so I had several wake ups with bad sinus pain but actually despite that slept pretty well.. I think I might have overheated yesterday and in the eve... today I woke up to rain... the woman who ran the front desk was italian and spoke both french and italian..so I used my few simple italian words to get the room and saying good bye as I left. Funny I feel like I have some vague handle on italian now ..
I followed the instructions of the ladies in the tourist office... the words, 'it is protected' ran through my head, in reference to the trail I would face. I've noticed that I think my nerves are a bit raw, because the loud noise of unmuffled motorcycle and moppets is now bothering me more then it should and the constant exposure of heights outside of my comfort zone has made my phobia trigger-happy and it seems to jump up in place where I would not expect... so I started the walk.. like I said it was raining..and I was walking on a rocky path..which would rise up as the cliffs demanded it, and then go up an down along the coastal edge.. sometimes with stairs sometimes little narrow goat trails.. yes, there was a rail and the heights were not as high as I've dealt with... but there was also a few section where the railing hard torn away and the narrow path was eroded by some weather damage... I did not like this.. I did not like the rusty unstable rails in sections.. and some of the steep ascends descends of stairs... or wet rocks.. … there was a first little challenging bit which was about 15 min.. at this point I was ready to head back and almost did.... I would have had to walk quite a bit back into town to hook back up to the main road and then walk along that to the next town... so I had a choice... I decided to continue on... at the same time I was cursing the tourist office lady who made it seem like no problem.. perhaps she did not take into acct that I had a big pack...at one point where the path ended and I had to go under a rail to continue on another path.. I actually had to take the pack off at this point so i could fit under the rail..then on again on the other side... so one thing that was different this time.. was that although I was frequently pushed out of my comfort zone, it was not quite as much, so I was actually trying to work with the situation a bit more... I had noticed that in the past days when I got too hung up on the height fear after wards I be all light headed and then the next challenge I faced was even more overwhelming ..because some how,I had lost my groundedness... so this time the only thing I could think to do was try to focus on my gut region.. it supposedly from hindu tantra is where your will is located... so I tried to tighten it.. even doing an internal growl just to really feel that area vibrate... and every time I got challenged I tried to go back to that place... it was not 100% but it got me through... then right before the end at the bottom of the cliffs near water edge there was a wide open platform.. I took a rest there... and the emotions did hit me... after I calmed down a bit I ate a nice quiche I had bought at a bakery and watched a giant cruise ship full of people come into the harbor..
I was thinking of how me and those people were so close physically, and yet experimentally what they were feeling right now and what I had just experienced alone was so vastly different...and pretty much in the same landscape.. the last bit was a very steep stair climb up in zig zag path,but the view was buffered by craggy rocks sticking out making me fairly safe.. but when I hit the car road above I was ever so relieved... I had only covered a 1.5 km stretch.. .but it had again been dramatic for me... now safely on the road I was able to process some more on the experience... I was proud of myself for really having tried to work with my fear more directly than before and although I would not choose to have this experience again... I was glad that I had done as well as I did... then to keep spinning the story... I decided that the tourist office ladies, who by the way are always pretty here, where semi-wrathful dakinis who had talked me into pushing myself out of my comfort zone so I could have this opportunity to discover how to use my will to work with my fear... during the drama I had kept saying to myself.. 'your will has gotten you here, up to this point, you can also do this...' and those words did have some power... now having a month and half under my belt I felt like I had some valid proof that I had an inner strength I could rely on...as often after a challenging stretch... things seemed fairly tame after, for in this case, the rest of the day.. I would eventually walk through Nice during the mid day... one of the first parts of Nice was the 'antique' part of town...
