That is Bolonia not to be confused with Bologna. Yesterday was mostly a cliff walk and today was mostly a beach walk. Tarifa beach: beautiful beach, soft, clean sand:
Until there was a huge lake sort of thing, a yawning inlet that had to be crossed and it was close to high tide. Two men in front of me waded through. The water came up above their knees, so I thought if I follow them, maybe the water will come up to my thighs and that would be OK. I had already taken off my boots, tied them to my pack and was walking barefoot, so in I went. Need I be explicit about what happened? Let's put it this way: I was swimming with my backpack on. One of the two men extended a hand to help me out. "No pasa nada," he said. I walked on very wet, sure my boots were saturated and ruined. OutdoorActive seemed to be working—does anything else matter?
Now, before this event, there was already trouble with the phone. I could not adjust the brightness level: choice: 100% or 0. I had to be able to use the GPS app, but that meant that the brightness would devour the battery. I did not need to navigate while on the beach—walking very fast, may I add, since when you are sopping wet, you walk very fast. BUT later on, because of the tide situation, I had to divert, through massive dunes.
This is very hard walking. VERY. And there is no path. To what can we liken it? To being in a desert. But I knew if I kept going UP there would, at some point, be a road. And there was. Eventually. The road was celebrated by the presence of a hotel:
Who could resist such a destination?
After a stint on the road, actually a highway, I tried two more times to get back to the beach, assuming that the impassable part would be far enough behind. A time consuming effort and not successful. Phone battery getting low. Pulled out auxiliary battery, attached it to phone, but it kept turning off. Message: "Liquid is in the lightening connector. Trying to charge may damage phone." Charging may damage the phone? The phone was toast!!
THANK GOD I had decided to bring my old phone along.
With what little charge I had left, I learned from Google Maps that it would take two hours and forty minutes to walk to Bolonia on the highway. It was about 11:30. Swallowing my pride, I abandoned the goal of the day, a decision made all the harder because Bolonia is the last official day of the Coast 2 Coast walk. It is where the Mediterranean meets the Atlantic.
I hitchhiked. One lady passed me by. Then a sort of truck like affair with a trailer stopped. I opened the door. "A dónde vas?" the driver asked. "Where are you going?' "A Bolonia." He sighed and shook his head a little. "A dónde vas tú?" Where are you going?" I asked. "Tarifa." "¿Tarifa? Aun mejor! ¿Puedo?" "Tarifa? Even better! Can I get a ride?" And I got in! "Soy Victoria." "Jose Maria." And I had the BEST conversation, about music mostly, with this man who, after he stopped to do a short errand, took me right to the entrance of the old city, whence I could find my way. One song we talked about at length was Caminante, No Hay Camino," "Walker, There Is No Path" from a poem by Antonio Machado, embedded in a song performed by Joan Manuel Serrat. "¿Sabes qué?" I said, "Siempre cuando escucho esa canción, me hace llorar un poco." "You know, every time I listen to that song, it brings tears to my eyes." "Yo también," "Me, too," he replied. This was one memorable car ride; ¿Bolonia? No importa.
You can listen to the song here (great video but overinstrumentalized):
This performance is simpler musically and has the lyrics in Spanish (not a super high quality recording, though):
And here are the lyrics in Spanish and English:
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