“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can” - Arthur Ashe
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I am writing this from Orbe, Switzerland, where it is 7PM and it has been a day!
As the the frankenstein plug I’m using to charge my phone while I write this faithfully records, now this Via Francigena has spanned three countries; England (in one long day), France (the love I’ve left behind) and Switzerland (the unknown!).
I woke up early, but struggled to get out the door early this morning before 9PM.
“La direction Suisse” Madame Godart said,
After preparing for an all day affair with a sandwich from the patisserie, I set off.
The maps posted behind the post office showed the way. I took a picture with my phone, a new strategy for orienting myself while following trail markings. I started walking.
“OUCH!!” I took short steps. My right hamstring was short and tight and spasmed with every downhill step. I unfastened the strap that put the weight of my backpack in my legs. I hugged the straps close to my chest to let my shoulders do the work.
It made a difference. The posted plaque estimated 7 and a half hours to Orbes. Maybe I will just make it to the border, I thought, and walked to the “frontier”. Although I didn’t know it. When I neared the border, the gallant Swiss flag on a pole above the gorgeous mountains that I thought marked the “border control” was actually adjacent to a trampoline.
I had my passport ready but no one was there to greet me but Italian builders. They let me fill my water bottle at the construction site hose.
“Gratzi”
Almost into the first town of Ballaigues, the trail markings became confused. The retired french couple that had been just a few paces behind me all morning and I stood their for a moment trying to find the way. I saw a bike path and a lot of cars turning to civilization. Every time I stopped and started my leg tensed up again, so that was good enough. I kept moving.
I ended up on a municipal pedestrian path, but the signs confirmed it would get the job done to Orbe. There were no cars, no cyclists, no other hikers, just cows, donkeys and sheep on the parts of the trail that cut through their fields.
Above us, trucks passed on a highway supported by tall concrete beams that shot up from the fields.
In a few painful spots, I lost the way and had to return a kilometer or two to pick it back up. A step forward, a step back.
Maybe I was enticed to the wrong direction for the chance to be in the middle of a flock of wooly gray white sheep. They seemed to be led by one vocal sheep, who belted out a warning when I neared, and so they stampeded out of sight.
The donkeys I met inspired me too. They seemed to be led by a massive grey one, possibly a mule, with an even bigger face, curious, ugly, cute. I felt a huge affinity for this animal. I felt sad for the patch of flies near his eye, when he shook his head I saw the insects were congregating around a raw pink sore.
I reached another small town where the only refuge for travelers, an old hotel was closed. I knew then I had to make it two more hours to Orbe. I tried everything. Down a grassy hill, I threw off my backpack and kicked it to let gravity loosen my load, for the feeling of being free from it, to move my legs in a new way.
I reached the gorges of Orbe and enjoyed the shady path. It felt familiar, like Connecticut. I hardly explored angles with my camera or fussed with my bag to get it for fear of losing the rythmn that would take me to all the way.
I occupied my brain by remembering every person I had met so far in every city, in order. I remember a lot of people whose names I will never know.
When I felt pain in a step, I started counting to take a clinical approach to it. I made it by 6PM and finished by very carefully climbing one last hill from the river to the city.
I chose the first hotel sign I saw, I think it was the only one in town, and for once, the hotel from the itinerary I left America with.