hostel Casa Caracol, the Snail’s Home. The faded charms of the travellers’ haven reflect those of its surroundings and the name very accurately refers to the pace of life you adopt when you come to stay. I have been enjoying my layabout existence here for longer than I dare to mention but I must be behaving myself as the management are making an exception by letting me stay for an extended period of time. Normally people aren’t allowed to become long term guests.

To my own surprise I’ve learned to sleep comfortably in a hammock and at the moment actually prefer it to a normal hostel bed. My neck and knees are starting to express their concerns about the nest-like conditions but I am still enjoying the fresh night air and the slightly adventurous feeling I get when opening my eyes to see a blue morning sky. As well as slowing down the inevitable slide into a financial disaster, a hammock provides a certain amount of privacy. Same can’t be said about the floor which I have also slept on, only to wake up at an ungodly hour to find a hairy manface staring at me from a distance slightly too short to be ignored.

Closely sharing one’s living space with thirty or forty people has taken some getting used to and at times, especially when woken up from a pleasant siesta slumber by some barely post-adolescent boys talking shit at an inappropriate volume in German, controlling oneself and refraining from hurling a torrent of abuse can  become a major effort. The perks still outrun the disadvantages; there is always someone around to have a chat (well, a drink) with and late night live music is often provided by some intrepid returning travellers. And there are plenty of trim, tanned, semi-naked male bodies to perv at.

It is interesting to observe the ebb and flow of the visiting characters, which keeps constantly changing the atmosphere of the hostel. For a few days it is infested by groups of Italian teenage princesses all simultaneously fussing over a boiling pan of pasta, then in the course of one night it morphs into a hippie camp and just when you’ve got used to the crusties, a bunch of quiet confused blonde Swedes comes through the door. The mood in the living area is different every morning when I go downstairs to have breakfast. I have figured out that it largely depends on how much gin and marijuana the staff members consumed the night before, how drunk the guests still are and what time the fiesta eventually finished.

Even at the best of times the conditions aren’t too hygienic and I’m fairly sure that to an outsider, despite my best efforts to scrub myself clean every day, I smell of guinea pigs and cattle feed. This state is not about to change in the immediate future either as I’m planning to go camping next week. Hurrah to failing deodorant and pesky free-range body hair!

Malaga. Two weeks ago the city didn’t want to let me to go and today, when I returned to gather the rest of my belongings, seemed like it didn’t want me to get any further than the front door of the bus station. I walked into a suffocating hot wall of the summer that had arrived while I was away and I was immediately grateful for the knowledge that I would be leaving again tomorrow. I am determined to make a slightly more stylish exit this time; I won’t leave the flat too late, nor will I take a “shortcut”, get hopelessly lost in the labyrinth of construction sites around the bus station, miss my bus and have to pay for another ticket. As well as sweating off about five kilos of water weight, flustered semi-panic often results to important lessons being learned. If you’re stupid enough to buy a bus ticket in advance, make sure you follow the route you memorised the day before when you went to purchase the damn thing.

I am no longer counting days. In the last two weeks that I have spent in Cádiz, where in the botanical gardens you can stumble into fibreglass dinosaurs, time has started to resemble a piece of melting chewing gum thoughtlessly spat onto sweltering hot pavement. It sticks to the seven mile boots that I’m wearing on my feet and expands, contracts and snaps while I, blindfolded, take my random leaps into the unknown while trying to figure out some kind of a direction to head towards. While falling haplessly in love with the smiling city I have been at times desperate for a breath with my head deep under water and then suddenly swept into safety of the shore by the gentle giant waves. I have been insecure and terrified, grasping around the outlines of a reality fabricated by my own imagination, felt a tap on my shoulder and been nudged towards daylight. Without the safety net that routine provides and the blinkers which normality harnesses you with, you are stripped bare and sensitive as everything is hugely magnified and extremely intense. It takes some time in any new situation to work out the size and the correct proportions of your own personality compared to those around you. Misjudgements need correcting frequently.

The city is a kindly brutal lover. Over two weeks of couchsurfing and living in a hammock on the rooftop of a hostel have left me battered, bitten, sleep-deprived and itchy. I’m starting to get used to the heat, and the constantly shared living space is honing my patience and social skills. The job hunt hasn’t yet resulted to anything concrete I have been hoping for but I do have a private class booked into my diary for Monday. My Spanish is coming along slowly but surely. My feet are still lost but I’m slowly starting to think I might find them one day.

Day 29, Málaga.  Soon I will travel back in time to Granada where I spent three days before arriving here. But for now, in Málaga we are.

