Vas, priklopljena na vulkan

Ko se je pozneje vračala skozi vas Furnas, je Polly opazila, da se para ne dviga le iz kuhalnih jam, ampak tudi iz razpok ob cesti, iz odtokov in iz velikega javnega bazena, ki je v popoldanski svetlobi žarel toplo oranžnorjavo. Izkazalo se je, da ista vročina, ki je skuhala kosilo, teče pod vso vasjo in prihaja na površje skoraj povsod, kamor pogledaš.

Walking back through the village later, Polly noticed steam rising not just from the cooking pits but from cracks along the roadside, from drains, and from a large public pool glowing a warm orange-brown in the afternoon light. The same heat that cooked lunch, it turned out, runs underneath the entire village and surfaces almost everywhere you look.

Ta ogreta voda polni velik javni kopališki park v bližini, kjer ogromen bazen ostaja topel vse leto brez ene same črpalke ali kotla, po vasi pa so raztresene še manjše kopeli, ki jih domačini obiščejo tako lahkotno, kot bi si doma napustili kad. Železo in minerali, raztopljeni v vodi, jo obarvajo globoko, motno oranžno, kar se večini obiskovalcev sprva zdi čudno, nato pa nenavadno lepo.

That heated water fills a large public bathing park nearby, where a giant pool stays warm year round without a single pump or boiler, along with smaller bathhouses tucked around the village that locals visit as easily as running a bath at home. Iron and minerals dissolved in the water turn it a deep, cloudy orange, which most visitors find strange at first and then oddly beautiful.

Nekatere hiše podzemno toploto celo napeljejo naravnost v svojo toplo vodo in tako grelnika sploh ne potrebujejo. Polly je pomislila, da vsa ta vas dobesedno teče na vulkanu, ki spi pod njo, in kuha hrano, greje kopeli in ogreva domove brez ognja, brez goriva in brez računa za kar koli od tega.

Some homes even pipe the underground heat directly into their own hot water, skipping the need for a water heater entirely. It occurred to Polly that this whole village runs, quite literally, on the volcano sleeping beneath it, cooking food, warming baths, and heating homes with no fire, no fuel, and no bill for any of it.

Nekaj časa je posedela ob robu velikega oranžnega bazena, čutila toploto, ki se je dvigala z vode celo od daleč, in pomislila, da je kraj, zgrajen prav na tolikšni vročini, našel nenavadno radodaren način, da živi z njo.

She perched at the edge of the great orange pool for a while, feeling the warmth rise off the water even from a distance, and thought that a place built directly on top of so much heat had found an unusually generous way to live with it.