Tramping the Well Trodden Path

There’s a nun talking to me in the aisle of the train. She’s holding a roll of toilet tissue. She has a kindly, slightly lined face and smiling brown eyes. I’ve no idea what she’s saying.

Bolsa… that’s ‘bag’, isn’t it? She’s pointing to the luggage rack, where my large and heavy backpack is tucked neatly on the bottom shelf; the one for large and heavy things. Hm. “No entiendo. Perdone.”

She pauses, gestures. I get up and follow her to the luggage rack, where another nun stands with a collection of carrier bags. There is a distinctly fishy smell coming from them. “You want me to move my bag?” I mime pulling it out. She nods, happily. Yes, but where to? It’ll be a squeeze to get it on the higher shelf… and it’s bloody heavy to lift that high… Your carrier bags are surely better up there?

You can’t argue with a nun, though, can you? Especially one as lovely as this one. She radiates loveliness. Besides which, they’ve got God on their side, even if he doesn’t exist, which he might for all I know.

With effort, I lift the backpack up high enough to perch it on the edge of the upper shelf; the second nun and I shove it until it’s in (she’s quite handy, that one). The handy nun then places the fishy carrier bags on the bottom shelf. The lovely nun thanks me, pats my arm and mimes things leaking out of the bags and onto mine. She holds her nose and waves some loo roll around. She smiles, happily. Aha! Leaky, fishy bags. The lovely nun is being a helpful and thoughtful nun. I pat her arm, grateful. (Are you supposed to pat nuns?) “Muchas gracias!”

The nuns then wander serenely into the next carriage, where it doesn’t smell so badly of fish. Sensible nuns.

From Cádiz, it's a bus ride to the reason I'm here. I’d looked at a map of Spain to see where the best place would be to see Africa. Tarifa is the most southerly point of Spain, on the edge of the Strait of Gibraltar. I looked at the map and said, “That is the place where I’ll stand and stare.”

I told myself that it would be like looking at the Isle of Wight from Southampton. I told myself that, on a cloudy day, I’d only see grey skies and sea, with perhaps a dark smudge on the horizon if I was lucky.

I was wrong.

Walk along the road by the sea. Africa is ridiculously close across the grey, choppy water; mountainous, jagged. You can see Tangier. You can see turbines churning the air. Darkness falls. The port across the water is lit up orange. The mountain blinks red where the wind turbines are.

I smile.