You might be wondering why there have been no posts for nearly three months. Did the Unprepared Hiker meet his demise because he was so unprepared? Did he hit his head and suffer from amnesia and totally forgot about this blog? Was he killed by a Tick?
I underestimated the work it would take to write a blog while hiking. Writing with a stylus and a smartphone proved to be very, very annoying. It would take so much time that most of my free time was spent writing things on the smartphone. I gave up on that and started only writing things on my little paper notebook, with a real pen.
Besides, I would rather spend my time enjoying my journey than writing long texts. At some point I decided to just jot down some topics and leave the writing to some later moment. I think that moment has come…
On day 3, while taking my first partial shower and changing clothes for the first time, I realized I had a tick in my left tigh. It was a fat, happy, and plumpy tick, buried halfway inside me. How long had it been there? I dont knkow, but it must have been at least one whole day. Since then, I decided I had to shower or at least change more often.
I tried to pull out the tick with tweezers, but it was so happy and stuck that it didn’t want to leave. It came out in parts, and at the end I couldn’t manage to get its head out. I rubbed some alcohol and left it there.
Later that same day I caught another tick on my tigh, but it had installed itself recently. The tweezers were very efficient in plucking it out.
Day 3 was Sunday. I knew there was hardly anything open in France on Sundays, but I also knew there would be a market open on Sunday morning in Beuzec Cap-Sizun.
So I went to the village during the morning, without my backpack, to get more food at the market.
Beuzec Cap-Sizun is a small village. It has a church, a cemetery, a school, a market, a bakery, a pub, a town hall, a town square, people riding on their bikes with baguettes in the front basket: everything that you would expect from a complete small village. In front of the church there was a monument to honour those who died in the two world wars and in Indochine. It counted fewer than 20 names, both civilians and combattants. There must be more cyclists going through the village in a day than people living in the village. There must be more people buried in the cemetery than people living in the village.
Anyways, I got to the village and went to the market. It was small, with very few options. I bought some fruits, yogurt, cereal bars, a canned ravioli, and one baguette. I was worried that it might not be enough food for the day, so I asked the cashier if there was any restaurant in the village: “non, pas du tout”.
I left the market and saw people washing the floors at the pub. I asked them for their WiFi password. They hesitated for a couple of seconds but ended up telling me the password.
I set in the town square and had breakfast: baguette, yogurt and fruits. The WiFi signal was still strong, so I checked up on what had happened in the world for the last few days. I checked the map for the next couple of days, finished my breakfast and headed back to pointe du Kastel Kos. On my way back, I saw a sign: Paella at the school, at noon, today. That was great, I had found food. I asked a couple of old ladies where the school was.
– The “fête de la musique” was yesterday, replied the first one. – No, he wants to know where the school is, said the other one. – Oh, go straight on the main street, and turn at the “rue de l’école”.
When I got to the school, the people there told me they would start serving at noon, and asked me if I had made reservations. I hadn’t, obviously, but I made it right away.
I came back at noon and was the first to be served. It looked like a parent-teachers meeting of some sort. Everyone knew each other, which is not so hard to imagine in such a small village.
The paella was good… And I filled my water bottles.
Day 3 started with a hunt for food. I woke up early, organized my backpack and took down my tent. I left my stuff under some trees and went to Beuzec Cap-Sizun looking for food. I bought some stuff on the market and had some paella in an event at the local school.
There were toilets near the parking place where I had camped. I realized I hadn’t showered nor changed clothes for two full days. Since there was a toilet nearby, I washed my clothes, my face, hair, and armpits using the sink. I left my clothes and towel drying on the tree right above where I had left my stuff.
Dry faster!
While I was changing, I noticed something weird in my left thigh. Upon closer inspection, I realized it was a tick! A fat, happy, and plumpy tick! How long had it been there? I don’t know. I pulled it out.
Now I was fed, partly washed, changed and ready to go. Another day in the sentier cotier towards the East.
Even though I woke up early, I started hiking late this day, because of the paella and the tick and the washing and the drying. Also because of a power nap after lunch =).
Even though I had eaten well – a lot of paella -, my muscles were much more tired than the 2 first days. I walked slower and stopped more frequently. Every time I had to go up a hill, I would take a 15 minute pause. After a while, every time I had to go down a hill, I knew it meant I would have to go up a hill later on, so I ended up pausing twice: once before going down and once before going up.
That’s too far away. Can we take a break?Still too far. Can we take another break?
The view was nice and I took some nice pictures, but I was going way too slow. I wanted to make it to Douarnenez that day, but after the sun set, at around 22h, I realized I wouldn’t make it.
Nice sunset. Are we getting close?
It got dark, and I was in a really complicated part of the trail. The path was really narrow, I couldn’t see much ahead and around me, and I was misstepping a lot. Luckily, my boots saved my ankles a few times when I stepped nearly sideways. It was too dangerous to continue, specially along the cliffs, so I decided to turn away from the trail at the next way out. But I wasn’t close to any big way out.
Pointe the la Jument
The closest way out was the trail to Kergren. There was a motor home parking space waiting for me. But when I got to the way out, it was closed, along with a danger sign!
Kergren: Passage Interdit!
Google Maps didn’t say anything about the way being closed. OpenStreetMaps did, though. I guess I should have checked OpenStreetMaps more closely, instead of relying only on Google Maps.
Kergren passage in Google MapsKergren passage in OpenStreetMaps
I tried going around the danger sign and up the closed trail, but it was way too hard. There was a good reason for the trail being closed: it was steep without an easy path. I fell once, and decided to head back to the danger sign. It was dark, I was tired, and there was no easy place nearby to put up my tent.
So I just took out my sleeping bag and slept right there.
That looks like a good place to sleep…
It wasn’t so bad, but it wasn’t so good either. I woke up with the sun the next day, at 5h something.
Many people I’ve talked to in the past few days either assume or ask me whether I don’t feel nervous for leaving everything behind and starting off in this journey. To be honest, I don’t know whether I am nervous or not. But I certainly don’t feel nervous!
After the nervous breakdown, I started taking some medications. I am therefore chemically incapable of feeling nervous. Maybe that’s why it seemed so easy to make this decision.
How do these medications work? I don’t know. But I can describe what they feel like. It’s kind of like a saloon door – an underdamped system. The doors are held normally closed. When you push them and let go, they will swing from one side to the other, swinging closer every time, until they’re held closed again.
Suppose the closed door is my “normal” mood. When I see, hear, or experience anything that would put me in a bad mood, I feel bad, then I feel good, then a little bad, then a little good, and on and on until I go back to “normal”. Those mixed feelings last a few seconds, and then it’s over, I’m in a controlled state again.
Underdamped system
With time, it also seems my feelings get compressed. I don’t feel the peaks any more. Neither up nor down. I still get chills down my spine when listening to good music though…
