Padre Burgos 1999 - A Strange Encounter

How could I have overlooked this strange encounter ...

This happened on our first night in Burgos: My family - all 4 of us - slept in one room. I believe 2 of us slept on the floor. There was an electric fan that tried to keep us cool during that hot summer night. The windows on 2 walls were left open just to let in the sea breeze that occasionally wafted in.

Then all of a sudden, in the middle of the night, a rushing wind (or so I thought) woke me up. Then in the darkness, something swooped around the room and stopped. I could sense its wings when it passed by me. Too big and heavy for a butterfly or even a small bird, I thought. It swooped across the room once or twice more before I decided to get up and turn on the light.

Yikes - a huge BAT!!!

Pandemonium hit the room. But not to worry, after somebody threw a bedsheet (or was it a towel?) on top of it, the poor thing got caught. Upon closer examination, our bat friend had a wingspan of almost 2 feet. I felt squeemish touching it with my bare hands though, but I could feel its texture through the sheet. The wings felt it was made of thin rubber material. I didn't particularly want to see the face or head, fearful it would bite or something. But after that quick inspection, we released our winged visitor through the open window.

Although the bat visit was exciting, no one wanted a second encounter. You guessed it, we had the windows closed. Never mind if we sweated it out for the rest of the night, the brief encounter was good enough to last us a lifetime. Ah, only in Burgos a bat paid us a visit - up close and personal.