Parts of the city have had a facelift in the last couple of years and in the very centre, in the immediate surroundings of Plaza de Constitución, the results make it an attractive and pleasant area to wander around in. They’ve done a lovely job buffing up the pretty faces of the old buildings. They’ve laid marble down on the pedestrian streets and somehow squeezed in a good amount of expensive shops without making it feel too tacky or, weird enough, overly commercial. Can’t believe I just said that. I guess I find some comfort in the familiar European feel of it as I’m struggling to get used to the South. Also, it still feels very local. In the vicinity of the one-armed cathedral there are more tourist shops than people who would want to visit them. In other parts of the historical centre, the necessary work still continues to restore the facades and it’s hard to see the history for the tarpaulins and scaffoldings.  That is, if you manage to look up without falling into one of the many gaping excavations which are left unfenced and wide open for the general public to stroll into while the workmen are repairing the streets. Coming from a nanny state I love the fact that the people here are not only allowed, but actually expected to use some common sense.

Once outside the oldest part of the town, the contrast will unexpectedly slap you across the chops. The rest of the town is a hasty collection of the ugliest architecture of every decade of the last century. Aiming towards the sea you’ll arrive at what could have been, or should be a pleasant beach front promenade. Instead of that, you’ll find yourself in a tangle of dual carriageways and a massive roundabout lined with high-rise blocks and garish shop fronts offering cheap goods which are imported into the monstrous dock nearby.

Apparently in Murcia there is a village so ugly that the locals say not even dust wants to settle there. I found out where the dust has decided to settle instead. On Malaga beach. Along with cigarette butts, drinks cans, plastic bags, bottles and containers, condoms, food waste and piles of other garbage of unidentifiable origin that the freezing waves carry in from the sea. I suppose if they attempted to clean up the mess using whatever the normal beach cleaning machinery may be, the beach itself would fly away with the hot wind. So they just leave it. As they seem to do in the surrounding areas as well. The otherwise attractive paths around Alcazaba, the ancient Roman palace, are strewn with broken glass, litter and stick-thin kittens and the pavements are streaked with dog shit. On Plaza Merced the heroin addicts stoop on the benches in front of the sad forgotten corpse of an old movie theatre.

Once you get past the uncharming filthy exterior and restrain yourself from going out too early (1am should be sufficient), you will find hordes of the edgy southern people fuelled by sweet local wine, enjoying themselves in the countless bars until the sunrise around 6.30am. Spirits are especially high when Spain wins a football match. Last night I was one with the crowds cheering for our heroes, most of the time even at the correct moment.

Level of Spanish: disgraceful. The accent is impenetrable and I get disheartened very quickly. English takes a lot of head space as I’ve finally started applying for work. Another course is needed to switch the poor frazzled brain into the correct mode. Going outside might help, too. I have a common language with my new friend though. Like me, she is called Rubia. Unlike me, she is very very small and ugly as sin, has four legs and a waggy tail. Unfortunately she is rather neglected and spends most of her time bored and lonely on the balcony next door. Fortunately, the balconies have a minidog-sized hole which she crawls through several times a day and we keep each other company while I struggle with my applications. I finally have some of the canine company I’ve been longing for since Bilbao.

Quizás nosotros también podamos aprovechar una migración de pájaros silvestres para evadirnos.

(The Murcia quote was kindly provided by Pauline Loriggio. Thank you.)

Day 21, Córdoba. On Saturday I travelled 924 kilometres into a new unfamiliar world. The train took me through cloudy mountain tops and my old reliable travelling companion, the monstrous hangover, kept me good company for the best part of the journey. The landscape flattened but the clouds didn’t part until I got to down to Andalucía. I am spending a short while in a town which, sheltering from the heat,  looks in on itself and doesn’t easily reveal its secrets to a stranger. Looking the outside the houses of the old Jewish quarter appear impenetrable but if you´re lucky enough to be invited inside, you will find not only amazingly intoxicating wine but also intricately tiled beautiful patios, or inner courtyards, with a large orange tree in the middle, creating a natural shade against the elements. Which do get rather harsh here. They call it the frying pan of Spain for a reason. My Nordic physique isn´t used to it yet, so after some quick morning ventures outside, I have been spending the middle part of the day semi-horizontally positioned on the roof terrace of my hostel, semi-conscious, chatting with other travellers and drinking copious amounts of water and tea made from freshly picked mint while watching the heat rise from the rooftops. I have no idea what the Andalucians are like.

After several years of spending the majority of my time living and socialising mainly with men, I have been finding the recent couple of weeks of continuous female company interesting, even challenging. Sharing a flat with the firecracker of a lady in San Sebastian, and talking about very personal subjects with a stranger until the early hours of the morning was enlightening, safe and comfortable. Going to an incredible tacky Latin dance lesson and afterwards getting drunk with four other women was a new and an enjoyable experience. Sitting on the beach watching the sunset with this grown-up group of strong individuals, I realised that I had been missing that kind of contact. After coming to Córdoba and sleeping in the same room with four other females, while booking my accommodation for the next city, I made a firm decision to pay that little bit more to have my privacy back again. The communal salad we made was random and interesting and so were the experiences we shared. And surely I will have to the dorm thing again but for now, while I’m still quite far away from hitting the overdraft, I want to sleep when I want to sleep and most importantly, on my own.

