Heading to Spain after a three-week motorcycle trip, I stopped at a campsite in Zaragoza, a large Spanish city a couple of hours south of the Pyrenees. I got there late afternoon, put up my tent, paid a visit to the camp shop, and then decided that a different kind of visit was in order.

To be honest things hadn't been good down there. Not the common dose of the squirts (or Spanish Tummy as its known in the UK), but rather a difficulty in passing anything. And I'm a very regular guy. I blame the French -- not only because they get blamed for everything (so why not?) but because my system began clogging up on the journey down in France. I'd had this for about a week. It wasn't a painful dose of constipation -- there were periodic, unimpressive downloads -- it was just a mystery as to where all the food I'd consumed was being stored. But finally something was stirring, so I made my way to the toilet block.

Spanish kludges are generally clean and tidy, and this was no exception. I wanted to take full advantage, knowing all too well that the next five days would find me forced to park my arse on filthy French thunderboxes. I went in, sat down, and strained. And strained some more. This wasn't going to be easy. Taking a few deep breaths, I had another go. The damn thing was almost there.

Try and imagine passing a video recorder -- one of those big toploader ones you had in the 80's.

This must be what it is like for a woman to give birth. Never before or since has a turd been so difficult to remove. But boy, the relief. I could have parked a red London double-decker bus in the hole it left. I wiped, not that there was much to remove -- the monster had been solid. I stood up and prepared to flush.

This was when the problems began. The toilet was a little higher than normal, the back slope wasn't as steep as I'm used to, and the hole at the bottom was smaller than I expected. And I hadn't heard a splash. The damn thing was stuck to the back slope, staring at me.

It was like a foot across. I tried making mental calculations as to how I had accommodated the thing in my lower bowel, and how my ring had stretched to let it out. And it was black. Black as night, the colour and texture of a cowpat, but not the same consistency -- this thing was solid, like cooled lava flow from a volcano.

The colour worried me. Somehow I didn't think one's shit was meant to be that shade. Then I remembered what we had been eating the previous night -- a black Spanish blood sausage, and a few red wines as well. At least that explained the colour. Since then, I've become a vegetarian to avoid a repeat.

The colour explained, but not the miracle of storage or of expulsion, I now turned my attention as to what to do next. I gave it a second flush. Water flowed, but the cursed thing wouldn't budge. Hell, it was so dense it wouldn't even absorb water! Well, I could've just left the beast sitting there and made a discrete exit... but I'm British. I have an built-in sense of politeness. It wasn't right that I should leave such an object on view when a guest in another county.

There was no brush in the cubicle. How could I get the monster down to the water? Even if I could, would it flush when it got there? Would the whole system back up, and would northeast Spain be consumed by my turd? Think of the diplomatic row!

Putting these worrying thoughts to one side, I carefully wrapped my hand in several layers of toilet roll and gently pushed the thing. It didn't give way at all. Budged not an inch. It had probably grown suckers like ivy.

I had now spent fifteen minutes on the problem. Sod British politeness, the only way thing was going to be killed was with heavy weaponry, and I was right out of high explosive.

All was quiet outside. After one last flush, which was really only a waste of water in a dry country in the middle of summer, I strolled nonchalantly out. The coast was completely clear. There were people from all over Europe on that site -- everyone will blame the French.

Having returned safely to my tent, I sat under a tree with a beer and opened my book.

That was when my shame started. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the cleaner, an attractive Spanish girl of about seventeen, about to enter the toilet block. She put up a multi-lingual notice that cleaning was in progress, and went in.

I couldn't take this. Now was the time to go and look around the local area, maybe visit a typical Spanish church. There was no way I was going to hang around and find out what was going to happen next.

I never knew how the beat was killed. I just hope that young girl didn't suffer too much, and that her trauma will subside in time. Luckily there was another toilet block that I used until I left the next day. I thought I wouldn't crap again for about five years, but strangely enough I went perfectly normal the next afternoon, and all was well after that.

-- Neill