Friday, August 12, 2005

James and I rose early that morning. As we’d moved farther south, I no longer had to don layers and layers of clothing throughout the night to keep warm, which made packing up our backpacks that much faster. By now, we felt we were really getting the hang of these early morning starts. We would be making our way to La Rochelle’s train station to begin our journey further south still, into Spain.

On our way to the station, we met a Polish man from Warsaw who was on his way to Poitiers. Curious about our travel plans, he loudly and wholeheartedly congratulated us when he discovered we would be leaving France that day. “The French are f***ing bastards,” he exclaimed. “You’d go crazy within the year if you ever lived here.”

Our first train journey of the day took us to Rochefort. No cheese for us, just breakfast at a small yellow roadside café with lace curtains and an hour or so wandering a tiny park in the middle of a busy road. Just before beginning the next leg of our journey, I made a mad dash to the bathrooms, only to find them closing for cleaning. I slipped into one of the stalls before the maintenance people could close up. When I emerged, I discovered that in my haste, I hadn’t bothered to read the sign on the door. I was in the men’s. C'est la vie.

Back on the train a few hours later, this time to Bordeaux, James and I found ourselves squeezed into a bank of four seats with our enormous backpacks and somewhat enormous fellow passengers. The train was crowded, hot and sticky, and smoke from the smoking compartment was slowly leaking into the air around us.

James on the train, somewhere in France, heading south

Tempting as it was to stay in Bordeaux and taste the wine and explore the countryside chateaux, we decided to push on to Spain. Our next journey was to Dax. I was surprised to see pine trees racing past the window of our carriage.


From Dax, we caught a train to Hendaye. We were almost, almost to Spain. It was late afternoon, and we were both exhausted. We were so close to the border we could almost taste the tapas. We approached the ticket window and said we’d like to go to Irun, the first stop into Spain. “Irun?” the woman behind the counter asked. “Irun? Why would you want to go to Irun?” She didn’t add “You stupid idiots” to her question, but you could that’s what she was thinking from the way she stared at us. (A few years later, back in California, I met a woman from Hendaye. She asked if I’d ever been since I seemed to know where it was. I told her I’d only passed through on my way to Irun. “Irun?” she replied. “Irun? Why would you want to go to Irun??”)


Finally, we arrived in Spain.

Hondarribia, Spain

James had been to Irun before, and he remembered a bus to the next town over, Hondarribia. He knew there was a campsite there, so that’s where we decided to go. The campsite was right where he remembered it, and they even had his information in file, albeit incorrectly – their records showed that James was Irish, when he is, in fact, English. No matter. They were booked solid and were turning people away, but our luck held (or maybe we had perfected our pathetic look), and we were told we could pitch our tent on the campsite’s playground after it closed that evening. We stowed our backpacks in the office and made our way to the campsite bar to kill some time. It was a dark room, with strands and strands of colored glass beads covering the windows. I ordered a red wine (vino tinto) and was surprised to find that it was served cold, straight from the cooler. I was even more surprised at how refreshing it was in the heat of the afternoon. Later, when it got dark and we pitched our tent on the playground, James and I made our way into town for a late dinner of burgers and sangria. Too tired to explore, we drifted off to sleep on a playground in the north of Spain, ready to start our Spanish adventures.

Thursday, August 11, 2005

James concocted some truly tasty meals while we were camping. The combination of cooking outdoors on a tiny camping stove and access to fresh ingredients made all the difference. This is a two-part meal of cooked prawns and stuffed bell peppers that James named after our campsite, Camping du Soleil.

“Prawns du Soleil”

Part 1:

prawns (smaller pack of large prawns)
1 tomato (chopped)
6 mushrooms (quartered)
1 clove of garlic (minced)
basil
salt and pepper
olive oil, to cook

Cook garlic and mushrooms a few minutes until softened. Add prawns, then seasonings. Add tomato and cook until tomato is soft.

