Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Dead Man's Beach

With only 2 short days in Spain, you would think my time here wouldn't be too out of the ordinary.  Wrong.  I've come to the conclusion that for some reason, the weirdest things always seem to happen to me.   Take my first day in Cadiz for instance.   My friend Kacey and I were simply planning to have a relaxing, uneventful morning at a beautiful Spanish beach, Playa de la Caleta, recommended to us by a local.  But when we got there, the "gorgeous" beach was basically deserted, if you don't count the old Spanish men in speedos who were having their early morning swim.  Awkward.  And, when we turned around to look at the old white building behind us on the sand, THERE WAS A DEAD MAN IN A BODY BAG.   I'm not kidding.   There was literally a human inside this white plastic bag underneath one of the awnings.  Kacey swore she thinks the bag moved at one point, but I'm 100% certain the man was dead.  It was the creepiest, scariest thing I have ever seen.  Look closely at the picture for proof.  

You would think we would have run away from this beach as fast as we could, but for some reason, I decided I really wanted to be able to say I swam at a beach in Spain, so we got in the water.   The water looked nice from the outside, but little did we know we had to walk about 20 feet in the water through jagged, sharp, pointy rocks before we came to the actual sand bottom.  Ouch.  However, I'm glad to say that once we got used to the water, we had a nice couple hours just swimming around...if you don't count the old lady rocking the bikini and swim cap who swam right next to us even though she could have picked anywhere else to swim in the huge, deserted beach... yup.

We decided to get out about an hour and a half later, since the water was getting pretty cold and I really needed to use a bathroom.  So, we found the beach entrance sign map and realized they had about 3 different W.C.'s that we could use.   We headed in the direction of one, only to realize the map lied and there were no bathrooms to be found anywhere on the beach.  What beach advertises their bathrooms when they actually don't have any?!  And of course, since we were in Europe, there were no other bathrooms to be found in the city either.   Let's just say as soon as I saw the ship again, I practically sprinted to the bathroom. 

Our plan for the afternoon was to simply walk around and explore the city, while also finding a cafe with wifi.  We found a cafe, but since all the outlets were being used, I left Kacey and went to another cafe practically next door.   After ordering a hot chocolate, I sat down at a teeny tiny table in the corner by an old video game machine, and asked the owner for the wifi password.  She entered the code into my computer and then proceeded to tell me that if someone else came in and ordered food, I would need to leave since I had only ordered a drink and was using the table for my computer.   What?!  There were about 10 other empty tables throughout the rest of the cafe!  Who would want the little dingy table in the corner?!  But anyway, I politely told her I was planning to order dinner in about an hour when it was closer to dinner, but I just wasn't hungry right then.  She then proceeded to tell me that no, I couldn't order food.  What?!  First of all, I was really confused about why the owner would turn down business.  Second, I really just wanted to tell her not to advertise wifi with a huge sign in front of her cafe if she didn't want people to come in and use it!  I don't know if I missed some important fact about Spanish culture or what, but this was probably one of the weirdest, most confusing experiences of my trip so far!

After finishing what I needed to do on my computer, I headed back to the ship since I had to leave early in the morning to go on a whale watch with my Marine Biology class.   It's pretty ironic that our whole life is basically a whale watch since we all live on a ship, and yet, my professor decided to get on another boat to look for whales and dolphins!  Not only that, but the boat I got on was literally the smallest whale watching boat I have ever seen.  It was the size of a small, individual fishing boat.  No joke.  And since I get very sea sick on the MV Explorer, a ship comparable in size to a cruise ship, I definitely got sea sick on this boat.  I may have seen one or two dolphins before realizing that if I was going to survive the ride, I would have to lay down for the whole 2 hours.  Fun stuff, I know.   But after the whale watch, we went to tour Baelo Claudia, Roman ruins over 2,000 years old!  This was by far the coolest experience I had in Spain.  I included some pictures I took so you can hopefully see how picturesque the site was! 

But overall, I had some pretty bizarre experiences in Spain.  I don't know if all of Spain is like Cadiz, and I know I can't make judgments about a culture after only 2 days, but nevertheless, I honestly think that Spain is a pretty weird country! 

Fun Fact:  You have to pay for plastic shopping bags in some Spanish supermarkets!




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