The day from hell

From Tarifa to Seville

I'm up early the next morning to check out and catch the first bus to any city that will get me to Faro by the time my flight leaves on Wednesday.

Turns out, the bus station doesn't even open until 11a (which I find out later is actually a pretty early start time in this town. I don't see a soul emerge until at least 10am. There's no reason to get up early in Tarifa because the wind doesn't pick up until the afternoon. This town is on a whole different schedule.)
So I decide to park it down on the beach and take a nap. There's no one down there!

From Tarifa to Seville

From Tarifa to Seville

From Tarifa to Seville

From Tarifa to Seville

I'm excited because I finally get the change to put my toes in at the meeting point of the Atlantic and the Mediterranean.

More nerdy green stuff--recycling on the beach. C'mon America! get your act together.

From Tarifa to Seville

There really is no one out here, save a few dogs and some joggers. It's 10am.

From Tarifa to Seville

From Tarifa to Seville

From Tarifa to Seville

From Tarifa to Seville

A quick nap, some ocean-side yoga, and I head back to the bus station. I wanted to go to Huelva because it's along the coast in the direction of Portugal. But they tell me the only way to get to Portugal is to go through Seville, so I reluctantly purchase a ticket that will take me 4 hours out of the way and pray I make it there before the last bus to Faro.

From Tarifa to Seville

A few kite surfers are finally out by the time my bus leaves at 1pm.

It's a long bus ride and now I'm desperate to just go home. I got a text message from my mom the day before saying that my grandmother had had a stroke. It was all cryptic (in the way text messages are) 'stroke. motor function, ok. no speech yet.' After some frantic texting to my mom and relative I can think of who might be text saavy, I find out the stroke was minor, she's talking a little, and the signs all look good. It doesn't help that she's just had surgery a few weeks before, then promptly fell down some stairs and broke her leg. Things come in threes and I'm just praying that this was number three and she'll be all better before my cousin's wedding in 3 days. Still, I just really want to go home.

When I arrive in Seville, I find out there are two bus stations and I've got to get to the other one across town if I want to catch a bus to Faro. I hop on the local bus and arrive 4 minutes after the last departure to Faro.

So now I'm stuck in Seville, but it's not all bad news. Two Aussies that I'd hung out with in Granada, who were there taking flamenco at my school, are in Seville for a few weeks checking out the big flamenco festival that's going on. And lucky for me, I text Christine in Granada and she digs up their phone number!

They text me back saying it's no problem, I can crash at their apartment for the night. They're at a flamenco show until 8, but then we can meet up at their apartment, and do I mind if they cook up something vegetarian for dinner? Well, they couldn't have given me a better offer, save hiring a private jet to fly me back to the states. So I gratefully accept. There's a midnight bus from Seville to Faro, but now that I'm here, I figure I'll check out the city and leave first thing tomorrow morning.

It takes a couple tries, and all the change I've got, but I finally get my backpack stored in a locker at the bus station and wander around the city until I can meet up with them at 8p.

I find a mall and take a nap in one of those massage chairs you feed quarters into.

From Tarifa to Seville

This poor guys job is to ride around on a tandem bike with an advertisement flying overhead. Eco-friendly, but I can't say I'd want his job.

From Tarifa to Seville

Later in the evening. Halfway through a series of text messages back and forth, I'm one text message away from getting the address to their apartment and my Spanish phone card runs out of money! I'm only is Spain for another 14 hours so it doesn't make sense to buy another card because they only come in multiples of 20 Euros, which is a lot to pay for just one text message. So I switch out the SIM card for my US number and try texting from there. By now, the girls have gone into the flamenco show so I'm hoping the message went through and they'll get back to me at intermission. 7:00p. 7:30p. 8:00p. 8:30p. Still no message. And now, between the frantic volume of messages I've sent relatives in the last 24 hours trying to find out about my grandmother, and the decently sized handful of messages I've been sending trying to get through to my Aussie friends, the battery on my phone is dying. By 9:00p, it's all but gone.

I give up. I have no way of getting in touch with them. I'd use a pay phone but her phone is an Australian phone and she can't receive phone calls on it, only text messages. Still, no worries. It's been a long day, but I can still catch that midnight bus and I'll be in Faro tomorrow morning.

