Sunday, July 30, 2006

Discovery

So happy.
Decided to do something I've been too lazy to do for the past 5 weeks: go for a real walk.
There's a mountain behind my apartment (there's mountains everywhere) and it's green at the top. So I put on kitten heels and started walking in the hot hot sun, up up the steep little streets behind my place. Already I was happy. There are little shops, houses, tiny dogs, great views, less noise, better air.
Then the road diminishes, there are huge slate-like rocks upended alongside the track, curious. There are a insects everywhere, a little pagoda thing with a guy doing yoga, a botanical garden with signs identifying the flowers with their Latin names. I'm up really high, looking down on my suburb, the road I travel to work, out far to the next mountain, the next range, the next suburb. A huge black butterfly flies close to me, so big that at first I think it's a bird. Then I see some birds, like magpies but with blue wing tips. Flowers everywhere. Hot as hell. Sweat pouring down my next, back, legs.
Wonderful.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Sounds fantastic.

Long walks by yourself in foriegn places are great for your mind body and soul.

When I lived in Paris for a month I would often take long walks from one side of the city to the other by myself. I got to see all kinds of things that I would have missed if I had just stuck to the tourist haunts or stayed in my Dad's apartment all day watching the BBC.

I find when you're by yourself you're really able to appreciate the awesome fact that you're in a completely different part of the world!!!!

I can't wait to get overseas again!

*sigh*

richardwatts said...

Sounds superb, and reminds me of one of my highlights in Barcelona, which involved getting lost on a mountainside before walking back into the city along the docks. Magical.