Pyrénéen

Three hours of sleep before being painfully yanked back into existence. Clean up, clear out. The French Riviera met another sunny day and the remains of the week that passed evaporated quickly into oblivion, as we pulled our bags to the rental car and set our sights westward. We passed the mountains, the spring flowered trees, temperatures on the dashboard rising as the buds along the side of the road grew bigger, lusher. Thirty-three degrees and snow-covered Pyrenees whispered of Spain within reach, but we slowed as the roads grew winding, the villages small. My eyes fought to stay open as we carefully navigated the village streets; strangers, thought the sage residents as we passed.

We did not know what to expect here. We followed our young winemaker on his tour of the various vines straddled across scraggly rocks and mustard-covered fields. There, behind the castle, there is the ocean, he said, as his daughter concluded in her curious French that we must be sisters, because our hair was the same. When he left us at the village square, another group of strangers gladly took us in and tore us along to their barbecue down the street. Everyone was a vintner, everyone brought a bottle of their own to the fête, whether there were labels for it or not. I struggled to keep my eyes open, I struggled to keep my French intact; both were failing.

Hours later, we regretfully made our way up the hill to the guesthouse where we would finally sleep. In the dead quiet of the sleeping village, our eyes were again alert, our tongues loosened, our prospects bright, but the alarm clock loomed large in the near future. Another day, another adventure. The ancient doors gave way, cold tiles soothed my bare feet as they walked those last steps to the bed. Another day, another adventure. My body slept long before my head hit the pillow.