Travelling 101; #1: The Electric Shower

Herewith a new series of posts to introduce you to some of the finer elements of travelling. Today we shall start with an old traveller's favourite.

The electric shower, aka "the suicide shower" or "the hippy killer" is an implement of torture well known to any traveller in Latin America. It being a continent not known for cold (except for the extreme south and the altiplano), South America has not really had a long love affair with hot water. Correspondingly the idea of having a ready supply of hot water to purge the gringo body of all sorts of dust and detrius is foreign to most households down here. The hostals that have realised that hot water is a valuable competitive advantage have resorted to installing the cheapest option available - the dreaded electric shower.

You do not require a degree in engineering nor nuclear physics to understand the electric shower. A source of electricity is attached to a box over the shower head which is, in turn, attached to a supply of cold water. The cold water passing through this form of short circuit is heated and then pours down on to dirty gringo body. That electricity and water don't readily mix is obviously not so widely known down here, so the ubiquity of the hippy killer increases.

In fairness the system works fine, but on occassion when the shower isn't grounded properly or the solar system's alignment is all wrong one can stand under the shower and receive a series of electric shocks. The closer one's hand to the box, the more intense the shock. So the habitual raising of the arm to wash the oxter can cause slightly more than expected. All in all it actually makes showering that bit more fun, nothing like waking up at 6am and not knowing if you will come out of the shower alive or with your hair still attached.