Since I spoke to you last, I ended up on a very crazy long hike up and
down mountains. I hiked up and back down two mountains too many. I was
so far away from my destination that when I finally ran into someone,
their eyes bugged out when I told them where I was trying to go. Sadly,
that wasn’t the only mistake I made, I then traversed a second extra
mountain and found someone who once again gave me bug eyes. She said
“you came all the way from citou???” I replied, I started in
caunes-minervois, walked the road to citou, walked the ridge to over
that way, then across to here, and now hopefully I will return to
caunes-minervois. She kept asking if I was sure I was ok to walk. I
looked a little peaked. She told me to find the girls on the moped to
give me a ride back. I’d seen those girls earlier, crazy moped driving
teenagers. I wasn’t sure I could stomach it. Turns out I never ran into
them again anyway so the choice was not mine to make.
I make this long walk sound a little negative and I don’t mean to. Truth
is, I love getting lost to the point, you worry about never coming home,
you start to think about how horrible it would be to sleep on the cold
hard ground with all the bugs and spiders and scorpions in nothing but a
t-shirt and shorts. And then, you find your way. The sun is still in the
sky, there is food and wine waiting for you, and a cold dip in the pool
to help heal your achy muscles, and a comfy chair to rest your feat in.
The jubilation in knowing that you are home free, that all the pains are
not so bad after all, and that you accomplished something pretty big,
maybe I got close to the length of a marathon. Most people never go
this far in one day, in their whole lives. it’s an overwhelming feeling.
Once I got back to the road, I started singing even louder than I had
been. Ok, you can probably tell that I’m still really loopy and have
pain de champignone and veggie cassoulette to eat.
Well, ok, one more story. On my second wrong turn, I saw something
hopping in the road. I thought, what is that? A frog? Then a violent
thrashing. I walked up and discovered it was a snake attacking a baby
bird. I got photos and will share at a later date. I should have taken
it as a sign from my spirit guide. If you go down this road, nature will
gobble you up like a fallen baby bird, because that’s exactly what I
felt like when I had to climb back up that mountain.
And I thought, some people are addicted to adrenaline, I seem to be
addicted to exhaustion. Good night.
–alanna