bartjeej.blog

What am I getting myself into? That question pops into my head more and more often as my departure date comes closer. ‘West Africa’ is the easy answer, but what does that really mean? I honestly don’t know; there’s only so much you can learn about a place by reading about it. I’ve always been a bit of a dreamer, and I’ve been dreaming about making a trip like this (and many other adventures) for years, but so far, dreaming is all I’ve done. Now that I have both the money and the time, I intend to live that dream.

After moving out of my room (sniff) and saying goodbye to my friends (sob!), I spend two much-too-short days with my family, and then it’s time to really get moving. I feel my confidence growing again as I’m done packing. After a short night, I’m brought to the train station by my family. Lots of hugs and a few tears later I get on the train and I’m on my way. First up is a short ride to Antwerp (beautiful station by the way; the Belgians really do grandeur a lot better than us sober Dutch!), followed by a change to the Thalys high-speed train that’ll take me to Paris.

Seeing people have their Sunday morning run, just like I would normally be doing, has me reflecting on what I’m leaving behind, but such thoughts quickly disappear when the train passes Brussels and we get into the countryside. It’s a beautiful early spring day, even though it’s only early February. The sky is blue and cloudless, the grass is bright green, there’re some crops peeking out of the ground, and even a few fields of flowering rapeseeds. It’s definitely not what winter should look like, but it does make for a nice day to travel!

Some 2 hours later the train pulls into Gare du Nord, and I have 9 hours to explore Paris. My first destination is Île Saint Louis, which is an island in the Seine. Despite being right next to Île de la Cité, with its famous Notre Dame church, the atmosphere here is quite relaxed and uncrowded. I spend some time eating homemade sandwiches and enjoying the sun along the banks of the Seine.

Just before 10 in the evening I board the night train to the Spanish border – except due to rain damage it can only go to Lourdes. My “roommates” include a former architect who now travels the world making a living selling watercolour paintings of the places he has visited, and Helène, who grew up in the French Pyrenees but now lives in Singapore, partially because there’re very few jobs in her part of France. At 6 in the morning, after a rough night in a tiny bed which I have to share with my backpack, we are kindly requested to leave the train at Lourdes. We then take a train to Pau, where we lose sight of the architect: Helène, her sister and her sister’s boyfriend then travel with me on another train to Puyoô, then on the bus to Bayonne, where their mother picks them up. I continue on yet another train to Hendaye, and from there on a train that finally takes me across the Spanish border and to Donostia, capital of Gipuzkoa.

Most people outside of Basque Country will know the place better as San Sebastian. After all the trainhopping, it’s a minor miracle that I only arrive there 2 hours later than planned. My blistered feet are still bothering me, so I don’t get to do as much as I had hoped. I do get to see the beach, which is beautifully located in a bay sheltering it from the very rough waves of the Atlantic ocean, and makes for a nice contrast to the snow-capped Pyrenees around the city. After visiting the beach I have some pinxtos (Basque-style tapas), which are very tasty and quite distinct from the tapas I know.

All of a sudden, it’s summer time; mountains covered with completely green forests, cows with calves, storks nesting, and orange trees with seemingly ripe oranges instead of olives. There’re also golden eagles circling overhead, bringing to mind the excitement I felt when my father pointed them out on our holiday to Spain in 1993. As the train comes to a halt in Algeciras, across the bay from Gibraltar, I pack away my windstopper jacket as it’s around 20 degrees C outside.