Chapter 14: Day 17-18 Salamanca to San Sebastian to Bordeaux

Chapter 14 - Day 17  Salamanca to San Sebastian 250 miles

After a wonderfully relaxing sleep, Anton and I were the only ones who were rested enough to be animated the following morning.  We woke early but prolonged our enjoyment by breakfasting at the hotel before seeking out our weary travel mates.

Our destination was San Sebastian, a coastal town 250 miles to the north east, on the Bay of Biscay.  Most of our companions slept through that journey, which allowed Anton and me a peaceful day of scenery watching together, as our Love Bus bridged the distance.

We did not stay at the same campsite that had welcomed us during our first visit to San Sebastian!  It was closed, understandably, considering a goodly portion of the upper mountainside now covered it.  Our drivers had successfully located an alternate site, that overlooked the ocean and was also open for business.  And most of our group stayed there overnight.

Having enjoyed a wonderful night's sleep on real beds in Salamanca, Anton and I decided our bodies required continued comfort and ease.  So he found us both a room in a clean and comfortable 'pension' in San Sebastian.

Sensing that this would be our last opportunity to enjoy uninterrupted time together, we shunned the group's company and ate one last private supper together, at a local restaurant. We then spent the evening quietly sipping wine and re-living all of the wonderful things we'd done, places we'd seen and memories we'd created on our very special 'hippie' trip.

From the bottom of my heart, I thanked Anton for being a kind, sensible and caring gentleman who had tried so hard to protect me from bodily harm during our trip. We had had a glorious adventure so far, experiencing so many wonderful places, cultures, and people in an amazingly short period of time.

He had also been a wonderful tonic for my doldrums. And he brought out the best in me, as I sensed I had in him, most of the time anyway.  I told him, truthfully, that I would never forget the sweetness and enthusiasm with which he had shared his considerable architectural knowledge with me, and how lucky we all were that he had been there to keep up group morale whenever it flagged.

I was grateful to him for minding his manners and always acting like a gentleman towards me, even though I’d flirted madly with him and knew that he’d really wanted more than just my 'friendship'.  I also thanked him for the opportunity to earn (with my bargaining skills) those many souvenirs and gifts with which he had showered me, and which would forever remind me of this wonderful trip that would be abruptly ending in a few days' time.

Though we both knew that we would soon return to our 'real' lives, we would always have this trip as a beacon of happiness, should our future lives ever seem dark or hopeless. This trip would serve to remind us what magnificent, strong and luminous beings we were as young adults.

I then confided in Anton about my deep sorrow at my failed relationship with my Canadian man; about my feelings of inadequacy in my new job; and my antipathy about my recent move to a new neighbourhood where I was now the stranger. And, more for my own illumination than his, I explained how these inner stresses had been magnified by blackouts and loneliness - all of which had precipitated my impulsive booking of this trip to Morocco, mere hours before it had departed.

Anton listened in silence, nodding as I illuminated each point. And when I asked why he had not seemed surprised by anything I told him, he confessed that he already knew much of it since I had apparently talked in my sleep!   

It took him long enough to mention that! 

In his turn, Anton then confessed to me that he had been living with the same woman for more than two years before booking this trip.  As an architect, he had yearned to see and experience different cultures and the buildings they created. Yet, because his lady disliked travelling outside of Britain, they had never taken a foreign trip together.

Eventually, frustrated by her inability to share something so vital to his well-being, Anton had booked this overland trip to Morocco without her. She had not been pleased, of course. But travelling slowly was his preferred way to deepen his understanding and appreciation of a foreign culture and its many styles of architecture.

He had not expected to meet anyone on this trip who would share his same depths of passion for art and architecture. And yet our paths had collided and we had become each other's magic catalyst for change!  And we were still both in awe of that small miracle. 

Once back in England, we would go our separate ways and likely never see each other again.  And perhaps that was how it needed to be. 

Anton had no idea what kind of reception he would receive when he returned to the North London home he shared with his girlfriend.  And I now knew that I had a lot of thinking to do about what I wanted to accomplish in my life.  Only then would I know the direction my life was to take, and how I would 'make it so'.

Because it had been the elephant in the tent, Anton and I had been forced to accept and face our fascination for each other head on, and without pretense. Animal magnetism had drawn us to together, its power undeniably seductive and persistent.

