After reading my daughter's blessing of the day, we left Deba on the seacoast and climbed 500 meters (I think that is nearly 1500 ft). The morning fog was thick and obscured the view of the sea. The climb was sheer agony for me. The Europeans who make the Camino are all sleek and fit and walk me into the ground. Me, near the summit, I was reduced to 4 or 5 steps forward then a pause to breathe and let the burn seep out of my leg muscles. I am slow and no matter what time Pete and I leave in the morning, by noon, everyone has passed us. Pete moves from shady spot to spot and patiently waits for me.
We walked nearly all day through thick pine forests, with occasional groves of eucalyptus. The smells are divine. It was shady and cool, but I soak my clothes with sweat to the point that I left a wet butt print on some church steps during our first break. We walk past farms and what look to be country vacation homes scattered in the woods. It looks very prosperous here. A Swiss couple traveling on our schedule told us that the Basque region was still very wealthy, while the rest of Spain was rapidly sinking.
The path down off the mountain into Merekina where we sleep in a Carmelite monastary tonight, was almost straight down a stream bed--rocky, muddy, very difficult. We did about 16 or 17 miles today, and by the end I was stumbling exhausted. We left Deba at 7:30 and get to the hostel at around 5:00.
I slumped into the bed (a room with 12 bunks) and slept until my own smell woke me up! I went down to the showers and had a real Lucille Ball moment. The hospitalitier had shown us the layout and explained the operation of the shower in perfect Basque. I was so exhausted, it didn't matter anyway. So down to the shower stall I trundle arms full of clothes to change into, towel, belly pack with phone, passport, money etc (it may be a Carmelite monastary, but we're not Carmelites) and toiletries. Now the shower rooms are just about 4 X 4 with hooks on the back wall for clothes and towel. There is no place for the clothes I peel off my stinking body, so I just put them on the floor in the corner. Now I turn to face the unfamiliar shower mechanism. There are two shower heads, one thing that is clearly a knob, and one thing that might be. So, says I in my college trained pea brain, "turn the knob." One of the heads explodes with a soaking downpour of cold water. I leap back away and turn the head towards the wall. I begin to turn the knob this way and that, but all I get is more or less cold water. So being the quick study I am, I turn that knob off and set sights on the other 'could be' knob. I slowly test turning it and nothing happens. I turn more, and I hear water moving. I really start cranking and a nice stream of warm, but not hot water begins to flow from the second shower head. I like a hotter shower so I turn more. Suddenly, the knob shoots across the shower room, followed by a spring, followed by a thick stream of fairly warm water. It soaks my dirty clothes. It splatters my clean cothes. I fumble for the spring and knob and attempt to put them back in place over the thick stream of water. You can well imagine how that went eh? After the fourth try, I got it over and using the side my fist, hammered it into place. Now, I grab my shampoo and begin the expected activities, and the hot water suddenly stops: a timed cycle. So, I need hot water, but I'm a little gun shy of the mechanism. With a naked body, limited command of Basque, and a head full of shampoo, my options are narrow. If I could manage to summon help, would I really want a basque man to come rushung to the scene of my indignity? I reach for the knob, start the flow of water and almost immediately am hit where no man wants to be hit with a knob, a spring, and a thick stream of warm water. Yikes. After controling my nausea, I go through the same procedure--mount the spring in the knob and try to get it back over the stream. This time I have success on only the second try and contine my shower. After fininshing the cleaning, I must wait for the timed cycle to stop. I am using up the old Carmelite water heaters last reserves and the water is cooling, but eventually stops. Now being the helpful fella that I am, I want to make sure I've tightened the knob fully in. Well then I found that the knob was really a push in valve that I needn't have turned in the first place. Wonderful, and all that information cost me was yet another cycle of now not warm at all water. You know that look Lucy would get on her face as the chocolates continue to pour off the line, imagine me naked . . . No please don't.place
No comments:
Post a Comment