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18 Crash! In downtown Burgos Sharon crashed. The buildings blocked the wind and we sped along. Out on the open road we had a headwind, so we were enjoying the city's stillness and rushed through the downtown fleeing the gawking crowds. At a streetlight, a pedestrian stepped out from behind a parked truck. I slammed on my brakes. Sharon skidded, then piled into the rear of my bike, tumbling to the pavement and shattering her mirror. The young woman glanced at Sharon lying in the street and, without a word, hurried away. Since it was four o'clock there were many persons standing on the sidewalk. Not one came over to offer assistance or ask Sharon if she was okay. Too many lead exhaust fumes had made them brain dead. I picked Sharon's bike off the road and inspected both bikes for damage. Sharon had a skinned knee and elbow, but luckily she had been wearing a double layer of clothes and the extra padding helped. That incident cemented Sharon's growing dislike of Spain. Her official policy became: "I hate Spain." The populace was old, tired, unsmiling and-she assumed-uncaring. The scenery was bleak, the pollution stratospheric, the smog unbearable, the dirt and grime everywhere, the squalid living conditions, the non maintained buildings with stones holding down old shingles, the flapping clothes hanging from rundown apartments, the unbearable traffic. Sharon found a thousand reasons to hate Spain. Burgos had a big church with a fetid smelling canal running alongside. Hundreds of people were out walking during siesta time. They strolled newly constructed cobblestone paths and stared at us as we rode by. More paths were being built. Spain was in a rush, throwing off its old agrarian based economy in favour of a new industrial one. The country was an exercise in contrast. The rushed construction produced shoddy workmanship. A brandnew gas station would have a floor with immaculate marble tiles. But the washroom door would be askew, not closing properly inside the door jamb. The solution: a slide bolt-carelessly installed on a slant. It chewed the door apart with each use. And the electrical installations were a joke. Instead of routing the hand dryer's electrical cord behind the wall, it hung from the machine like an anorexic black serpent, going into the tile in one place, coming out in another, before snaking its way to the electrical outlet. The tile holes indicated that the worker had taken a hammer and smacked it. There, that ought to do. Sharon found reason one thousand and one. When she realized we had missed the unsigned road out of Burgos, and were back on the National road, she pulled over. Sharon wept, tears streaking her dusty face. "I want to go home!" she sobbed. My, but we were having fun. The race across Spain had worn us down. The portion of Spain we were seeing was one industrial wasteland after another. Factories spewed smog, enveloping cities in thick brown clouds. The only pleasant memory was the fabulous crimson sunsets. Hardly consolation for the air we were forced to breathe. The only other sights we saw were license plates of speeding semis. Never had I seen so many trucks. My hearing was deteriorating from the constant drone of truck traffic. |
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