Fear of the Dark

We tend to wake up between 0730h and 0800h. I´m a 0800/0805h sort of guy, but to pull my weight, I've dragged myself up a few minutes earlier to do the morning cycle for milk. Exercise in the morning is a first for me.

By half-Ten, Steve and I are parting ways, with eachother and with Chris. Steve is off to Buenos Aires, but already with plans for the mountains of Peru. Likewise, Chris is plotting some Uruguayan adventure. I don´t know what I'm doing, but it's only a case of looking at a map. I'll think do tonight here in Piria'. I don´t much like the idea of travelling "rest days", but this one is necessary to take care of this blog and, more importantly, to clean my skull.

I've checked into the local hostel. I think it's just me and the girl at the front desk. The building is one level, made up of long corridors, with small rooms on either side. The corridors run around and between two rectangular courtyards. It´s pretty big, I estimate around a hundred, maybe a hundred-and-twenty rooms. My guesses are that it´s an old prison or hospital.

After some research around cleaning bones, I spent the afternoon wandering around town, with my increasingly passable Spanish - choice phrases, at least - looking for Hydrogen Peroxide. It's a short-lived wander. After a stop back at the hostel, I resume the search with my new choice phrase, now I'm looking for "Peroxido de Hidrogeno". Soon after, my handsome skull is enjoying a nice long bath.

After a coffee and watching the sun set behind waves tumbling and crashing on the beach, I walk down to the supermarket for a cheap dinner. Somewhere en route, I'm window shopping for tourist crap when all of a sudden, the shop's lights go out. Something feels wrong. Looking up the road, looking down the road, then looking upwards, it seems we're down to starlight only - and it's a pretty cloudy evening. The supermarket is in darkness, broken by searching torch lights. Out front, there´s a brick shed where a guy is trying to start the backup generator. He gives up after ten minutes. I too give up and start on my way back to the hostel. I'm pleased to find a block or two with power, so I score a sandwich and continue back to the hostel under street lights. I'm relieved to find a working street light even next to my hostel. But, at the front door of the hostel, it´s obvious that both my luck and the power stopped back at that last light.

The front desk is deserted, but lit by candles. A path around the corner to my room is also lit by a path of candles. The candles stop at my door. I'm reckoning that it´s safe to say I am very much alone in the dark in this ex-prison or hospital. Hijo de puta. The candles outside my door don't offer enough light to reach the end of the long, narrow, windowless hallway. If I was in a group of sexy teens, I'd very actively be expecting Freddy or Michael Myers or someone with a hook hand to be skulking around in the darkness.

Even as it is, it's not my favourite situation, and it´s not even Eight. After twenty minutes with no power, and not fancying to hang out here any longer, the obvious choice is to run away. The tide has laid claim to most of the beach, but I run the strip that's left and along marina wall, past the local fishermen and boats. I think it's a dead baby dolphin on the beach. It bloated beyond recognition in the dark, but it's too big and fat to be any fish I've seen around these parts. On returning to the hostel, I´m quite thankful to have power restored.

And as I catch up on this blog, I´m nursing a pint of Shepherd Neame´s Chestnut brown, Kentish Strong Ale, Bishops Finger, acquired in the Falklands. Delicious.