A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.
Date of event: 7/5/2009
If you click on this photo you'll see a panoramic view of the valley floor as it stretched away from me.
The painting on the building was still impressive and when it was done must have been more so.
The main thing I remember about the town, other than the steep climb out, was the old guy I spoke to who was working in his field on the way into town. He spoke a happy mix of French, Catalan and Spanish - so it didn't phase him at all that I might slip in the occasional Spanish word. When I mentioned his way of talking he said: Oui, c'est tout mezclanger - even the word a mixture of the spanish mezclar and the french melanger.
After 10 minutes of chat he signed off with: voy a travailler un poc; three languages in almost as many words.
For day's I'd been seeing lycra clad racers flashing about, sometimes flashing past me. On this particular day I could a bright yellow jumper pedalling up the hill behind me and so I decided to just try a bit harder and make him work to overtake me.
I thought the top of the hill was closer than it was and so 15 minutes later I was till managing to keep him at bay though I was tiring. Still worth the effort I thought.
So I kept pedalling, trying to get a bit more space between us on the short, occasional, dips in the road. Eventually, very tired and sweaty I arrived first at the small village on the hill top where I had to stop to look at my map.
A few minutes later an old guy on a beat up mountain bike cycled up the hill with his shopping... wearing a bright yellow t-shirt.