So I head back to this cute little restaurant I saw earlier that serves 'bio' food, which is the European equivalent to organic. I sit alone in the restaurant, doodle in my little notebook and order a vegan caprese salad that comes with tofu instead of mozarella. It's delicious with a small glass of freshly made, organic juice.

From Tarifa to Seville

I try out what's left of my Spanish on the waiter. A simple exchange, but still I'm proud of myself for remembering the difference between 'soy' and 'estoy' when he asks where I'm from. I pay the 'cuenta' and head back to the train station.

It's 10:00p, so I go get my luggage out of the locker. I've still got two hours to kill before the bus leaves. Then I figure I might as well go pay for the ticket.

Sold out. Yep, that bus is full and the next one leaves at 6am the next morning.

I've purchased plenty of bus tickets in the last few weeks and I've never been on one that's sold out and I always buy my tickets a couple hours, but most often, a mere 15 minutes before departure.

So now, it's late. And 11pm or 3am, a bus station in a major city is really not a place you want to be. So I gingerly step around the bums setting up their cardboard mattresses for the night and hail a cab. I've located a hostel in my handy Lonely Planet guide that looks close by and cheap. It's on the map, I've got the address and a phone number, no problem. But the taxi driver has never heard of it and to be honest, even when I show him where it is on the map, I don't think he believes that it exists. How could I possibly want to spend the night in a hotel he's never heard of? After consulting all his taxi driver friends, he determines it's in a part of town that he can't drive to. But he can take me to the next street over and I'll have to walk up the alley. "Ok, bueno," I say. "Just get me the hell outta here."

In the taxi, the driver asks me why I can't just pick a hotel he can drive to. I tell him I need a hotel that isn't too 'caro' - expensive. He asks how much is expensive? "Veinte Euros," I say. He's shocked! Can't believe there's anything in this city for 20 euros, but I tell him the price listed in my book is 18 euros a night. He thinks I'm out of my mind.

So he drops me off, I over pay him and he catch him looking at me with great pity as I walk down the pedestrian street towards the hostel.

It's close to midnight, my bag is digging into my shoulders, I've standing on the corner of Calle Something and Calle Something Else, right where the map tells me this hostel is. I've already asked two students (who don't even know if there might be ANY hostels in this whole area) and two very kind older gentleman who've walked half way around this neighborhood with me to point me in the right direction (thank god Spanish people are night owls) and I'm standing there with my 2007 Lonely Planet guide, looking at the address and double checking that I've got the right one...yep. This is the place. Hostel Something Or Other, and it's gone. Skipped town. Closed up shop. Not even a goodbye note thanking its trusty customers for all their loyal years of patronage. Well, shit. Now what? There's gotta be a hotel around here somewhere!

Maybe I can get back out to the main road, hail a cab and just say, take me to a hotel! Any hotel! I don't care that it's your cousin's place who's gonna over charge me for a room, then give you a fat commission for bringing me there. I just want a bed and I definitely don't want to spend the night on the street. This is ridiculous. I've got a credit card, I'll pay anything, just get me outta here.

So, things are looking pretty bleak, but there's a light at the end of the tunnel. Maybe not exactly, but, down a little side street, there's a soft, rectangular glow that can only indicate an open door. And lucky for me, there's a sign that says "HOTEL". Perfect. I don't care if it's $200 a night. I'm staying. 'Sol y Luna,' great name for a hotel, sounds good to me.

There's a gate so I ring the bell. I must look like a mess. I'm a tired, dirty (and yes, somewhat terrified) backpacker, desperately ringing the doorbell to this random hotel in the middle of the night. I'm expecting a grumpy old man whom I've just rustled out of bed but instead it's a quintessential Spanish angel. Short, dark hair, olive complexion. Her face is friendly and warm, hair a bit disheveled, but I'm in need of rescuing so she'll have to do.

I ask in my best Spanish if she has a room for the night. One, she says. There's one. On impulse I ask how much, not that it matters. 45 Euros but the bathroom is shared. No problem.

She opens the gate and I immediately feel a sense of relief. The kind of relief that's usually followed by a double-inhale gasping sob that consumes you and makes you cry uncontrollably until snot runs down your face and tears are forging canyons in your cheeks.

But I hold it together and follow her inside. She turns and shuts off the porch light, shuts the outside gate, the big double doors, shuts off the light in the lobby and ushers me upstairs. *sigh* Just in time!