Part 2:

1 red pepper (halved and de-seeded)
1/4 baguette (ripped up into small pieces)
olive oil
1 clove of garlic (minced)
basil
salt and pepper

Char the pepper halves over a flame or in a pan. Combine bread, garlic, herbs and oil in a bowl. Stuff the mixture into the pepper and serve with the prawns.

James, La Rochelle

C'est magnifique.

Wednesday, August 10 - Thursday, August 11, 2005

One thing that became apparent time and again on our inter-rail journey that summer is that you couldn’t have a firm plan of where you would go and what you would do. James and I weren’t even a week into our trip and already our plans had had to change numerous times. Our goal, after leaving Pontorson and Mont St-Michel, was to make it to Bordeaux, where we would sample the wine in the sunlight that nurtured the grapes, explore the countryside, and maybe even get a glimpse of a chateau or two. (Again, this was the influence of Charlie Brown.)

Instead we made it as far as La Rochelle, which my Lonely Planet book promised to be “a lively and increasingly chic port city.” We decided to give it a try as it was getting later in the day and our chances of making it to Bordeaux and a campsite before dark were looking smaller and smaller. We disembarked the train at La Rochelle-Ville in the late afternoon and made our way to Camping du Soleil, hoping against hope that it wouldn’t be full.

We must have looked really pathetic, James and I, wearily trudging along in the heat with our backpacks, because for the second night in a row we were squeezed onto a pitch even though the campsite was already booked solid. On this occasion, we would be sharing a pitch with another couple who had a single tent and no car. It wasn’t ideal, but beggars can’t be choosers.

La Rochelle

One of the main focal points of La Rochelle seemed to be two towers dating from the 14th century that stand at the entrance of the harbor. To guard and protect the city, the people of La Rochelle stretched an enormous chain between the two towers. Sometimes the best solutions really are the most simple. James and I admired the towers from afar, resolving to leave the bulk of our exploring for the following day. Our main priority, having established a place to pitch our tent, was to find something to cook for supper.

The campsite was louder than the last two had been, and the showers smelt of urine. This was also my first encounter with the infamous Asiatic toilets. I was unnerved to discover a lack of toilet seats on the non-Asiatic toilets, and as a result, I “held it” for as long as possible. This only resulted in extra-long wees that made my thigh muscles ache as I hovered above the seat-less toilets. In this, I’m afraid, my American-ness showed through like a neon sign.

James and I were woken up that first night by a steady pitter patter of something hitting our tent, leaves or small pinecones or bugs or even rain. In the light of day, we discovered piles of small stones and rocks at the side of our tent nearest to the other couple’s tent. We were glad when the campsite owners moved us to a newly vacated pitch.

Writing Postcards With a Pint of Jupiler

Thursday in La Rochelle dawned slowly. We ventured out into the already hot morning to explore. We spent the day wandering around the streets of the city, visiting a model museum that housed, among other things, a motorized battle between two ships on the high seas and narrated entirely in French (obviously). We stopped at a sidewalk café that served Jupiler, a beer James had first tried in Belgium when we’d gone a few years previous. We found a market and bought the fixings for that evening’s meal. We tried, in vain, to find a beach where we could swim, but instead found only the rocky sides of the harbor with a dead jellyfish washing to and fro.

La Rochelle

In an effort to avoid the ants that were running rampant throughout the pitch, James had hung our string bag of food items (olive oil, apples, salt and pepper, dried herbs) over the fencepost closest to our tent. Much later that night, after the campsite quieted down and nearly everyone was asleep, we were woken by a strange rustling noise. James stuck his head outside and recognized our angry rock-throwing pitch-mate from the night before walking swiftly away from our food net, perhaps having discovered that there was nothing steal-able inside.


Dawn couldn’t come fast enough for us; we were heading to Spain in the morning.

