A month on easy street
3 comments August 19th, 2005
For over a week now, I haven’t walked anywhere.
Except to the pub for the occasional (okay, frequent) pint.
I haven’t sweated. I haven’t hurt. I haven’t met any strangers. Weirder still, no-one has looked at me with that bemused, what-the-hell-are-you-doing?- stare, the open mouthed, ill-disguised gawping as if at an alien. I look just the same as everyone else. Well, okay, I am in Cornwall; but even so, after a year of being the central attraction everywhere we go, it has been an odd change of pace.
I am glad that we have only a month off; we are due back in Morocco on the 15th of September, and plan to set out for the desert around the 20th. It means that this break is more a quick whirlwind of organisation rather than a flat out period of indolence, and in many ways I am thankful for this, as it keeps us focussed on the walk and enthusiastic. I think that if it were a longer holiday, it would be rather easy to move away from the task at hand, and sink back into everyday slothfulness – particularly with such luxuries as baths, televisions, and pubs close to hand. Dangerous combination. Although I guess they are rarely all taken at the same time (pity, that).
I went to the doctor this week to have my feet looked at, as for the last thousand kilometres I was suffering increasing pain. Apparantly I am suffering from something called “plantofacialitis” – I think that’s how it is spelt – which is essentially to do with the tearing away of small muscle filaments at the insertion point near my heel. My arches are also flattening out. It was a tremendous relief to discover that there really is a cause for the ongoing pain, as I had begun to wonder if I was just going to suffer from this problem for the rest of the walk. The doctor and physio reckon that a bit of rest and plenty of massage – did you hear that, Gary?? MASSAGE – should put it to rights, and I shall just have to re-think my footwear for the next leg. If anyone out there is a footwear manufacturer and would like to get on-board the constanttrek project, feel free to throw indecent amounts of money and product in our direction.
Form an orderly queue, gentlemen.
The second phase is becoming increasingly exciting. The initial two and a half months will be our “going to school” period, during which we will walk through the Western Sahara to Dakhla, on the border of Mauritania. Our guide is a Hassaniya Bedouin man. The Hassaniya, so called as they are descendants of the Beni Hassan tribe, who led the Maqil Arabs across the Sahara from Yemen during the Middle Ages as part of the spread of Islam, dominate the desert from Morocco to Mali. In walking from M’Hamid down through the Western Sahara, on to Nouakchott on the Western Coast of Mauritania, then across through Mauritania to Mali, we will be following an ancient and well trodden pathway. Our guide speaks only Hassaniya – an Arabic based dialect – so this period will give us a chance to learn language, custom, and skills associated with the Bedouin. Meanwhile, Habib, our contact in Morocco and an extraordinary wealth of knowledge and expertise in organising expeditions of this kind, will drive out to meet us three times during the two and a half months in order to check that we are coping okay.
I am enormously thankful for this backup, as after the border of Mauritania, we will largely be on our own and running an independant expedition. Hopefully we will be in a better state to do that after our period “at school”.
So for now we are busy organising our equipment, trying to get the website set up, and looking at technology options to keep this website functioning from remote areas. Again, interested parties (satellite phone producers) line to the right. Millionaire donors to the left, please.
In between all of this, we are rediscovering the joys of the Sunday papers, fry-ups, Real Ale, and deliciously cool weather. Gotta love England’s idea of a summer.
We are toying with the idea of holding an afternoon at a pub in London where all who read this are welcome to come and chat with us – as much for an opportunity for us to put faces to the very kind names who have emailed us over the past year, as for you to meet us. If you would be interested in coming along, please email me. It would be a very informal gathering, but perhaps also a chance for likeminded individuals to meet up. You all sound like a wonderful crowd, and we would love to meet you and say thanks over a pint or two.
Anyway. At the mention of that magic word, I may have to go and indulge. After all – it’s going to be a loooong, dry, trek….
Cheers
Paula (Cornwall this week)