Day 13-14: You have acquired: Crush!
As I write this we are tearing down the highway. Time: before sunrise (not that impressive when you consider we are getting to the deep of winter). Temperature: -9 degres C. Boots: waterproof. Moon: red. We are on our way to Spain, chicas (and/or chicos).
10th January
Somewhere in the course of my travels, possibly in those two blank days where I did nothing worth mentioning, I acquired a hat that in combination with my shirt-and-vest combo, hobo gloves, and boy-style haircut make me look like a supporting cast member from Oliver Twist.
The scenery towards the south of France is a bit like New Zealand: +snow, -sheep. The temperature is climbing for every kilometer south we head - at the time of writing this we are close to Toulouse, very near the border, and it is 8 degrees at night. A pleasant change from Paris, which was iced over when we left.
En route we stopped at Sarlat, which is a beautiful town that looks like it came cut out from a book of How Does A Medieval Village Look? The place is just like the ones you see on TV programs about the Middle Ages, complete with narrow back alleyways, towering church (with bells) and lordly castle on the hill. Also it is in the middle of foie gras (fattened goose liver) country and so you can buy tubs of foie gras with the most adorable goose pictures stencilled onto them. Only the French.
The room we stayed in was like France had taken a leaf out of Japan´s book. It was a tiny little room, one double bed with a single bunk over it, and the bathroom was literally like a cubicle wedged in the corner. You could have walked into the bathroom, pressed yourself against the wall, and stretched out one leg, and your foot would touch the opposite wall. (Whenever somebody showered you could hear the banging and muffled curses as they tried to turn.)
11th January
In the early 1900s, the Virgin Mary appeared at a small town near the Pyrenées called Lourdes and instructed the inhabitants to build a church at that site. They did. Today, Lourdes is making a roaring business from selling pendants with the image of the Virgin, rosaries, and containers with the town´s name on it for getting holy water. Not to mention the place is also a ski town. Welcome to Lourdes, crossroad of Catholicism and capitalism.
We stopped there to get some holy water at a relative´s behest. The holy water flows in a carefully crafted marble aqueduct from the basilica, and is obtainable at the literal push of a button via evenly-spaced taps along the length of the aqueduct. One couple I saw had brought what looked like the contents of an entire bottle factory. But the basilica itself is lovely. Each alcove is decorated with a ceiling-to-floor mosaic of the Virgin by different artists. Every brick is carved with a gilded dedication or prayer to the Virgin to preserve and protect the pilgrim who donated the money for the inscription. The stone grotto where she appeared has an image of her in an alcove with the words ´Que soy era´ carved below it. It´s all very reverent, the place is a testament to human faith. Of course, I was more uncomfortable than a snowman at a fire-walking tournament.
Then there was a panicked moment afterward when we tried to input our destination on the GPS and it kept saying that the street we wanted didn´t exist. Guess who booked the hotel. Guess who had the bad luck to book a hotel on a street that the GPS said didn´t bloody exist. Guess who wallowed in stress all the way to the Pyrenées. Guess.
But then we crossed the Pyrenées into Spain, and all was forgotten because it´s hard to fret about little things like where you´re sleeping tonight when you´re surrounded with scenery like that. The mountains are coated in a layer of snow that´s probably a foot deep, and all over it trees peek out like charcoal sculptures. At one stage we were high enough that the valley below was covered in cloud and only the mountaintops were visible, like islands on a great white cotton-candy ocean. Then at one point the cloud stopped being a solid layer and rose up, so it looked like the ocean was frozen in the midst of splashing a plume of spray all across the rocks.
I am not joking when I say I waxed lyrical until it went dark about how if Spain was a guy, I would totally do him. The scenery is of the sort that grabs your heart and clings. I could make endless France-Spain comparisons, but I won´t: suffice to say that France´s countryside is tame. Every five kilometres is a chateau, every one kilometre is a lonely farmstead lording over expanses of tilled land. Here in Spain, the people cluster together. The farmsteads you do see are few and far between, and the forest will inevitably be peeking over the horizon, waiting to reclaim their own. The soil is red. The land is real. There´s something raw about Spain that is vivid, fierce, untameable and completely, utterly wild.