It's clear the hotel was once a mansion that's splendor had been compartmentalized to accommodate tourists, and where social, bourgeois royalty once flirted, hiccuped and retired. My angel shows me the quaint little room, it even has a balcony, and it's all mine. I can put down my bag, lock the door and sleep.

She tells me check out is at 10a. It doesn't matter, I tell her, I have to leave at 5:30a. My bus leaves at 6:45a. I ask her if she has a phone number I can call in the morning to get a taxi. She says she'll go check.

She knows my Spanish is rusty at best, but refrains from speaking English to me. She slips up once and says something in my native tongue, then excuses herself for speaking a language I clearly don't understand. Funny. She knows I don't speak Spanish well, but she doesn't think I'm American either. Or English speaking at all for that matter. I don't correct her. At 1am, disheveled and completely spent, I'm finally starting to look European (or at least un-American, which is harder than you think.)

As soon as she disappears behind a door at the end of the hall, I hear yelling that could scare the fur off a cat. She's pissed. And not at me but at that lazy, good for nothing, 'what the hell is your problem,' husband of hers. I can't make out everything she's screaming but I'm pretty sure most of it is the kind of Spanish they don't teach you in school. The husband yells a few things back, but from the sound of his voice, he's already destined for the couch, and he might even be packing his bags.

This is too much. I'm really trying to hold it together but I really just want to crawl into a hole and die. Was my late night doorbell-ringing the straw that broke the camels back? She returns to the marble-topped little side table that's been pulled away from the wall to look like a reception desk, still looking angelic but her hair a bit more out of place than before. (The screaming must have started before I arrived, that explains the bedraggled hair-do from before.) But she's got a big smile on her face that says, 'yes, I know you just heard me curse like a sailor and scream like a banshee, but you see, my husband really is a big douche bag and he deserved every word, but now you've got my full and undivided attention, you poor thing. Go get a good nights sleep, things will look better in the morning.'

She tells me she's called a cab, it will pick me up at 5:30a but I'll have to walk out to the main road so I should walk out the door a few minutes before. (My Spanish is still holding up quite nicely under the weight of all this.) Then she tells me that the reception (she) won't be open (awake) until 10a so I'll have to let myself out. Then she proceeds to explain a complicated series of buttons, switches and door handles to get me back out through the labyrinth of doors from whence I came.

At this point my Spanish is deteriorating fast and it's all I can do to muster a sincere, "Vale, vale. Gracias," before she smiles at me and storms back into her room. I'm making a beeline for mine and I've barely got the door shut before her door slams behind her and her voice explodes into another torrent of cursing and rage, that my own body explodes into a squealing eruption of sobs, heaves and giant, elephant sized tears.

I sit this one out. It's just too much. So I watch myself slide down the door frame and ooze into a convulsing heap on the floor, inhaling twice for every moaning sob. It sounds overly dramatic, but I haven't cried in a while so it just consumes me.

I don't know how much time goes by, but I pull myself back together and mechanically arrange some soap and shampoo, even remembering my toothbrush and a towel as I head to the bathroom to wash off the day and calm myself down.

The shower is warm, and when I emerge, I start to notice the sweet little victorian details, moldings and marble. I quietly retire to my room. The screaming down the hall has subsided. I turn on my computer just to stare at the screen and zone out for a moment. It doesn't really work. There's no internet, I'm too tired to watch anything I have saved on there, but it's familiar and I'm homesick.

Curiosity draws me to the balcony. I stand out there for a moment. The air is still warm from the day, even though the sun set hours ago. I'm peering over the railing into the tiny streets and spot where I stood just moments before at the entrance to the hotel praying for a break.

I look up at the moon. Its full. 'Sol y Luna.' Days come and go. Full circle. The highs and lows of travel are just as opposite, as polarized as the sun and the moon. I know there's a metaphor in there somewhere, but I'm too tired to eek it out.

I thank my lucky stars that I'm safe in this little hotel room for the night and a Spanish angel answered my prayers. Only the Spanish can yell with such passion and moments later look at you with such compassion that you melt and fall all over yourself. They are a passionate people, the Spanish.

I head back inside, draw the curtains, and I'm asleep before my head hits the pillow.