Cadiz – Waking Up To An Australian Nightmare.

If you get a one euro pack of chorizo from a budget supermarket you’ll firstly marvel at how transparent it is and then at the sheer amount of water it will release if you give it a squeeze. Meaty, rainy windows if you will. After coming to the understanding that it’s more like a Safestyle product than a Bernard Matthews one, utilize its malleable properties and mould it into a fatty cricket ball. If eaten like this you will actively feel your insides dry out to a barren Gobi desert like state and you’ll have to stagger to the nearest heladeria to bring yourself out of this sodium chloride based stupor.

Throughout this interail trip around Spain I experienced a series of breathtaking highs and some spirit crushing lows. Cadiz – which is a city with not much else other than a few nice beaches and a couple of brightly coloured houses – provided a number of the latter.

At the same supermarket I purchased the meat from I was mistaken for a tramp. I was given a euro while eating a bag of shredded carrot in the Carrefour doorway. I kept the coin, it paid for another pack of chorizo.

Early one morning after having little sleep due to a noisy French snorer I went swimming in the shallows to wake myself up and something latched onto my calf. Panicked I swam quickly to the shore. Expecting to find a jellyfish I looked down to discover a used Always pad. In front of a packed beach I lost some of my dignity and some of my leg hairs as I tore it off. I limped back to my towel, freshly waxed by virtue of a menstruation buffer. In front of me was an old lady with desperately saggy breasts who was sobbing uncontrollably. I wondered if our two ordeals were connected, was it her sanitary towel?

This humiliation took place on the busy tourist beach. The other far prettier one, Playa de La Caleta with its English style promenade and pavilion which seemed to reach out and embrace the sea would also play venue to a disturbing tale. Two very old gay men had been stalking me for a couple of days. Everywhere I went they were there, popping up and attempting to start awkward conversations. One of them wore a wide brimmed hat similar to the one Quentin Crisp chose to wear in his final years. He once said his dream was to meet everyone in the world and by the time of his death he felt he’d just about done that. These lads only seem bothered about meeting me. I was travelling alone at this point and perhaps I appeared vulnerable and lost. I went for a swim and was perfectly happy breastroking, I saw something black up ahead but being as it was underwater it was too blurry to make out what it was. The dark creature submerged, lifted up it’s scuba mask and cried, ‘Hola, I see you!’ It was the Spanish Quentin.

As night drew in the tide would recede to reveal Roman ruins and rock pools teaming with fish and crabs. The pools were murky which made judging their depth tricky and I stepped in one and was immersed up to my waist, Vicar of Dibley style.

After escaping the clutches of the groomers and the hard to judge rock pools I picked up my clothes and ran back to the hostel. Outside the door was a transgender magician who was plucking a number of handkerchiefs from his wizard’s sleeve. He told his predominantly English speaking crowd to concentrate on the trick and not on the width of his shoulders.

Exhausted from the beach flee I decided to take a siesta. I laid with my head facing the open window and the cool breeze helped me to relax and I quickly dozed off. Not long into the sleep a passer by put their hands through the bars, grabbed my face, looked me dead in the eye and started screaming Torn by Natalie Imbruglia. It was terrifying in its delivery and as the song reached its emotional chorus he wanted me to feel his and Nat’s pain so he squeezed my head even harder. When it reached the instrumental part of the song he released me and walked off. There were no other open windows along the street for him to reach into. It was X factor meeting Hellraiser.

I felt clammy after the violent serenading and wanted a shower. I went into the communal bathroom and turned on the taps. What turned out to be a distressed Australian girl tried the door. Naturally due to me being in there it was locked. She tried the door five minutes later and her frustration was apparent, ‘Oi, there are others you know. I really need to go!’ ‘Well use one on another floor then.’ ‘But this one is allotted to our floor.’ ‘Well I had a shit in the 2nd level bog yesterday and I don’t think the hostel will be carrying out any rectal dustings to prove that the crap left a Mr. Gayton’s anus.’ I then heard the sound of feet quickly pattering away.

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