A Series of Ordinarily Extraordinary Events - The Red Bike Rides in Bretagne, Pt. 3

02.08                      23:00              Hostel Room in Quiberon

Weather: The sun overcomes, the wind still blows fierce

Distance biked: 75 km yesterday, 45-50km today

Jeff was the 3^rd most extraordinary thing that happened to me today. He approached me as I sat at a table in a bar. The bar was not crowded; five to seven locals joked around the bar, and I sat alone, half a floor away. I sat crouched over this very journal, finishing yesterday’s entry. My bike helmet sat on the table in front of my beer. I wore my “civilian”, non-bike clothes, but no doubt still stank. Beneath me lay my bursting backpack. As always, I must have cut a strange figure.

“Where from?” he asked me. He had been walking back from the bathroom. I told him, in French.

A simulation of our linguistic struggles

“Who you?” he continued in English. I don’t mean to brag in saying it, but I will: my French was better than his English. Certainly more fluid.

“Je m’appelle Daniel,” I said.

“Oh, I’m Jeff.” We shook hands. He had long curly brown hair and bright blue eyes and facial hair all over.

He asked me what I was doing, why I was in Bretagne, and where I was staying. He stuck to the English. Rarely am I out-stubborned over which language to use, but I had to hand it to him. I ended up throwing some English in.

“You’re going to Quiberon tonight? Do you have number?” He meant phone. He proceeded to offer me a place to stay at his house. He wouldn’t be there that night, but his girlfriend would. He then told me to see the Côte Sauvage and take pictures (he mimed taking pictures with his hand). By the time we ended our conversation, he had told me work was good in the tourist season – the summer – but not for the rest of the year, that he was from Nantes, and the Breizh (Breton) word for “see you soon” at our parting (Something like Quenavoohoo). We also exchanged a second, more elaborate handshake.

I don’t know why they always come to me, but they do.

(I was not bold enough to take Jeff up on his offer).

***

The fourth most extraordinary thing today was biking through Elven. The town was nothing special, but its name is Elven! (An Elven in Breizh. Vannes is Gwened in Breizh. Pretty cool).

As I said, Bretagne has Celtic roots. Breizh is related to old Celtic languages, with lots of gw, q, k, and ac sounds – the most familiar Breton name to Americans I Kerouac (also Bretagne – Brittany in English – is related to Grande Bretagne in French – you guessed it, Great Britain).

For me, Celtic roots mean nerdy fantasy worlds I ate up as a kid. First Lloyd Alexander’s Prydain Chronicles, then of course Tolkien’s books. I was not terribly sad about missing Merlin’s tomb, but if you told me where the village Beren and Luthien passed the end of their days, I’d be there yesterday (that’s a Silmarillon reference, uber-nerdy Tolkien stuff). 

If the shoe fits...(though really, I'm more hobbit-like)

Part of the excitement and majesty of this trip for me is to explore a related setting. I trek through forests and wide wheat fields, past mysterious ponds and quiet stone hosues, over hills and to windswept coasts. The interior of Bretagne enchants, and towns named Elven only add to the fun.

Not all of Elven was fun, however…

***

The most dually frustrating and positive thing today was that I bought a map. The map kept me on track – no zigzagging today. The only diversion was when I found a bike path that took me along the canal between Nantes and Brest. This was great, and I only wish it could have been more on my way to Vannes. Biking on flat, quiet bike paths by water is hard to beat.

The frustration is twofold. First, when I have a map, I look at it. A lot. Like every time I come to a significant intersection or a new town. My memory is good but not for pictures, and doubt is strong in me. Most often this is seen in the many photos of me traveling, with a backpack on and my nose in a book. It’s usually a guidebook, and I’m usually checking a map.

More physically frustrating was that my map showed no topography. I had no idea when hills were coming. The ride through Elven felt like one long uphill with brief flat pauses and the rarest of dips in the road. I pride myself on being tough, but 100 km in two days and hill after hill is enough to knock the tough out of me. One of my cycling maxims (I’ve at least two) is that every uphill is rewarded and every downhill paid for. It sure didn’t feel like I was rewarded today. Only on the last 10 kms did I rediscover my gumption and gut it out. A few downhills helped.

***

A few pettily extraordinary things:

-          I’m staying in a hostel. The only thing I don’t like about hostels is sharing my room with strangers. I’ve not done so in a long time, maybe four years. Still, for this trip I thought I could deal with it. What the hell, I want to go cheap. Them’s the breaks.

I showed up at 21:30, a half-hour before reception closed. I got placed in a room with four beds. Alone. Hot damn.

-          I showed up so late due to finally conceding on the train front. I had to take the train one stop before transferring to a train for this peninsula. The earlier train that went was a TGV, the one where you have to pay.

I could have said fuck it, snuck on, and hoped I wouldn’t have to deal with anybody for the ten minutes before I changed. Instead? I took a ticket for a later regional train and went for a drink and dinner in Vannes (meeting Jeff in the process). Maturity, I guess.

-          As mentioned, the sun came out. Ruins my joke that the one thing in my backpack I could do with out is the sunscreen. I did wear my long-sleeved shirt tonight.

-          I kept my Olympics streak alive, watching the women’s gymnastics tonight in the common room. I don’t think I’ve ever watched them so much, at least not since I was a kid – in ’08 I had just moved to Israel (no tv), in ’04 I worked two jobs, etc. Growing up, the Olympics were just about the only really-approved sports programming in our house. My mother liked the gymnastics, swimming, skiing, and figure skating.

-          While writing this, I finished my survival pack for the day – bread already gone, I ate an apple and finished my bar of chocolate. The chocolate only had half a row left. “Who’s been eating my chocolate?” I thought. I always eat it row by row, and the only way I would have left it like that is if I had been interrupted.

I checked in my back pack. There on the bottom was the rest of the chocolate, broken off. Good thing I checked.

***

The second most extraordinary thing I came across today was the beach. I’m staying in a hostel just north of Quiberon, on a narrow peninsula (Jeff described the people here as close-minded, “Quiberon for Quiberon” types, saying that 15 km out in the water, the mentality is bizarre). The beach is right there. So after checking in and claiming my room, I threw on my long sleeves and walked over, hoping to catch a glorious sunset.

There was no sun to be seen, though at 21:35 it was still light out. Plenty of other things demanded attention. I reached the sand and saw little white specks jumping all over. I thought at first that they were specks of trash blown about that looked like bugs. On further inspection, they were bugs. Leaping little whit erratic maggots or something. They popped left and right and up and down like excited gas molecules, with only rare periods of considered crawling. Barefoot and otherwise, I found the buggers all over my feet and ankles. They covered the whole dry sand area, especially congregating around seaweed and such clumps.

The wet sand area was the biggest I’ve seen. Wide as a football filed, the smooth sand was covered with a slim layer of water, not enough to stick up your nose or drown in. It represented a large tidal variation.

I walked barefoot out to the water’s edge. The water chilled me though gulls braved it. I skipped a few stones before my weak shoulder ached. The ocean roar drowned out my singing. Down to my left, on the south of the peninsula, a few lights shone, Quiberon’s agglomeration. Two couples sauntered on the wet sand. 

And then I turned around. Rising above the tree line, not visible closer to the shore, was the full moon. Orange and ripe like the whiffs of stinky cheese I bumped into en route, the moon hung over as if ready to swallow the peninsula. With such a narrow base and 15 kilometers out into the water, with all this as normal, it’s hard to imagine how the locals could have anything but a bizarre mentality.

The most extraordinary thing today? That breath filled my lungs, blessings my life, and that I was able to take part in all of it. And that I have another day to tackle tomorrow.