On a Bike and a Prayer
day 29. steam and clean
Andrea was too sick again to ride, and spent a day sleeping in the cool room on the roof. Stephane and I lazed around the town in the morning and went for a sauna in the afternoon. The bath house lay just round the corner and you entered down a dark corridor - pausing to pay a jovial woman in a kiosk midway. The changing rooms were humid and reeked of stale body odour, with a lingering urine taste. We left our belongings in some shelves and skidded our way up the steps and into a steamier shower room, bedecked with semi-clad bloated men squatting standing, leaning, and sitting with black buckets of alternately hot, and cold water.
A large chamber lay at the end and water condensed in huge subterranean droplets on an algae covered ceiling. The floor was a wash with others dirt and figures came and went in sullen moods through the mist. Stephane and I installed ourselves at one end and doused ourselves in cool water from a bucket, and played chess, sitting, dripping onto the pieces. A slim man in one corner was being pulled and stretched by a man standing on his back. He moaned with pain whilst the masseur made kissing noises with his lips during particularly painful moments. I was glad I was just playing chess! After an hour of perspiring Stephane finally beat me in a cunning move involving two rooks and a bishop. We had a shower and left the sagging, soapy old men wallowing in their dirty waters.
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