Level of Spanish: revision and practice are in high demand. Once I separate myself from the English-speaking travellers, I plan to put into action what I’ve learned in these three weeks. Getting used to the accent in this part of the country will also take some time.  The northern sound became familiar and after a quick poll outside a bar on my last night in San Sebastian, I can state as a fact that 66 percent of Basque men think that slugs have tongues. Small ones, but tongues nevertheless.

Day 14, San Sebastian.  Level of Spanish: A rollercoaster of a week has made me a little more aware of the mysteries of the language but, as the case tends to be with many other things in life, the more I learn the less I know. The school is not delivering what it promised me and I’m spending most of my free time either asleep or drinking beer on the beach, speaking English. In this town it is a waste of time to go out and try to mix with the locals. People live their lives within their own sections of the layercake, existing together in the polished baker’s window display but carefully avoiding blending in with the levels up and below. The barstaff greet us, and explain their offerings, in English.

Up to my room I can hear the cheerful chatter from the bars lining the streets six floors down. The last half hour of the day that doesn’t seem to be a day at all, it appears that Monday is just a stopgap for people to prepare themselves for the week ahead. The women’s laughter, the children’s yelps and the steady conversation of the men are spun into a gently pulsing backround noise while I wind in the net to inspect the results of the last week’s trawl. Most of it is squirming bycatch I wouldn’t feed to my worst enemy’s cat but there are some accidental gems to be appreciated.

I returned to Bilbao for the weekend to feel at home again. I sat on the streets, listened to the haunting rhythms and drank with the beautiful, dangerous people in the midst of their indefinite sadness and impenetrable barriers and smiled at life I couldn’t even begin to understand. I stumbled upon their sharp edges and suffered some minor scratches. I felt at home, wrapped myself in the mutual Northern stubbornness. The gardener had got lost deep in his own maze and could no longer tell reflection from reality, not seeing the fragments of his own beautiful mind slowly floating to the ground amongst the ash. Out of the four languages, none could patch up the hole it burned on its way down.

I cherish the newly familiar words and the ones to be discovered. 

It is time to start looking forward to another place to be called home.

Day 7, San Sebastian. A comfortable room in a quirky flat owned by an eccentric Spanish lady in her late 30s. I will call this sweet little place my home for the next two weeks. The door opens to a roof terrace, the fridge is full of food and beer I bought from Lidl earlier, I have a full packet of Golden Virginia  and unlimited free Internet access. The top of the nearby hill is covered by cloud.

Level of Spanish: I have no more confidence than I did yesterday but some things are starting to stick. I began my course today and after the inicial level test and two hours in an elementary group, I was promptly taken to one side by the director of studies and bumped up to intermediate. Which I am not, but I will enjoy the hard work. 

I can see a routine forming already: lessons in the morning, back to the flat around 1.30, have lunch, sleep through siesta time. Write and study in the evening. Couple of beers on the balcony, walk on the beach, dinner at home, early nights and not much money spent. If I want my breath taken away I can wander up the road to the windy beach and look at the surfers straddling the crashing waves, the sound of which I can also hear as the last thing before I fall asleep at night. If I want to wallow in depression, listen to drunken tourists babbling in English, offload a lot of money and be bored off my tits, I can go to the Parte Vieja. The majority of people claim it’s lovely and beautiful but I came here from Bilbao. Sorry. I miss the hippies. Not one bar drew me in last night and instead I over-indulged on cheap wine and pintxos at a cultural fiesta they had on the Plaza. Me and hundreds of pensioners. Then again, it’s much better not to have the temptation on my doorstep as during these two weeks I will be milking the Spanish language school cow in order to become a little more communicative. This will obviously result to no museums seen or no history learnt but I’m thoroughly enjoying the choice of doing sod all if I feel like it. The time for a panicky job hunt and forced socialising will surely come. 

Bilbao welcomed me into its open arms and held me close. I tore myself away as the receding wave of the hangover started revealing the damage of a 14-hour Basque bender. They call it ‘gaupasa’ for a reason. I had sand in my shoes, toast in my belly and a new book in my bag while I tried to remain calm and Nordic, or just simply live, as the bus snaked its way towards a new town. The mountains resembled gigantic green cats bundled together and curled up to sleep and being gently stroked by massive rags of cotton wool.

The unexpected self-discoveries keep pushing me to the brink of tears on regular basis. I have been given a gentle shove to dust off the things I find in the depths of the cupboards at the back of the attic. I was given a cloth to polish them and encouraged to put them back on my shelves and to learn to look at them again. And then to bin the whole bloody lot and watch the future being reborn.

I’m slowly learning the value of stopping the hasty gallop, to breath for a while.