A dear friend of mine is leaving in a few weeks for Europe for a long, long time. Off to pursue Hemingway-esque adventures complete with absinthe and whores, they are taking off into the unknown with a pocket full of cash and no agenda. To say that I am jealous is an understatement, however those that know me know that I too did my own Kerouac tour of Europe and North Africa back in 1999 – 2001.
I say this because the other night while said friend and I were sitting up way too late and with way too much wine in our belly’s, I was reminiscing about my trip and it got me thinking about the varying degrees of adventure one encounters while on the road. Surely there are the big moments, the first time you step off of the boat in Tangiers, realizing that you are in Africa, Arabic Africa at that, with no idea about the cultural nuances that await. But what I realize now, four years later, is that it is the insignificant instances that a) remain with me perhaps more so than the big “wow” moments, and b) have had conceivably the greatest influence on not only my geography, but on the personal path I have chosen.
Case in point was one night I spent in Seville, Spain. This is the story that I told my friend on the night above. A story that I had almost all but forgotten and had not recounted until then. I had just spent almost three weeks in Morocco, camping in the desert with a nomadic tribe of Berbers, watching sunrise and sunset over the dunes of the Sahara, not showering, or sleeping really. Enjoying day long camel caravans to the next dune valley camp, en route to salt-trading locales. Consuming a consistent diet of carrots, endives, camel meat and pigeon, my novice western stomach could not hold out and it wasn’t long before I contracted a mean case of dysentery about 40 km into Algeria. Running a fever of over 102 and with gastro-intestinal symptoms not suitable to be recounted in writing, I knew that I had to see a doctor. An actual doctor though and not an Algerian local named Ahmed who has a cousin in France who went to med school for a year so he, of course, practices medicine by proxy (an actual option presented to me). Having long suffered stomach ailments including the occasional ulcer, I knew that one diagnostic tool that would need to be employed would be a colonoscopy and I wasn’t about to see Ahmed about that. Long story short, I had to somehow get to Portugal and I needed to get there before my stomach ate it’s own lining.
The trek to Portugal took 76 hours overland and including the following: camel → bus → train → boat → bus → train → bus. Somewhere between the camel and the train was a stop in Seville. A Moorish Spanish city that I had spent several days in only a month before. I knew that if I got into Seville just before midnight I could catch the last bus to Faro, a bustling Portuguese city complete with doctors with actual degrees in medicine. But the Spanish are known for their fiestas and siestas and not for their clockwork train system. I missed the bus to Faro by 15 minutes.
It was just after midnight, in Seville, in August. With no room at the inn I decided to spend the night at the bus station ensuring a seat on the first bus to Faro at 6 am and a very inexpensive sleep. I had just settled in for the night (read propped myself up against my backpack in the corner of the main station building) when I saw a young man of about 16 being mugged at knife point not 20 feet away from me. Faced with three heavily set Spanish challengers, the young man presented his passport and wallet with little hesitance. I promptly got up and exited the station building not wanting to be the next friend the three Spaniards made.
Going on recent memory, I walked along the river to the gothic quarter knowing that the previous hostel I stayed at was pleasantly situated in a square, Placa Cruces, that harboured 3 crucifixes in the centre. I concocted a subconscious plan to camp out under the crosses; my Catholic school logic being that no one would want to harm a young girl sleeping under a crucifix. Still running a fever and feeling generally ill, I walked in the dead of night through Seville to my intuitive destination. It wasn’t long before I heard hurried footsteps behind me and braced myself to meet what I thought would be the three hooligans from the bus station. I began to conjure the best stories I could give them: “I was just mugged myself; I have no money; I’m homeless, really I am, despite my $400 backpack and my $200 trekking shoes”. Plan B was to turn quickly and to start throwing fists however I tossed that plan out the window quickly because I punch like a girl and weigh 115 lbs. I did turn around though and saw not three Spanish muggers but the young boy from the station running to catch up to me.
“Good thing you left when you did,” he said, “they mugged the old guy right after me”. A hint of a German accent permeated his words. We exchanged names (his was Konrad, which is also my brothers and fathers name) and stories and he decided to come with me to Placa Cruces.
He had nothing on him. He had handed over everything to the bus station bastards and was waiting for the German consulate to open so that he could file for new papers and contact his family to go home. I told him that I was sick and en route to a hospital and we decided to be friends for the night.
Konrad stayed with me that night in Seville. I unrolled my sleeping bag under the crucifix and attempted to sleep a partial sleep. Between fever dreams I would roll over and see Konrad sitting up, awake and alert. He would ask me if I was alright, smile, and continue to man the post under the crosses. At 5:30 am, he woke me up and told me that my bus was almost here. He helped me roll up my sleeping bag and I gave him all of the cash I had on me. We said our goodbyes. I made it to the hospital in Faro and within 6 hours my fever was down and I was eating solids.
Locked away in my subconscious vault for four years, I want to say thank you to young Konrad from Germany. For watching over me that night in Seville.
