Walk on by
A self-guided walk in Spain’s Alpujarras can be a tough one for the directionally challenged.
It doesn’t start well. “Walk west for 15 minutes til you reach the chestnut (castana) tree,” the track notes read as we begin our self-guided walk in Spain’s Alpujarras. “But how fast, which way is west and what does a chestnut tree look like?” I ask my significant other. Before long we get the hang of it (no need to rush, look at the sky and see if there any nuts on that tree). The Spanish tour company provides both English and Spanish terms when first a common noun appears in our notes, but thereafter it is only Spanish. Before long we could proudly cross thebarranco (ravine) near the cortijo (farmhouse) and head up the pista(track).
As one who can get herself lost coming out of a department store, I think that photographs would surely assist the directionally challenged, but on a walk in Slovenia they sometimes create more problems than they are worth. “Walk to the white house” accompanies an image. But there is no house at all. “Cross the empty fields.” The photograph shows a bucolic scene, but in reality we fight our way through a battalion of scratchy, tall cornstalks.
Eschewing the vagaries of group travel, we walk with day packs, our luggage ferried between villages, where a shower, comfortable bed and a wee tipple or two await us each night. And how we enjoy the food. That melty roast lamb in the Alpujarras, the perfect Provencal tomato tart, new wild asparagus in the Bhutanese Himalaya, all definitions of heaven. On the other side of the ledger, our major culinary struggle is with boiled pig’s head, prepared by our host family near the Chinese border in Vietnam.
Often days pass before we encounter a fellow walker on those ancient tracks crisscrossing our world. Plodding along in quiet contemplation, the ambience encourages enjoyment of local flora and fauna. Not that there seem to be many birds left in Europe. “Songbirds” seen recently on the menu of an Umbrian restaurant help provide an explanation. Signage along the Nakasendo Way in Japan asks us to ring loud bells to fend off bears, or perhaps to announce that their lunch awaits.
My 70th birthday approaches. A party at home in Adelaide perhaps? A walk, please. And then I see in The Weekend Australian an article about Kings Canyon in the Northern Territory. An indulgent walking weekend beckons us.
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