No Mercy

Today when we left our AirBNB I thought we had a day of visiting new town in Albuferia ahead of us.  I was in my comfortable shoes and a pair of cotton pants I’d brought for around town.  We started out down the beach and followed a boardwalk that soon disappeared and then we were following a path along the beach that went thru some vegetation, over rocky cliffs and wound around and over craggy cliffs.  It was some landscape that neither of us had experienced before. 

We kept going and going. Around mile 4 we find a restaurant on the beach and stop in for bebidas.   I say I thought we were visiting new town. Joe says yes on the way back. 

We finish our drinks and head back out.  We talked about ‘is this a trail from the book we have’? I’m sure it’s not because I looked at the book before we left. 

Along the way there is a spot where cairns have been built like a bunch of cemetery markers.  Maybe 100 of them.  I say we should build one but we keep going. 

The trail gets more and more rugged.  Joe, with boyish exuberance says ‘there is nowhere in the world I’d rather be right now!’  I plod on.   Then we arrive at a tricky spot where to get around a cliff, you have to do some fancy giant rock jumping to get around the craggy cliff with the ocean washing in.  I stop and say I can’t do it.  Joe is of course already past the worst part.  A man and his teenage son come up behind me and asks how Joe made it over there I say I think he climbed across the rocks.  His son starts over and is getting his tennis shoes wet.  The dad calls him back and they leave.

Joe is still waiting expectantly for me from his rock with a huge excited grin.  So I plow ahead getting one foot wet then crawl up the rock.  I say that I have officially stopped having fun.  The pants I bought for around town now have black knees.  Not sure where we are going but we continue to pick our way thru the rocks and up the cliffs. It feels more remote, no more respite of entry to civilization along the way, no more ‘outs’. 

At about 6 miles things are feeling more dangerous to me.  I wonder when the tide starts coming in again.  There is now a fence protecting what look to be private homes and we were left on the other side of it clinging to the rocky coastal trail. 

We are up on a rocky area looking out at the next stretch of beach about 200 yards away and about a 100 feet in the air.  But the trail was gone. We spent some time hunting for a way down. By now Joe had promised me that we’d get onto civilized roads from that beach, I was eager for a way out. Every where we looked, we were met with impossible cliffs and sheer rock between us and the flat beach. 

Joe finally finds a way down with a 10 foot drop onto rocks below. With great effort he lowers himself to hover about 3 feet from some rocks below. He drops and lands successfully!  Next I’m up. I get as far down as I can with my bottom on a rock and my legs dangling with that last three or four feet above loose rock.  Joe grabs me around my thighs and says he’ll lower me down.  I protest no, no you’ll hurt yourself, I can do it.  He moves away and I call him back, I can’t do it. He lowers me down.  We continue across the rocky beach to finally flat sand. 

We spot a restaurant and gratefully climb the stone steps and find a spot inside, relieved to be back to civilization.  Then we see the prices, notice all the forks and knives at our place settings and the starched white table cloths.  We are committed and tired.  I order a bowl of soup and Joe a ham and melon platter and we enjoy every morsel.

As we get up to leave I look down and see a mess around our table on the floor.  We’ve left piles of sand where we sat.  We hightail it out of there using the front door this time.  Back on the side of civilization we spot a nice casual restaurant that would have been a more suitable match for us.  Oh well.

We start the 4 mile walk back to our rented apartment. This time down cobblestone streets.  We eagerly enter the apartment building with snacks we’ve picked up along the way. Joe says elevator?   Relieved, I beg yes.  We press the button on the antique elevator. Nothing. I yank the door. Nothing. I say No Mercy! And head for the stairs.