I am in love with this country, and I´ve hardly seen it yet.
We did find our hotel. In case you were wondering.
10th January
Somewhere in the course of my travels, possibly in those two blank days where I did nothing worth mentioning, I acquired a hat that in combination with my shirt-and-vest combo, hobo gloves, and boy-style haircut make me look like a supporting cast member from Oliver Twist.
The scenery towards the south of France is a bit like New Zealand: +snow, -sheep. The temperature is climbing for every kilometer south we head - at the time of writing this we are close to Toulouse, very near the border, and it is 8 degrees at night. A pleasant change from Paris, which was iced over when we left.
En route we stopped at Sarlat, which is a beautiful town that looks like it came cut out from a book of How Does A Medieval Village Look? The place is just like the ones you see on TV programs about the Middle Ages, complete with narrow back alleyways, towering church (with bells) and lordly castle on the hill. Also it is in the middle of foie gras (fattened goose liver) country and so you can buy tubs of foie gras with the most adorable goose pictures stencilled onto them. Only the French.
The room we stayed in was like France had taken a leaf out of Japan´s book. It was a tiny little room, one double bed with a single bunk over it, and the bathroom was literally like a cubicle wedged in the corner. You could have walked into the bathroom, pressed yourself against the wall, and stretched out one leg, and your foot would touch the opposite wall. (Whenever somebody showered you could hear the banging and muffled curses as they tried to turn.)
11th January
In the early 1900s, the Virgin Mary appeared at a small town near the Pyrenées called Lourdes and instructed the inhabitants to build a church at that site. They did. Today, Lourdes is making a roaring business from selling pendants with the image of the Virgin, rosaries, and containers with the town´s name on it for getting holy water. Not to mention the place is also a ski town. Welcome to Lourdes, crossroad of Catholicism and capitalism.
We stopped there to get some holy water at a relative´s behest. The holy water flows in a carefully crafted marble aqueduct from the basilica, and is obtainable at the literal push of a button via evenly-spaced taps along the length of the aqueduct. One couple I saw had brought what looked like the contents of an entire bottle factory. But the basilica itself is lovely. Each alcove is decorated with a ceiling-to-floor mosaic of the Virgin by different artists. Every brick is carved with a gilded dedication or prayer to the Virgin to preserve and protect the pilgrim who donated the money for the inscription. The stone grotto where she appeared has an image of her in an alcove with the words ´Que soy era´ carved below it. It´s all very reverent, the place is a testament to human faith. Of course, I was more uncomfortable than a snowman at a fire-walking tournament.
Then there was a panicked moment afterward when we tried to input our destination on the GPS and it kept saying that the street we wanted didn´t exist. Guess who booked the hotel. Guess who had the bad luck to book a hotel on a street that the GPS said didn´t bloody exist. Guess who wallowed in stress all the way to the Pyrenées. Guess.
But then we crossed the Pyrenées into Spain, and all was forgotten because it´s hard to fret about little things like where you´re sleeping tonight when you´re surrounded with scenery like that. The mountains are coated in a layer of snow that´s probably a foot deep, and all over it trees peek out like charcoal sculptures. At one stage we were high enough that the valley below was covered in cloud and only the mountaintops were visible, like islands on a great white cotton-candy ocean. Then at one point the cloud stopped being a solid layer and rose up, so it looked like the ocean was frozen in the midst of splashing a plume of spray all across the rocks.
I am not joking when I say I waxed lyrical until it went dark about how if Spain was a guy, I would totally do him. The scenery is of the sort that grabs your heart and clings. I could make endless France-Spain comparisons, but I won´t: suffice to say that France´s countryside is tame. Every five kilometres is a chateau, every one kilometre is a lonely farmstead lording over expanses of tilled land. Here in Spain, the people cluster together. The farmsteads you do see are few and far between, and the forest will inevitably be peeking over the horizon, waiting to reclaim their own. The soil is red. The land is real. There´s something raw about Spain that is vivid, fierce, untameable and completely, utterly wild.
I am in love with this country, and I´ve hardly seen it yet.
We did find our hotel. In case you were wondering.