I took a boat across to Cadiz, sat on my rucksack, we pulled way out from the mainland port before setting our sights south on the bleached city. The water was a perfect blue and windsurfers panned around the bay to the right of me, a few heading further out to sea like us. After 40 minutes the boat reached the harbor and I dismounted in a state of subdued giddiness. Everyone I'd spoken seemed to have a fierce affection for Cadiz; 'the people there are mad, wind on both sides you see'. The oldest city in Europe held little evidence of its historical past, it hid deep under ground, whilst what lay atop was like a wild rabbit warren, only just contained by the sea.
Despite all the anticipation, my overriding feeling after arriving at the hostal was disappointment. I thought I was looking for something electric but I realise now it was actually as simple as needing to be hugged, to be grounded. I couldn't light the gas for the kettle and I was about to start crying when I felt a hand on my shoulder. 'Youre coming to the beach' Lichy told me. I crumpled with gratitude, collected myself enough to get my bikini on, and I was soon on Santa Maria beach hiting a ball with Thin Lizzy. That night I ate chicken wings on the terrace and met the spitting image of my brother, a German nursing student named Manuel who played the saxophone and had a smile that split his face in two. All would be well as long as I didnt think too much.
Manual left a few days later for Portugal. I'll always remember his mañana approach to life, except it wasn't said with a throaty growl a la San Miguel ad, rather 'manyanya'. That, and his ephusive consumption of porritos and bananas in equal measure.
Lichy was some sort of IT lecturer from Cordoba in Argentina. He showed me a text book he had written with a picture of himself on the back looking much more IT than he did then, in a singlet and wayfarers, parasol clamped under one arm. The 20 something year old had arrived in Cadiz with his brothers a few weeks before, realised it all rather suited him and decided to stay until he absolutely had to return. We both slept on saggy mattresses in the same dorm and every morning ached like we'd scaled K2. I was his 'English nurse' for the duration of my stay as he'd broken his toe playing football and I bandaged it affectionately beyond what was necessary. We'd have long semi-fantastical conversations about the health of the toe and wether it could be saved. Lichy was a cuddle monster just like me, and so solace was found.
Tito was a Galician giant who worked at the hostal. A beautiful dance floor diva, he felt every beat and break with the sincerest other-worldly expression on his face. He had an incredible capacity for making soul mates with travellers he couldn't speak to, simply through his sheer, all-inclusive enthusiasm for 'la playa'. He also managed to pull off one of the bravest hair dos I've ever seen; a grade 2 all over apart from the lower back of his head where a medley of dreads and silky soft stands hung down his back.
Thin Lizzy had been a history student in London and matched Tito's emphatic grinds with upbeat jitterbugging. She took me out running around the walls of Cadiz before we cycled to the west edge of the peninsula and watched the sun drop into the sea. I found Lizzy so bemusingly English against the backdrop of forgotten nationalities, everybody's origin was Casa Caracol, life before and after that didn't matter. It also digressed that she was the niece of the head of the Uk Buff branch and on the night she cooked everyone tagine I insisted she did her uncle proud with a demonstration of his quality product. The clumsy performance left everyone in mock awe, crying for an encore, the perfect desert.
I had stopped thinking too much and found a sort of restless peace; sleep, pancakes, smoke, beach, eat, drink, dance. We all laughed a lot, especially at night when the wind battered you from all sides and it was all you could do to keep warm. My earliest memories of Cadiz is of bottomless happiness actually, it's just that I got hurt towards the end and it makes it hard to remember just how good the good parts were.
Cadiz itself as a day tripper, had no particular wow factor. My first full day in the city I spent reunited with Levi and Kate and for the majority of our sightseeing time we stood giggling in front of a naughty vending machine (it contained, amongst other perverse objects, an inflatable duck with a disproportionately large oroific.....). 'Good luck spending three days here' said Levi as I left them at the station. I'd harrumphed obstinently under the impression that Laurie Lee had been very fond of Cadiz. It wasn't till later that I realised that I had got Cadiz confused with Sevilla, and in fact Laurie rendered the city a bleached, unpromising rock, second in awfulness only to Gibraltar.
No comments:
Post a Comment