Books we hauled around

Felice´s Summer Reading List:

1. Zeitoun by Dave Eggers--This is the summer reading for Mars Hill College, where I teach, so I had to read it. It´s an account of a Katrina survivor. It´s eye-opening and terribly sad.
2. Outcasts United by Warren St. John--This is a great non-fiction book about a woman who started a youth soccer program of children of political refugees relocated to a poor community in Georgia.
   
3. The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery--This book is a novel that devotes itself to a plot concerning a brilliant 12-year-old who plans to kill herself, Parisian characters from two completely opposite social classes, and, kind of bizarrely, philosophy.
   
4. Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant--This book I found in a hotel´s library. It was the least horrible-looking of three books in English. (The other two were sci-fi/fantasy.) It´s pretty much the same book as The Girl with the Pearl Earring.
5. The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolaño--I was given this book at a refuge, and it was giant, around 700 pages, but I was so excited to have a new book that the weight of it didn´t faze me. It is a novel written by a poet about the poetic movement of Mexico in the 70´s. It´s a story told from dozens of different perspectives in a kind of journal/interview style and turned out to be a really exciting and interesting book.
   
6. Mariana´s Letter--For a while, I had no book and made due by reading a letter from my sister over and over again. As you know from her co-hosting episode, she´s pretty hilarious, and the letter was accompanied by some likewise very funny illustrations (as per request) but they left me with many questions like, "Why is Lindsay Lohan going to jail?" and "What Russian spies?" I have been promised answers upon our return to the US, possibly during our long ride home from the airport.
   
7. The Dead Place by Stephen Booth--This was a pretty typical murder/mystery/crime drama. This one also came from the library of a refuge. It was the only book in English available and takes place in Derbyshire-- pretty creepy tent-reading.
8. Love and War in the Pyrenese by Rosemary Bailey--This book was a great find. I was in a refuge at the base of Mount Canigou, and the guy who worked there saw me looking at the magazines. He said, "English?" and I nodded. (Nobody working at this refuge spoke English or even Spanish.) He motioned for me to wait, and then came back with this awesome book. He said "The great Pyrenese" and handed it to me and made a shooing motion, like I should take it. It is an awesome book about the Pyrenese towns (mostly in France, but also Spain) during the Spanish Civil War and through the end of World War II. A lot of detail is given to the processes of helping refugeese cross out of Franco´s Spain and, later, out of occupied France by traversing the mountains. It´s possible that the main reason that I enjoyed this book is that all of the places mentioned were spots that we´d hiked right through. The refuge where I was given the book is even mentioned within it, twice

Ryan´s Summer Reading List
1. American Sphinx, The Character of Thomas Jefferson by Joseph Ellis
2. Thus Spake Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietszche
3. The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery
4. Love and War in the Pyrenees by Rosemary Bailey
5. A &#@!!-load of maps by assorted Geographic Institutes and regional tourist offices.

The visual accompaniment Part 2

Here are a few photos to go with the rest of our journey since our last visual accompaniment. Again, they´re out of order. Perhaps it´s best to scroll down to the bottom and work your way up; that way I don´t have to try any harder to figure anything out.

This humble body of water is the Meditteranean. Getting wet with it the first time was kind of a big deal, but since this picture was taken, we´ve been swimming in it most everyday. This was taken in Banyul Sur Mer, the first time we saw the sea up close! It was colder than I´d expected, but a beautiful sight.

Though we did not get a parade for arriving in Banyuls, we did get presented with this lovely assortment of painted tiles affixed to the corner of the office of tourism across the street from the beach. That´s my walking stick, Woody, that Ryan is gesticulating with. He was with me for at least half of the hike. And I had to leave him at that sign in the hopes that another hiker could use him. It was sad. The walking stick, not me.

If you strain a little bit, you´ll see Banyuls-sur-Mer in the background, rendered rather shadowy by the rapidly rising sun over the Mediterranean. You might also spot my smile, though it is slightly less apparent than it should be, given our proximity to the finish and my usual fondness for sunrises. I was less ectstatic due to the screaming wind that buffeted us miserable all night long and totally bummed out our otherwise perfect camping spot perched on Pic Sailfort, the last promonatory of our journey.

