Sant Llorenç de Montgai. I am overwhelmed by the landscape. After walking the shadeless plains inbetween Lleida and Balaguer on some of the hottest days in history and spending a night at the soulless campsite where everything is about entertainment and you forget the amazing landscape you are in - unless you go to the swimming pool where you have a view of the mountains but I don’t want to swim there because you have to wear a bracelet with the dates of your stay to get in plus there is loud music and activities, and even if it would be just a pool with easy access, why swim there if there is a huge lake with the most amazing colour and big fish swimming in it just on the other side of the road? - , after many mosquito bites, wild boar encounters, blisters of impressive size, dusty roads, busy cities, industrial areas, but also many beautiful and sincere meetings and conversations with random people on the road (the locals at the bar in the middle of nowhere who made me feel part of their little family, Carlos at the busstation in Igualada who just arrived from his place in the mountains to buy food for his 15 stray dogs and couldn’t hang around too long because he was afraid of forest fires since he was surrounded by pine trees - not so much for his place but for his adopted dogs -, the woman in the supermarket in Corbins who gifted me peaches, Lolita - oh, Lolita! - who I want to be when I’m 87 -, friends and strangers online who send me kind words and inspiring thoughts and donations), after everything that happened in only 8 days, today the mountains and the river touch something in me that got worn out a bit in the last months, possibly years. In a way the wagtails at the campsite already did, hopping around on the grass and flying over the water to catch insects. There are traces of Neanderthals in this area and I made a joke to a friend earlier today that the neanderthals in this area today are the people on the campsite but it is a bad joke really: how can I compare those humans living in the most extreme circumstances with the people who sit on their assigned areas (100m2, what do I do with that with a tiny tent?) surrounded by microwaves, fridges, airconditioners and sound systems, talking loudly all day? I had to sign a contract to sleep there, they gave me coins for the dishwasher, fortunately I have my solar panels so I don’t have to pay extra for electricity and there is no lack of sun. My little field has plantain on it, I used it for the mosquito bites and the blisters.
There are kind and caring people on the campsite as well of course and I am grateful for a night of good sleep in my tent. And in a way I understand why people go there by choice, to be entertained. It isn’t a place for me though. Those mountains are, but they are too steep for C. And also: this isn’t a recreational walk. The opposites, the extremes, are what makes it worthwile and gives it its purpose.
The Tao gave me number 14 today. Conocer los origenes es iniciarse en el Tao. I am doing my best, trying hard and not trying at all at the same time.
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