Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
cess electricity out here at all. The only logical answer must have been a generator, or an
arsenal of batteries round the back.
Jack was still involved in a back-seat struggle with the dogs, so I got out to shake the
man's hand. At a glance it was clear that the unfortunate chap was in a similar state to his
dwelling and quite honestly a bit of a horror. Even from a distance I detected that his breath
could kill a hornet at 60 paces so any form of close encounter (if absolutely necessary)
would prove to be an extremely malodorous one. No
wonder
the dogs, who were now re-
duced to bouts of intermittent growling, had made such a hullaballoo.
The tell-tale signs for this poor man's general state of seediness began with the condi-
tion of his clothes. If washed at all this event had not happened recently. They were covered
in the grime of recent and past meals (wet/dry patches revealing the culinary timeline) and
liberally stained with indeterminate but apparently oily substances. His shirt and trousers
(the latter attached with a length of binder twine) had seen better days. And judging by their
baggy nature, they may well have started off life belonging to someone else.
Dragging my eyes away from his attire I looked at his face which, in itself, was abso-
lutely riveting. He was fairly young and, I'm afraid, he did look a bit shifty. He obviously
washed himself as frequently as his clothes and was covered in blotches. I was confident
that closer inspection would reveal the cause of these as being a simple case of filth, but
one simply didn't want to risk an advance of that nature.
Therefore, understandably, I felt no compunction whatsoever to touch this man. In-
stead I waved cheerily from a safe distance and hailed him with many
bonjours
and
mercis
and
désolé pour les chiens.
Then, with eyebrows raised heavenward and a little, '
huh
, you
know what dogs are like' sort of a look I finished with an assumed European shrug of
the shoulders. ItsWill then completed the honourable business of making our introductions
with a hearty wave and returned rapidly to his car. And on we went.
Several hundred more metres and many more clouds of dust later, we finally arrived
at the principal building. It's just as well that I'm an eternal optimist because otherwise, at
this point, even I might have given up. My hopes and promises came crashing down around
me.
Before describing what we saw, I should explain that I
am
a fan of water features, but
what sloshed around in front of us, could have easily competed with the Trevi Fountain in
Rome.
It was as ornate as it was vast and severely tested my love of ornamental cascades.
This was the fountain of all fountains. The entire structure was quite complicated and re-
quired some scrutiny to work out what was going on.
It was built on a pile of rocks upon which stood a number of stone figures, at least two
of which seemed to be horses. Water was being frantically pumped from the feet of an es-
pecially large central statue (which was possibly Neptune, because it was positioned in an
