[continued from entry of November 4]
Juan Carlos turned on the heat, Jorge built a fine fire, a soireé took form in the small living room, the hour approaching 1 a.m. JC opened up the household liquor cabinet, began distributing glasses of hooch, insisted I had to try some kind of whiskey or scotch despite my 'no, gracias.' I took the glass foisted on me (recognizing the excellent intentions behind the foisting, and Juan Carlos is nothing if not a high-quality person -- generous, intelligent, good-natured), held onto it while everyone else sipped or hoovered their drinks, unobtrusively put it aside later.
Four of the group had squeezed together onto the sofa, Jorge and I sat in chairs. They talked and laughed, I enjoyed them but stayed mostly quiet. Tired. At some point, Tony began drifting off, shook himself awake, announced he was ready to hit the hay. I hopped on that bandwagon, got assigned a guestroom, slipped into bed soon after.
The heat, by that time, was cranking like it meant business, my teeny bedroom inching its way from 'bake' to 'broil.' I shut the radiator down, it turned out to be one of those that didn't know the meaning of the word 'off.' The bedcovers consisted of a sheer, lacy, nearly nonexistent sheet and a thick, spongy bedspread -- one not substantial enough, the other way too substantial. I think I reached a compromise, covered the bottom half of my bod with the spread, only used the sheet from the waist up (feeling like I'd just put on a negligeé). One does what one can.
Outside, the wind blew. After an hour or two of sleep, I got up to dump the ballast, saw that a light remained on in the living room, where Almudena had been assigned the sofabed. I heard coughs, the sound of a page turning.
Returned to bed, slept fitfully.
A strange thing about nights of less than optimal sleep: come morning, it takes me just as long to come to as on normal a.m.'s. Which is to say a while. Two, three hours, even with the benign assistance of caffeinated fluids. If I'm already awake or have only been skimming the surface of sleep, wake-up time should be proportionally shorter, shouldn't it? Doesn't seem to work that way. (Grumble, grumble.)
That particular morning, I shuffled into the kitchen around 10, found María and Almudena trying to get the water heater lit. I figured it was like the one in my flat, needed time to produce a stream of gas after being shut off for extended periods. They let me take over, I eventually got it up and running. Which meant hot water for a shower, something else that helps me with the morning return to something resembling a sentient life form.
Post-that, returned to the kitchen, found María, Almu, Tony, drinking café, eating sweet stuff, blabbering away like actual high-functioning humans. I poured a cuppa, sat down to sip it, look out the barred window at the autumn sky (clouds just beginning to allow sunlight through), listen to conversation. Juan Carlos showed shortly after, Jorge after that, people finished up, pulled on clothes, headed out to the cars for the day's first activity.
Driving along Spanish country roads, houses far and few between, though piles of cut timber waiting for transport to mills seemed surprisingly numerous. Me with Almudena and Jorge, beginning to approach something resembling normal consciousness, pulling out my camera now and then, aiming it at whatever caught my eye.
A brief stop at a local tourism office -- open on Sunday morning, an attractive 20-something woman behind the counter handing out great maps of local trekking possibilities -- then we took a dirt road up into hilly land, pulled over, got out of the cars to the sound of cowbells and high winds blowing through trees and brush. Followed a dirt road up a slope that led to broad expanses of land, panoramic views, the breeze at times approaching gale force, suggesting all one would need to do to take off would be extend arms and let go. The kind of conditions that clear my head, or at least induce a bracing illusion of clarity.
The cow poop in the middle of the track near the bottom of that last image? An omen. Cows roamed freely in this area, leaving poop piles of unnerving size and number, in my experience only surpassed by a truly surreal dog poop minefield along a stretch of sidewalk in Manhattan's upper east side ten or twelve years back. My mother's side of the family were upstate New York farmers, I never saw anything on their spreads that compared with the thoroughness of the cow leavings here. Like fecal carpet bombing in certain spots.
Tony and Juan Carlos disappeared together up a hillside (completely innocent, just walking/talking, nothing homoerotic about it), the rest of us continued along the path. Spectacular views, intense wind. Passed a family of Latinos out on a Sunday jaunt, looking to be an extended clan of South or Central American lineage. Passed a couple of hunters standing by a truck, rifles in hand, staring as we passed, returning a greeting with a curt head-nod. I found myself walking with Almudena not long after, her recounting a bit about a summer's-end trip to Senegal, one in which a ferry being out of service necessitated a long detour through 100 or so miles of back-country, along roads like the one we followed. Not exactly, I got the idea, the trip they'd been expecting.
A short time later we heard gunfire, not far away. Almu glanced around uncertainly, clearly not wild about our proximity to that kind of activity. Me neither, given how close by it sounded. We continued on, the loop we were on pointed us back in the direction of the car, we went with it. Reached the vehicle, called Tony/J.C., let them know we were heading to a nearby town. Mounted up, took off.
[to be continued]
Madrid, te quiero.
rws 7:39 AM [+]
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