Spain Tales: The Rough Patch

Some vacations go smooth as butter. I can´t say the same for this one...not anymore.

I´m well-into my Spanish photo tour and have taken over 500 photos. Too many close calls with the "Erase All" button prompted me to protect and lock all my images so as to avoid disaster.

Last night while I was perusing my camera´s numerous functions, I stumbled upon a button which said "Format," and displayed 1.6 out of 1.8 GB used. The screen where this button resides also said "OK" and "Cancel."

I thought, "Okay, why not." I pressed the button, and shock and horror ensued. The next thing I know, the screen said, "No Images." (Insert Spanish expletives, and some Portuguese for good measure.) My memory card was completely erased.

At this point I took out my manual and looked up the Format button. There in black and white on page 126 it said, "!Formatting the memory card will erase all images, even if they are protected, so make sure you save anything you need somewhere else before formatting!"

I had just finished uploading some of my photos to Facebook at an Internet cafe just beside Sevilla´s Catedral (the Internet place that had closed around the time I was shocking and horroring).

I grabbed my purse and ran as fast as I could (on an empty stomach and a five-day-+35-degree Celsius head) over the cobblestoned streets to the cafe to beg the young man who´d been working there to let me in to see if I could salvage any of my photos.

He was just about to leave, but understood my broken Italian and Spanish (with a good dash of English) enough to take pity.