Tuesday, August 9, 2005

Although I left Bayeux without viewing its famous tapestry, I did manage to see some giant earwigs having a grand old time on the ties of our tent. Bugs creep me out. So imagine my terror when James and I disassembled our tent for the first time. I’m reaching blindly under the top layer to untie it from the poles, and inch-long earwigs are having a party under there. I shudder thinking about it even now.

Terror aside, we managed to take down the tent, pack up our little campsite, hoist our gigundo backpacks high, and make our way to the train station to catch the 7:48 AM train to Pontorson, our next stop.

The Inter-Rail Ticket, Thus Far

Our first task upon arrival was to find our next campsite. After wandering around trying to find the “shop-lined D976” and the Camping Les Portes du Mont St-Michel described in my Lonely Planet book and failing, we came across Camping Haliotis (which we immaturely nicknamed Camping Halitosis). Although it was still early, there were no available pitches for us to rent. Once it was established that we were on foot and had no car, however, someone found a small patch of grass just large enough for a tent. We gratefully accepted the offer and went about setting up.

We bought our bus tickets to Mont St-Michel and ate a lunch of baguettes and grapes in the shade on the roadside, watching the traffic. As we ate our grapes, a group of teenage girls wandered past. We weren’t the only ones to notice; a young man on a motorbike began performing tricks as he sped through the intersection, hoping to attract their attentions. I’m sure he managed to attract more attention than he’d bargained for as the wheelie he was attempting went terribly wrong, the back wheel of his bike flying out from underneath him, throwing him into the road. The bike landed on its side, and after hesitating there for a second or two, began to spin in wild circles in the road. The young man, with more of a bruised ego than body, jumped up and ran to his bike, trying to bring it under control. When he finally managed to shut it off, he looked up to find himself surrounded by shop owners, other drivers, and passersby, all yelling at him and gesturing wildly. The girls stood by in fits of giggles. Obviously, the young man had failed to make the impression he was striving for.

Mont St-Michel, France

What attracted me to visiting Mont St-Michel most was the description of its location – surrounded by sand stretching out into the distance at low tide, and surrounded by water just a few hours later when the tides turned. It sounded really magical, and I had to see it for myself. Unfortunately, it looked like half of Europe had the same burning desire, and we spent the majority of the bus ride stuck in L.A-like traffic.

Abbaye du Mont St-Michel

Once we were on the Mont, James and I made our way through its narrow, twisted and turning streets, hoping to find an area that wasn’t populated entirely by fellow tourists. We didn’t see any cars once we passed through the front gates. The labyrinth of streets all seemed to lead upward to the giant 11th century abbey at the top of the Mont, our destination.

Cloisters

To me, most European churches feel gigantic, but the Abbaye du Mont St-Michel was especially enormous. We were allowed to explore the main cathedral of the abbey, wander through the cloisters, view the crypt, and every time we thought we’d seen everything, we’d discover another door or staircase leading to another part of the abbey.

Abbaye du Mont St-Michel

Instead of stained glass windows forming Biblical images, these windows were simply tinted and arranged in patterns, making the space feel much lighter and less oppressive. The views across the sand toward the mainland of France were amazing. We could see people on the sand, but we were so high up they appeared as tiny as ants.

Prayer Candles

We picked our way down to the middle part of the island and found another, much smaller church. It was dark inside, but filled with hundreds of prayer candles in colored glass votive holders. After exploring a little more, we also found an attached cemetery on multiple tiers.

From Mont St-Michel

Later that evening, James cooked a dinner of Toulouse sausages, onions and mushrooms in red wine, with carrots and green beans on the side on his tiny camping stove. Fresh food cooked outside never seems to taste as good when you try to re-create it indoors at a later date. We sat on the grass outside our tent in the fading light, enjoying the food and local wine, and finished the meal off with a cup of Irish Crème coffee brought with us from Wales and brewed in the small coffee press we’d brought from James’s home. We may have been camping, but we were camping in style.