We got a little lost/"took a shortcut" and found a lot of raspberries and blueberries. We ate them for breakfast with our mueslix. Blackberries were in even greater abundance, but actually were less sweet than those we have growing on our local bush back in Asheville, North Carolina.

Above, there are horses, ponies, donkeys, and cows attacking our tent. Ryan is guarding our food supply. He is so cute when he´s being protective. And Felice is so cute when she waits in the tent for me to cook her hot chocolate every morning.

The first sighting of the sea! It´s waayyy back there, but it´s there, apparently. I was skeptical at the time, but Ryan is as surprised/thunderstruck as a 9-year-old left alone in a house at Christmas-time while his family is on vacation without him. I was actually trying to cheer up Felice, as this view came near the end of a long day´s hike. Yet all she claimed to be able to see were more mountains. What a typical Gemini.
This was taken on the HRP (High Route). You can tell we´re in France by the suckiness of the weather. Fortunately, I had recently recommended that we save our backs by mailing all our warmest clothing ahead to Banyuls from the last post office. What does "fortunately" mean again?

Hi! It´s me, Ryan, and I like getting on top of tall things, like Pic Carlit. (just under 3000 meters, which is roughly 692 Apple Pies.)

Insert joke about finally "getting my feet wet" while reading a map in the public thermal pools in downtown Ax-les-Thermes, a popular French spa town where we resupplied. Preferably a tasteful joke, and funny.

This is me packing up our food at the beginning of a long section. We would go to the grocery store, buy enough food for 4-8 days, then try to make it as light as possible by removing all of the superfluous packaging. Then we´d try to store it in such a way that the least amount of squishing would result.

Ryan´s homemade cramp-ons. He´s so creative. I´m still alive to bear my wife´s ridicule, aren´t I?

A campsite in the morning after one of my fondest days of the whole trip, taking a shortcut on a trail through high Spain called "El Port du Ciel" (Door to the sky). Sometimes my shortcuts work out great, which only encourages me.

Many may have climbed peaks such as this one before me, but few have worn such ridiculous hats while doing so.

This was a kind of Children of the Corn moment--an abandoned city which seemed to be inhabited entirely by this woman and her herd of cows.

El Encantadas, the most notorious peak of the Parc des Aguistortes (mentioned previously). I was rather smitten by this Parc, if you recall, and this seminal mountain´s twin peaks were supposedly representations of the feuding shepherds of separate valleys whom were transmorgrified into stone to bind the region together. But the Spanish government made it even more official in just 1995 when they created the Parc.

And finally--the sea!

About two days ago, we finally reached our destination for the past 51 days. We strolled into the little French seaside town of Banyuls Sur Mer, marched up to the Mediterranean, and stuck our feet into to it. It was cold with the goodness of triumph. It was salty with the sweat of hiking 450 miles. And it was slightly painful partially because it signified the end of our adventure honeymoon and partially because it was covered with rocks (and not that nice sand that we´re used to at Folly Beach).

We´d camped the night before on our very last pic, and it was so windy that our tent was squishing our legs all night. We finally rose around 7am and gave up on our sleeping-endeavor in order to hike the last 3 hours into the town, which we could see in the distance practically the whole way. When we got to a beautiful section of vineyards, we ate some pilfered grapes and I promptly got us lost. So we didn´t exactly follow the GR-10 into town, but we got to take a cool shortcut that took us through a soccer stadium and past some great blackberry bushes.

Then we stopped in a terrifying grocery store where we stocked up on all things French due to the fact that we planned to head straight to Spain. The store was super crowded, and a very loud alarm began to go off due to a power failure, and it continued to sound for our entire time shopping, which was a long time because we were waiting on the thunderstorm outside to stop.

THEN we marched to the beach, where we dipped our toes into the water and ate a feast complete with mimosas out of a Coca-Cola 2 liter bottle.

Thanks to you all for your support during this quest. We will try to get some photos up here asap. On to Barcelona!

The internet is ticking down here at the biblioteca of Roses, Spain, so although as this show´s co-host I should be elaborating in further detail about all the adventures we´ve endured during this last stage, I must demur. Instead, I´ll just promise a much more thorough description when we´ve got more time and the internet is in more abundance, and try to close with something pithy: Thanks for everyone´s support throughout our journey, and hike your own hike!