A hard Day's work

So I had the bright idea the other day, that we would hand wash our clothes, rather than pay the ridiculous 13 Euro per 5 kg...I know now, in hindsight, it wasn't my smartest thought! To complete the perfection of my incredibly bright idea, Ben had the even brighter one of doing our washing in the heat of the day so that it would dry much quicker...now in theory, this truly is a bright idea...it has simply one flaw...neither of us pictured doing this in a rubbish filled truck-stop in 32 degree heat, or that it would take not the mere 3 hours we had predicted, but a much larger 6. I was the lucky one to be left to do the hand-washing on this lovely sunny day, as Ben found himself other chores to do, such as buying pegs and buckets, and filling up water canisters, (don't get me wrong, they were jobs in need of doing). Unfortunately we had a small bucket, half the size of your average sink in which to do the washing. So scrubbing away, one item at a time, I was finished in a mere 4 hours! Yes, we had built up nearly 2 weeks worth of washing to clean, (I think we need to be less fussy, and wear something more than a day at a time). The blisters on my knuckles from scrubbing pay tribute to a good days work. Ben did help, and rinsed everything out for me, as my strength at wringing 50 items of clothing had waned slightly after my 4 hours scrubbing. I have to say, that after all this, I truly respect the work our ancestors had to do daily...and they had families of 6+ back then...good job, I applaud you!

Now you would think this would be story enough, but alas there is more. This truck-stop, unfortunately, was not as isolated as we had originally though. To begin with, people driving by and laughing at the fact my husband had left me on the road side to clean his dirty clothes was all I was subject to, until one man decided to pull over, (at this point Ben had gone to fill up a water canister, and I was alone), and proceeded to ask me 'Quanto Questa?', ('How much?' in English), I said I did not speak Spanish and what was he refferring to...he then asked again 'Quanto Questa?', and mentioned something about 'Chika's', (girls). At this point I got worried and quickly mentioned my husband who would be back in a second. To this he quickly said 'sorry', and looking rather sheepish and embarrassed he drove off...he drove past me again, yelling out how sorry he was. Now I can only conclude two things from this...either he was wanting to pay me to do some of his washing...or another service which I am sure needs little explaining, for those of you with an imagination geared to go that way! Ben and I laughed that we could have been living in the lap of luxury if I had stayed out there a bit longer!

On another note, I did hear a rumor that a few of you are concerned with our showering habits while we are travelling...just to reassure you, we are cleaning ourselves daily. As much as we like to bath in our own juices and snuggle up to each other practically eating each others odours, we have decided not to go down that road this trip! Between our solar shower, the showers at the beach and a bucket of soapy water and a flannel, we are making quite sure that neither of us is getting a 2 day stink on...I mean let's face it, we have to sleep in our very 'close quarters', and I am not keen to be sniffing boys underarms all night. So for those of you that had our hygienic well-being at heart, be not concerned...we are as clean as can be for a camping trip! :-)