Ever since I left the scouts, at around 16-17, I’ve been on the move. When I’m walking, words pop into my head that I sometimes puzzle over for hours. Today, I’m telling you about one of my travel words: slowly.
In April 2018, I set off on my journey from Lourdes to Santiago de Compostela. It wasn’t the first time I’d travelled on foot, but covering such a long distance over such a long period of walking was a real baptism. It took me 31 days to walk from Lourdes to Santiago and then on to Fistera. I learnt an important lesson: human speed is definitely closer to 5 km/h than 120. Honestly, I thought that the transition from the stress of our hectic daily lives to the secular rhythm of our ‘hunter-gatherer’ ancestors would pose a problem for me… Well, not at all! Three days were enough for me to adapt to the pace of walking.
Whether it’s grey or blazing sunshine, rain or shine, it’s a subtle pleasure to spot all the little things that line the roads. Then they scatter along the paths and finally the mountain trails. Little by little, the eye becomes accustomed to seeing these banal things, these details of simple life that we had forgotten.
Slowly, you see more
It starts with pools of blurred colour at our feet, so many varieties of flowers. Then there are the clearly recognisable footprints of a few sheep. They had been left in the mud by a dozen or so animals that I was to meet later in a meadow. Hearing and, above all, seeing the birds that frightened me when, in order to cross the bridge over a stream, I approached the river on whose banks they were nesting…
My senses quickly become sharper, more attuned and calmer. My steps become lighter. An otter passes in front of me, indifferent to my presence. I walk slowly and manage to blend into the landscape. I have absolutely no feeling of being a stranger in the landscape.
When instinct returns
And then you get used to it. Your eyes, which at first only picked up on small details, become sharper as the days go by. Alongside the yellow arrows that mark out the route, other landmarks follow in a succession of small images that are not all that ordinary. The constant search for signs to guide us towards Compostela becomes natural. The walker’s steps are guided by a certain languor, as he listens to his heart beating at the rate of sixty steps a minute. And then we finally arrived at our destination. In the rain, and that long-awaited goal is completely irrelevant! And that’s where it all stops, where it all starts to take off. There are three days left to reach Fistera, where the earth ends (finis terra). Well, we’re not going to deprive ourselves of another 72 hours of slowness.
A difficult return
What a shock to get back on the road, or rather the motorway, to go home! I had booked a seat on a Flixbus scheduled bus. The coach left Santiago de Compostela just before midday. Through the dirty window, I just had time to make one last gesture to Luella the Australian. She’s been my travelling companion, my guide (she’s already travelled the roads to Compostela several times) and my English teacher.
We’ve been driving for a few minutes through the streets of Santiago before reaching the motorway. The weather was beginning to speed up again. If I remember correctly, we stopped twice, for a toilet break and for dinner. Then I must have dozed off for an hour. At around 8.45pm, as I looked out over the landscape, I could read on a road sign that we were already approaching the city of Irún.
Irún, the town where I had started my Spanish journey after 6 days in the French Pyrenees. On this bus, we had just covered 850 km in just over 8 hours. The distance I’d just covered in 21 days of walking! What a shock!
And then life resumed its hectic course
I confess, the return to the hectic life we all know took its toll on me more than I thought. And I believe, having heard many pilgrims’ accounts, that this is the case for most Jacquets (people who have reached Santiago de Compostela at least once). Going from speed to slowness is much easier than doing the opposite.
Memories come flooding back when I take a walk in the countryside or go shopping in town on foot. Nostalgia awakens when I come across a few poppies, colourful flowers or a pigeon eating breadcrumbs while cordially ignoring me.
Since then, I’ve gone back. In March 2019, I spent three days on the forest paths of the German Eifel, where speed and slowness go hand in hand. Then I left for ten days on the Rota Vicentina in southern Portugal in September. Once again I felt that enormous gap between the tranquillity of walking and the frantic speed of our vehicular lives. And I’m beginning not to like that pace any more.
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