In the weeks leading up to the GR10 departure, whenever it
came up in conversation, there was the inevitable question: ‘So Mos is going
too?’. Well …. No. This became an even more awkward question when Mos was present. There was the natural assumption that if I was going somewhere then so
was he. But apart from the fact that the idea of walking up and down mountains
for days on end is as appealing to him as a cold cup of sick, I wanted to be on
my own. And for some reason this was considered singular at best, misanthropic
at worst. I imagine that if I said
I was going on retreat it wouldn’t be considered so odd, but existentially, at
times, everyone needs a view of their own. We should be able to affirm our
existence on its own terms rather than through someone else’s eyes.
Dining out is probably the most awkward for the single, with
the inevitable ‘table for one?’ question from the waiter. Having zipped on the
bottom half of my trek pants, and thrown on the one clean t-shirt, I would be
seated resplendent in muddy trousers, blue fleece and matching smelly sneakers
(and as the t-shirt was merino ice-breaker there was always the faint whiff of
sheep about me) in a room full of couples. I would be armed with a book, and,
perhaps more disconcertingly for others, my knitting, and happily amuse
myself until the food arrived.
Inevitably, however, despite the desire for aloneness, there’s
just no escaping people. They are there each night, many of the same people from
Day 1 there on Day 12 as we follow the same pattern of gîte d’etape.
They will bring their habits, as I did mine, like hanging wet washing inside
and letting it drip on the floor. At least one will be uselessly prepared with
an out of date guidebook and no words of French, so that no matter how much you
want to avoid them you will have to end up helping them so they don’t hurt
themselves or someone else (and it’s not like I haven’t taken to a mountain a tad unprepared and paid the price so I did have some sympathy). Like life in
general, you can’t always choose your travelling companions nor who you will
encounter along the way. It is a matter of chance. Leave a day later or earlier
and you will travel with different people. With the people you have there will always
be the introverts, the extroverts and the catastrophies.
Even during the day, when I could resume my singleness as I
bolted out the door to gain the first hours of freedom, you’re never actually
alone. There is always someone ahead or behind: sometimes me in front,
sometimes Mr G., with his long stride, passing by later in the day, then Père
and Fils, then the French couple, finally the Anglos and Mz C. Space is given
and received. A wave as one appears above the other or passes while taking a
rest. So if something did go wrong help would eventually arrive. Having Mos or
anyone else beside me wouldn’t stop me breaking something and if the worst
should happen I wouldn’t be in a position to worry too much. Someone will
eventually find the body. It took 75 years but they eventually found Mallory.
I would therefore always argue for the benefits of independence outweighing any sense of security that comes in the group. For being
on my own each day avoided the insularity that group-dom can generate and
instead brought the random encounters that become the great joy of travel. After
many years of experiencing only a Parisien France where, let’s face it, the
locals have a certain, much loved, brusqueness, it was quite surprising to
find locals in the Pyrenées actually happy to stop and chat, in fact insisting
on it, in fact indicating it was very rude NOT to stop and chat. Those coming
the other direction, those out for a daily constitutional, farmers and other
assorted locals, all had something to say.
The man from the Caribbean who
crashed his catamaran and was filling in his days walking while waiting to hear
about the insurance – he wore a down jacket while the rest of us were in t-shirts.
The pilgrims when we crossed paths with the Camino de Santiago, marked out by their
shells and saintly determination; some decidedly odd, wanting to kiss cheeks
and wish ‘bon camino’. Away from civilisation too long me thinks, or just a tad
sleazy. I chatter away to a man who introduced himself as Dutch, until he
finally points out in English that I need to stop talking to him in French. Taking
the time to notice the sartorial elegance of a set of wiry, brown bare legs
that stop for ice cream: tent hanging from the bottom, socks drying from the
top, bottle and map bag strung in front. Solving the refugee crisis with a
German couple over a cup of hot chocolate in a hotel in Lescun. It is one of my
great sorrows that I could not communicate more fluently with some of
the strangers passed en route. The man in his 50s who was doing the whole
traverse, a wave, some chat about how his day had been, comparing notes on the
route. But why he was doing it I will never know.
There are not just encounters with humans that singleness
makes possible. Moving more quietly means sightings of the shy are more likely;
the marmots, the deer that dance from field to forest, the gold and black
lizard that scuttles away or the small snake that makes a dash for it. Semi
wild horses grazed to my feet if I sat quietly enough with my cheese baguette,
while the cows in creamy caramel coats over muscular bodies created acrobatic
performances as they balanced on vertiginous escarpments. One day a sheep dog mistook
me for a brebis and tried to round me up. It made the farmer laugh at least. For some reason the mongrel
collies took a general dislike to me and I had no end of growling and snarling
at my ankles across Pays Basque. It was only on one of these occasions, and it
was three dogs versus me, that I did wish there was someone else around.
Yet overall I make a case for the power of being alone in a world where, for the
rest of the year, we must talk incessantly or listen to incessant chatter,
putting out so many words into the air and on paper that most of the time fall
into disregarded heaps on a floor, unimportant, irrelevant. Just for two weeks
a year I want to be able to do nothing but walk on my own. To have the freedom
of saying nothing while I sit in the sun with a book and a cup of tea, with no
phone or internet or anyone I know. To have nothing to do for hours until it’s
time to eat or sleep or walk again. I want to walk my own pace; make no
decisions except when I’m starting and what I’m having for lunch each day; be responsible for no-one and nothing except where I next put my feet; sort
out my problems my way; pack my own bag and strap my own blisters (actually
I always strap my own blisters – Mos, quite rightly, refuses to go anywhere near
my feet).
