The People We Meet

Any well seasoned traveller will say that it’s the people we meet as much as the places we go that make a journey so special. Before I left home there were some who asked me who I was going with and when the reply was “Nobody”, the usual response was “I’m sure you’ll meet loads of people”. My intention was not to meet ‘loads of people’, this was always a journey on my own, after all I have to get used to that because that’s where I am. If I was to meet anybody then fair enough, but I wasn’t going out looking to meet people, I was going to get used to being alone and see how I coped.

Thursday

Well things haven’t quite worked out like I thought, tonight was a classic example.

On my walk down to the village centre I pass a ‘well to do’ restaurant with superb views over the town with the setting sun slowly disappearing behind it, it’s a place I may eat at during my stay but think, ‘What’s the point’? I have nobody to share such a location with. I take the long walk around which gives me the opportunity to catch the last rays of sunshine on some of the sugar cube houses, now looking more orange than white.

There are two young attractive female Dutch girls in the room next to me, does it matter that they are young? Does it matter that they are attractive, or in fact that they are Dutch? No not at all, but I’m trying to paint a true picture of what’s around me. We share the patio, they work on their computers, I hang out my recently washed t shirt etc having returned from yet another sweaty ride on the bike, and we exchange a bit of social intercourse, spoken obviously! I’m old enough to be their father or at a push grandfather!

As I wander into the village square about 9pm, I see them before they see me, they’re at a table (at the main restaurant) half way through their meal. I deliberately avoid eye contact and head for the last remaining empty table, because that’s my nature. They beckon me over to join them, I am glad, yet a little hesitant, I certainly wouldn’t wish to impose but I’d obviously rather be sharing the evening with two real people rather than my mobile phone. They were lovely and the fact that they welcomed me in to share their time transformed the image I had of the evening I was expecting.

It was yet another example of people’s friendliness towards me, something I’m not searching for, but something which seems to find me out. All the staff at La Raya back up in the Asturian mountains, Carlos, Patricia and Santiago, Harry and James, Andrea running this place and now the two Dutch girls, whose names I will never know as they leave tomorrow. 

People don’t have to like me and I’m sure there are many who don’t, but when some take the time to make that connection, as the saying goes ‘They make an old man very happy’!

I insisted that they left to give them some breathing space, spending a couple of hours with me is enough community service for anybody!

On my solitary walk home in the balmy evening air I looked up at the stars, even with the little amount of light pollution from the village it was still an awesome sight. And then looking across to the rock of Gibraltar with the red lights on it and the array of street lights displayed along the coast of Morocco made me value the moment.

Friday

Friday really did turn out to be a day of rest, if you class resting as getting up at 7am for a two and a half hour time lapse shoot followed by swimming and fell walking? But it was a bike free day as all is set for a full English at 9.30am tomorrow with Harry and James down Estepona way before we head off for the day.

As I arrived at the pool there were two English speaking ladies who are resident here. They obviously like the climate as Linda displayed all the signs of a 70 year old who’d been left out in the sun for too many years. Keri had an American twang but I didn’t enquire further. They were very friendly towards me and we made small talk between me doing a few lengths and them chewing the fat between each other about daily life here.

After they left I managed to rattle off a few photos of the vultures who were now circling overhead and getting surprisingly close although the wide angle lens on my phone makes taking a good photo difficult. A couple of them were definitely giving me the eye and even though I know they only go after dead meat it did feel a bit strange having them show an interest in me from such close quarters!