Save the Camera!

I awoke in the middle of the night to muffled laughter as Manuella and Lucie kicked at our frenchman's bed. His snoring echoed through our sparsely furnished room and into the halls beyond, drowning out the sound of the group of 70 scouts that slept in the other rooms. Oblivious to our snickers and sighs, he rolled over and gave us a few moments peace.

We began with an early morning coffee dwarfed by mountains, and said goodbye to Lucie and Manuella as they stopped for the day in a quiet little collection of houses called San Esteban. After we all  exchanged emails and numbers, I sneakily discovered that my lovely companion's name is Hafid. 

We finished our day, laying in the soft grass at the cliffs edge as waves rushed the rocks below in the costal town of La Isla. We had celebrated our entry into the region of Asturia by cooking far too much for dinner and sharing wine with a loud American and a free spirited German couple. Thanks to the wine, we slept soundly, Hafid snoring from the room beyond.

"This is the best pasta in a bag that I have ever eaten!" We sat in the shade of a thousand year old church as Hafid handed me a ziplock of pasta salad from our dinner the night before. As we unlaced boots and laid our socks in the sun to dry, we devoured our pasta, cheese, stolen prunes, and chocolate. 

*****

"Yes! We can go this way," Hafid encouraged while holding the barbed wire down for me to step over. Due to a tractor plugging up our tiny path, we had backtracked uphill (of course) and were trapped between a mountain and a fence. I hesitantly climbed over the fence, testing the ground with my walking stick as Hafid charged ahead. We cut through a field of tall grass with ferns as our carpet and thorns angrily grabbing our legs. Discovering the other side of the tractor to have an 8 foot drop, Hafid jumped spryly down, and turned to me while I clutched a tree branch. 

"Throw me your camera! We don't want to take chances with the cameras!" 

"What about me?" I shrieked as I slid down the embankment. We laughed for miles, our welts and bruises well earned. 

Hafid was the perfect walking companion, fearless, curious and a dispenser of tiny fact tidbits. Full of compassion, he talked of his students, a mixture of immigrant and refugee children in his adopted Brussels home. An avid photographer, lugging a large Canon and two lenses, He talked of how to show perspective and the use of exposure compensation and I happily listened and learned. We spent many moments taking pictures and comparing ideas. And as always when with anyone French, I was well fed.

Hafid sat, puffing on a cigarette that he had searched the entire town of villaviciosa to acquire, while I sneakily plucked all the baby pickles out of our tapas of olives and pearl onions. We slowly sipped our drinks, drawing on a fresh reserve of energy to complete a long and soon to be lonely day. Three kilometers later our paths divided, his continuing along the coast towards Santiago and mine cutting inland through the mountains of Asturias. "If you are hungry," Hafid advised, "just look up!" He pointed with his walking stick to the lush fruit trees above. We kissed cheeks, his white short beard tickling my skin, and with a last "See you in Santiago!" He was off, his Picasso Quixote form speeding across the landscape.