Day 30

"To get away from one's working environment is, in a sense, to get away from one's self; and this is often the chief advantage of travel and change."  ~Charles Horton Cooley

Today I wanted to enjoy beautiful and peaceful breakfast with the view on the ocean, but I did not have much luck with finding a good spot. That was the reason why I cycled for about 2 hours without breakfast and the terrible twinge in my stomach reminded me constantly that I should finally take a break. I did so after finding some benches and I think I overindulged myself once again. Having eaten a package of muffins and a big cream yogurt I have taken nice 7500 kJ, almost covering the optimal daily nutrition value with the first meal for the whole day. I know that I bike a lot, but still, I should keep an eye on what I eat when I get munchies. My stomach got used to a huge intake and I eat like crazy. On the one hand, it is great to eat more, thus enjoy the food more, but on the other it is not good in a long run. I hope that after my return I will come back to normal eating habits.

I spent the whole morning and the early afternoon biking through different forest lanes with the only company of Hume and Kant on audiobooks until I finally took my lunch at the tourist office where I also recharged what I could. Now at least something healthier – a baguette with ham. I also bought rose table wine in the supermarket to create the right French atmosphere. Then I listened to some music and totally forgot to take regular breaks. That proved not to be a good idea because later on I was quite tired and I surely did not want to risk anything with my hernia - it would not pay off to put my whole pilgrimage in jeopardy due to my own impetuosity. After getting lost for several times once again, I decided to have dinner on a bench near a crossroad. I was just about to finish my last bite when I was a witness of a very bizarre situation. One car unexpectedly pulled over before a van blocking the road, the driver got out of the car to check something and the crew in the van started swearing heavily. One of them got out, smacked the guy right in the eye, bumped his head on the car, blustered something in French and went away. It has happened so quickly that I did not even realize what was really going on and just stayed sitting on the bench totally startled. It made no sense to mingle in conflicts of the others because the guy looked just alright and there were other three guys in the van who could sprang in defense of the attacker. I had no clue who the good and the bad guy was in this incident, since the slapped guy was later checking his car. I bet he must have bumped the van from behind, but I guess the crew of the van kind of overreacted. I was totally dumbfounded by this occurence and it totally spoiled my experience from great dinner. That really pissed me off.

Despite my tiredness I did my best (cautiously, of course) to arrive in one particular place. As you can see on the picture, this time I got lost pretty much – it looks like in Egypt. No, just kidding, this is a special place in France where you can find one big dune that just happened to build there and many a tourist visit this place to see it as the most spectacular attraction: the only dune in France. Somebody from Egypt would probably think that those tourists are nuts because in Egypt there are only dunes, dunes and again, dunes. It is like my staying in Vancouver, where I was shown a 150-year-old house during one excursion that was supposed to be the oldest relics in Vancouver. I was like, yes, and what? You can visit any village in Slovakia and you might find even older houses that are even still used for living. Anyway, for me as a European who has never been to any dessert, this dune was just fascinating. And I was extremely lucky that I managed to get on the top just in the nick of time before the sunset (now I truly mean 1 minute before the sun disappeared behind the sky). For me it was an ultimate experience and the view was just stunning. For night I pulled over in a small resort called petit Nice – firstly, I liked the name and secondly, I was quite tired after the whole day. I built my tent quite carelessly and ignorantly in a parking lot near to public lights so my temporary camping site was quite visible for other resort quests. This did not pay off – the resort stuff apparently do not like shabby pirate campers like me and the next morning I had a little encounter with the police. 

Link to photos