Into Caves, Under Bushes

Over dry toast, I talk with an aging German woman who was visiting friends in Brazil. We talk about travel in the Middle East and she tells me that, apart from the kidnappings, it’s a very nice place to travel. I leave to start my day of nothing, stopping off at Norte supermarket and getting food for the day. I nap underneath a bush along the beach and then wander to the pier and back again. Then I head off to the post office, after their long siesta is over, to mail some postcards and meet my Irish friends and we exchange awkward hellos.

I return to my bush, lazing on a warm day after some chilly weather in previous days. A group of teenage girls engage in sand wars screaming and chasing one another. The blonde one instigates, and torments the rest until they finally surround her, take her down and smother her in a barrage of sand.

I walk to the end of the beach to find a place to urinate. The beach tapers to a white, moonscape outcropping of rock in which I find a small sea cave and relief is at hand. The rock is pocked with pores that make perfect footholds and I climb until better sense and cowardice overwhelm me.

Coming back from the cave, to my surprise, I have to wade across the incoming tide. It pounds in at a surprising rate. The cave I was exploring minutes before is quickly filling with gulf water. I climb the rock at a place with a less daunting slope. It is not long until my bus so I walk back along the suddenly narrow beaches. My Irish friends are waiting for the same bus as well. I board and find my assigned seat in the back of the bus and sleep until I’m awoken to eat a cold spinach crepe.