It starts with an absolute unthinking happiness. An effortless movement; more sailing than cycling. Carried through a sunny day on an immense and blustering wave, I feel its hands upon my back, and I am pushed all along the great flat road at fifty kilometres an hour, not even the light and ticklish touch of an air resistance on my face.
After Peru and Bolivia, I have fallen into a heaven of small and wonderful things. The bread here is fresh not chewy and stale, there is cheese that tastes of cheese, and olive oil, and apples that are not powdery deceptive lies, but apples, and meat that melts, doesn´t stretch and string and crumble as old worn out leather boots, and wine, cheap wine, that doesn´t make you grimace and wince and shudder at its scent.
Everything is good. Glossy, shining supermarkets, shelves piled high with food. Clear cold drinkable tap water and strong hot showers. Signposts, cleanliness, order and receipts. Queues and politeness and priority seats for the elderly. Real coversations, interest and an understanding of what I am doing, and time to stop and talk and do nothing. Everything is good. And the wind keeps pushing at my back. The sun glints off windscreens, hands wave, horns sound and carry me easily south.
And then there is a change. The wind flails and twists around. And it is there in front of me, its cold breath fierce like a wall and fighting. And whipping up sand. And robbing happiness with an inhuman unkindness, and with a relentlessness slowly emptying me of everything.
After Peru and Bolivia, I have fallen into a hell of terrible things. Food is expensive and markets have disappeared, to be replaced by cold impersonal fluorescent lights, and loyalty cards, and car parks, and queues. And billboards everywhere saying stupid things. And everything closes for four idiotic hours in the middle of the day. And the countryside is a monotonous desert full of sand and nasty plants and barbed wire fences, and wild camping is a nightmare. And traffic jams and roundabouts and ring roads.
The wind sweeps me off the road, over and over, and I can´t lift my bike against it. I´m on my knees and screaming, furious angry words in capital letters, that tumble lost behind me, and I´m learning that the wind here doesn´t listen, even when you scream.
The wind keeps pushing and holding me down, and like a play thing, like a plastic bag, like nothing, I´m thrown all over the road. The sun that glints off windscreens laughs, and the hands that wave and horns that sound smack only of schadenfreude, and I am fighting slowly south.
After Peru and Bolivia, I have fallen into a heaven of small and wonderful things. The bread here is fresh not chewy and stale, there is cheese that tastes of cheese, and olive oil, and apples that are not powdery deceptive lies, but apples, and meat that melts, doesn´t stretch and string and crumble as old worn out leather boots, and wine, cheap wine, that doesn´t make you grimace and wince and shudder at its scent.
Everything is good. Glossy, shining supermarkets, shelves piled high with food. Clear cold drinkable tap water and strong hot showers. Signposts, cleanliness, order and receipts. Queues and politeness and priority seats for the elderly. Real coversations, interest and an understanding of what I am doing, and time to stop and talk and do nothing. Everything is good. And the wind keeps pushing at my back. The sun glints off windscreens, hands wave, horns sound and carry me easily south.
And then there is a change. The wind flails and twists around. And it is there in front of me, its cold breath fierce like a wall and fighting. And whipping up sand. And robbing happiness with an inhuman unkindness, and with a relentlessness slowly emptying me of everything.
After Peru and Bolivia, I have fallen into a hell of terrible things. Food is expensive and markets have disappeared, to be replaced by cold impersonal fluorescent lights, and loyalty cards, and car parks, and queues. And billboards everywhere saying stupid things. And everything closes for four idiotic hours in the middle of the day. And the countryside is a monotonous desert full of sand and nasty plants and barbed wire fences, and wild camping is a nightmare. And traffic jams and roundabouts and ring roads.
The wind sweeps me off the road, over and over, and I can´t lift my bike against it. I´m on my knees and screaming, furious angry words in capital letters, that tumble lost behind me, and I´m learning that the wind here doesn´t listen, even when you scream.
The wind keeps pushing and holding me down, and like a play thing, like a plastic bag, like nothing, I´m thrown all over the road. The sun that glints off windscreens laughs, and the hands that wave and horns that sound smack only of schadenfreude, and I am fighting slowly south.
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