Caminando...

I have loved walking since I was a kid. I remember my first solo strolls out in the woods when I was in the 6th grade. We had moved to a fairly rural stretch of New Jersey and I would amble about, up and over the forested hill to my friend Jenny Boyd´s house; down the long line of railroad track out to High Bridge; and boulder along the river that ran next to our neighborhood. There is a freedom that comes from walking, and an antiquity that comes from putting one foot in front of the other, especially in the quiet of nature...that just doesn´t exist anywhere else for me.

So I suppose it´s a lucky thing I´ve gotten to do it so much this year isn´t it?

Sanilles has loads of romantic little footpaths to explore and the other day I was able to leave work early and head back out to the village of Mussa to try to find those sculptures Kinga, Peter and I tried to find last week.



The path starts along the river, which you have to cross at one of the waterfalls near where the horses like to hang out. I love giving them rubs on their foreheads and try to keep the flies off ém for at least a few minutes. They nuzzle my hand with their velvet lips as I talk to them. I try to make mohawks out of their manes.



Once I cross the falls, I get to walk along for a good quarter mile with a covered aquaduct made of stone on my on right. It´s a cool structure, moss covered, with openings cut into it every now and then, so you can pull up on the steel handle, lifting the heavy rock door, and take a peek at the water rushing by.




The aquaduct ends at about the boundary line of Sanilles and from there all is quiet but for the cicadas and the birds, and the rustle and dash of small lizards. It´s hot today and I´m glad I´m wearing my shorts, but wish I had my linen tank-top on instead of this t-shirt that´s soaking the sun into me.

These woods are filled with pines and cedars so I feel at home here; which is a comfort since my life in this place reminds me frequently how very far away I am from anything familiar. But the woods will always be familiar to me, and now I know that´s true even across the great sea. The trees and rocks and winds speak to me in a tongue more ancient than language and therefore I understand it.

The woods open to a clearing of pasture land and the wide spread view of the Serra de Cadi, towering about the river. From here, there´s a good, steep climb up to the ridge of this mountain. I set a steady pace and make my way, boots crunching into the sand-colored stubble of dirt and pebbles.

I am rewarded at the top with a full view of the valley. Do we ever get tired of looking at grand vistas? I can see Sanilles dotted below, the river a simple blue line cut into the ground. The highway tunnel coming into Martinet pushes out silent matchbox cars one by one. To the south is the Cadi, it´s fierce, linear stone are graded in greys and whites; if they were ambers and deep red earth, we would be in the North American Southwest. But we´re not.

To the north are the Great Pyrenees, the vast mountain range that seperates France and Spain. It follows from the East, ending the at the Coast in Basque country. Want to hike it. And I´ll get to - at least a little bit - in about a week. I need to cross the Pyrenees to get from St. Jean Pied-a-Port to Ronscevalles. Can´t wait.

After a good long look I started again, the footpath now taking me along through someone´s pasture lands. On either side of me are cobblestone walls about waist high. The path is fairly narrow, but you could probably get a cart through here. I see a wheelbarrow and a rake leaning up against an oak. You could definitely get a wheelbarrow through here.




Suddenly I noticed the blackberries. I had been on this path a couple of times and never noticed them before. The vines were swollen with them and I gobbled them up by the handful, staining my fingers with their juices. These were sweet; warmed and growing succulent by the mountain sun, unsullied by diesel fumes and high enough off the ground to avoid being assaulted by dogs. On the way back I would make a satchel out of some cloth I found in my backpack, and collect a few dozen to enjoy at breakfast with Hugh´s homemade yogurt.




After nearly an hour of walking, I came onto the road about a quarter of a mile from Mussa. It was still quiet, but then I heard the rumble of an engine and sure enough, around the bend, an old man in a blue shirt and cloth hat was driving a tractor, his kerchiefed wife rocking in back of him, holding onto the back of his seat. We waved at one another.

As I come into town, there is the sound of water; it rushes through in great gulps along earthen channels, diverting here and there into fields. It´s a terrific sound.



The town itself is very quiet. It´s three o´clock, siesta time, and nothing is moving about except a few chickens and a couple of boys on bicycles.

I make my way through the village and to the road where we think the sculpturer lives, about a three mile hike up. But then I notice the private road sign and a man with a wooden rake standing there, eyeing me. It´s the same man we came across the other day, we asked him for directions to the artist´s house, but he was ambivilant about his responses to us. But, I know from talking to Hugh that this is the place, with it´s fairly new house sort of holding fort to the gateway of this long driveway.

I decide not to test this guy, being satisfied with just the walk and not finding the sculptures. I knew Peter and Kinga would be coming back to Sanilles and thought I would wait until they returned and we could all go together. Strength in numbers!

I walked around the village for a bit, it´s very small, you can circle it in less than ten minutes, and then slowly headed back.

The irrigation channels now on my left, I continued down the road, listening to the low-pitched rhythm of cow bells from down in a lower pasture. I came across that tractor driving man and his wife again; but now they were in their fields, baling hay by hand it looked like. Working with long two-pronged wooden rakes, they moved hay into piles, cutting a path towards each other from one end of the field to the other.



Past their field, the rushing of water stopped and the sound was replaced by the chirping of grasshoppers who bounced around me by the dozens, showing off their blue underwings. Butterflies of golds, oranges and whites flew along in their halting patterns, stopping at the clover on the roadside for lunch.

I had brought a lunch too and found a perfect flat stone with a lovely view to enjoy it.

I would get back nearly an hour later, excited about the long days of walking that are in store for me.