I walked through the center of it taking photos... I am noticing little differences between french and italians... french themselves are adventures you can find them in all parts of the world...often in places that are quite challenging, if your safety and comfort seeking... they bring this adventuresome spirit back home... there are restaurants from around the world here and the shops in Nice would carry exotic products, such as fabrics from india and art from Haiti...and atmospheric bars reminiscent of places like nepal or thailand... I think the population seems more multi-ethnic but again I am just beginning my journey here and I am definitely walking through one of the more affluent areas of france... although I was getting tired I kept walking out of Nice along a nice wide pedestrian and bike path... which lead out of town past an airport .. it was interesting watching planes beginning to descend right above the ocean onto the airport at the edge of it... at the very end of the airport along this bike pedestrian path.. I saw an old man sitting on one bench, and there was an empty bench next to him.. I was angeling for that when the man spoke to me in french.. I told him I did not speak french, he asked me in french what languages I spoke, I answered in my little french 'German and English'... he perked up when I said german.. he then told me in perfect german to sit next to him and rest for a while,since I looked like I was heavily burdened... he did most of the talking... he had his well-used bike standing next to the bench... he was a round bellied congenial man in his seventies... he told me he is from a region by the german border, it's been french since the 1400's but was briefly conquered mid 18 hundreds by the germans.. his parents where made to go to german speaking schools.. he grew up bilingual but perfected his german through self study.. apparently he has german correspondence who assure him that even his written german is grammatically perfect. And so it seemed to me.. he warned me that once you get into your 50's your mind has a tendency to want to slow down and get sleepy..so you need to exercise it .. he said he could do cross words but then you would not have anything after your done... where-as if you learn a new language you have the benefit of being able to use it.. he was currently teaching himself english with phrase books and dictionaries.. I was impressed, he assured me learning another language was quite difficult... making me feel a little better.. when he heard I intended to walk to santiago... he told me he had thought about doing that when he was younger... he had wanted to do it on a donkey... I laughed, but he was serious... he had looked into it, but realized that what if the animal got sick, and the cost of insuring it would just have been too much so he gave up on the idea.. I asked what about food? He said oh donkey can eat anything...if they run out of grass they eat leaves on trees... I tried to visualize the added complications I would have trying to do this hole thing with a damn donkey..especially since I have no experience at all with such an animal... too funny... he did tell me that he rode his bike all the way from Menton, by the italian border to somewhere near paris... and he had to deal with the regional climate change.. his tent did not dry out as well up north... he also told me that in the 90's he had had a bad accident during which he was in a comma for a while... he lost his apartment.. the man had simply rented it out to someone else... eventually he would get some sort of charity assistance and had gotten an apartment initially for free in Villefranche-s-mer, the place I had just left that morning. Had lived in the old town section.. it was quite nice.. but too many hills not good for bike riding... I was ready to leave and asked his name which was Lucern Helleringer, both first name and last name had a story each.. he had Pere as his legal first name but has never gone by this name.. he has been fighting the state to have all his important mail and documents be changed to the other name... this story was longer in it's original... his last name he said sounds german does it not? But in fact it's been a french name for hundreds of years... in fact his ancestors were originally protestant but then there was an infamous persecution of protestants I think in the 1500's called Batholemew night, he likened it to Krystal nacht, the infamous night where the hate for jews really exploded in Nazi germany and the hard core persecution really started.. he said , see we french are no better than the germans... but I thought, 1500,s is more safely in the past than 1940's germany... anyway he said a lot of protestants were slaughtered... he said a lot of his ancestors fled to germany and settled there and those Hellringers who stayed in France converted back to Catholicism.. he told me his parents were catholic and he was a catholic but had left the church for personal reasons... he then talked about racism in general and how it seems to sleep in every nation.. and sadly once it got ignited genocide would result... he was talking about how currently Gypsies are being persecuted in places like Romania and how they are fleeing to places like France... unable to find work you would find them begging in the streets.. he also talked about how Gypsies suffered as much under Nazis as the Jews...but people seem to like to forget the Gypsies... I heard like... so I begged off at this point... told him if I did not get going soon I would get lazy ... he gave me a heart felt good bye, thanking me for giving him the opportunity to practice his german.. I expressed equal delight in having talked to him... and on my parting he let me know the upcoming terrain in a way only someone who bikes or walks could explain.. .first it goes down, then you have to climb a hill then you have to cross a bridge … and so it was... but the walk would continue longer than that...for I had to find lodging... cheap lodging.. so I walked prob another 1.5 to 2 hrs... I found a small low business hotel with reasonable prices and took the simple room.. the woman there was curious about me and asked me about my walking ...and was surprised that I had not taken public transportation even once since I started.. I asked for a cheap place to eat and she referred me to a small family run restaurant... the menu was in french but the mom and son running it were really sweet, although we did not speak each others language. They ended up getting me a big salad with little baguettes that had melted mozzarella on it and a side of fries.... I was pretty tired after and finished 'my evening chores' and went to bed...and slept well for it had been a longer walking day.. and I was whopped...
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