Under different circumstances, our sleeping in such close proximity, night after night, might have precipitated much more than just respectful togetherness. But neither one of us was prepared to jettison our precious new friendship for the sake of a fling. We simply wouldn’t risk the passion because we were both reluctant to lose each other's respect by making promises that we'd couldn't keep in the light of day.  

Holiday romances are, by their nature, ephemeral. But by remaining conscious of the deeper needs of the other, we’d each been able to enjoy our holiday flirtation without losing ourselves, or each other, to the allure of 'forever'.

Had we crashed and burned that last night together, it might have spoiled all the memories we had just created, and now treasured. So we sipped wine and talked till we fell asleep, gently cradled in each other's arms, two carefree strangers, delighted that we had found each other, if only for the duration of this three-week trip.

Though our own compatible energies were protected by the time warp of our trip, an ocean of discordant energy awaited each of us back home, and we both knew it.  

 Chapter 14 - Day 18 San Sebastian to Bordeaux  150 miles

photo by kind courtesy of judybellwatercolors.com

The next morning, I awoke to find a single pink rose on my pillow, and next to it a note that read: 

Thank you for all you are, and for all you have inspired in me.

Meeting and being with you these last weeks was a joy that I never expected, nor thought I ever deserved. Being and talking with you has given me the courage to face my life head on.  So I have decided to leave the tour and catch a flight back to London today, to sort things out at home, one way or the other.  Wish me luck!

Forgive me for not waking you to say goodbye, you were sleeping so peacefully I didn't have the heart to disturb you.

Thanks again, my precious friend, for choosing this particular Tour so that we could meet; for always being your REAL self; and most of all,  for creating such beautiful forever memories with me.

love always, A

p.s. When printed, I will send photos of our trip to you, via the Overland Tour Company.

After days of waking before dawn, I could not believe that on this, of all mornings, I’d slept in!

I sighed and smiled through my tears reading his note over and over again, because I knew what he said was true.  Anton was also a joy that I had also never expected nor thought I would ever deserve.  And now he had left my life as suddenly as he had entered it, a mere 18 days earlier. 

I would miss Anton's winning smile, his quirky humour and his complete obsession with photography, art and architecture.  But in a very real way, his idiosyncrasies and the lessons they taught would always be with me.  And, in my heart, so would he.

Dressing, I gathered my few belongings, and with rose in hand, slowly made my way back to the Love Bus. There I discovered that, earlier that morning, Anton had collected his backpack and sleeping bag, and bid everyone farewell before departing for the airport and his plane to England. 

During our journey to Bordeaux, I came to realize that Anton must have booked his plane fare to London from San Sebastian while we were still in Salamanca.  I wasn't sure how to feel about that realization.  My emotions were just too fresh and raw to trust.  So I let it all simmer, hoping I'd understand more later.

We all missed Anton, in our own way, on our return trip through the Pyrenees to Bordeaux. Everyone seemed a little more pensive and self-absorbed than before.  But even George and Len seemed to understand that I was currently rather fragile and they should try hard not to irritate me more than usual. 

An insecure part of me felt horribly abandoned when Anton left.  And while it was true that I'd now have to pitch my own tent for the next couple of nights, that fact alone did not explain the depths of my very mixed feelings about him, or about his current living situation. 

As the bus climbed higher and higher through the mountains, my reflections grew deeper and deeper. By the time we neared our destination I had become aware of many unresolved feelings of abandonment lingering from childhood days. Those same feelings had re-surfaced when my beloved boyfriend had suddenly left for Canada in February.  And now that Anton had also left so abruptly, those ugly feelings of rejection had surfaced once again!

Though young in years, I already knew that when something we don't like surfaces again and again in our life, we have to find out why, if we are ever to find peace within ourselves. 

I found it slightly ironic that the very method of Anton's departure had given me both the time and the space I'd needed to identify the true underlying cause of my misery. 

Now all I needed was a solution. But before I could come up with one, we had arrived at our Bordeaux campsite.  I had never been any good at setting up a tent and was dreading doing it alone now.  So it came as a complete shock when Len -without saying a word- took it upon himself to set up my tent for me, a discrete distance from his own.

I was flabbergasted, but made a point of graciously thanking the man I'd thought of all these days as just a rather sullen scholarly stalker.  It seems the people on this trip still had the ability to surprise me.  And I rather enjoyed knowing that!

 Coming Soon!

Realizations, Reality Checks and Rain

in 

Section 3 - Chapter 15 

Bordeaux to Paris to London

My Road to Morocco - Days 19 -20