The Route, the Pencil and the paper

"The Walker"

Trip Notes

I got used to go a thousand miles per hour. Going back and forth like a ping pong ball, to new, old, good and not so good spots. With just my backpack and basketballs making art in the streets, from city to city until the legs hurt and the pockets are heavy.

I woke up at dawn, dismantled the tent and started my last day in this city, buying that morning coffee in which I left my last euro. I went to the park to drink it, where I used to go every morning. There was that kind girl walking her dog. With a smile, as she did every day, will say to me for the last time "good morning."

I started to walk slowly with a single goal; get out of the city, out of the noise, out of the chaos. I did not want to, or was going to intend to stop for a long time. Walking was doing me good, it was making me forget. The night had been long and cold, the day before long and hard and you mean and selfish.  - Part of the trip, part of the trip, I whispered to myself. 

I was walking who knows where, my head was anywhere but on my things. I liked to go nowhere and lose myself in the thoughts that the road gave me. When buildings became houses, I felt calmer, when there were no more houses, I felt at peace.

Walking takes me to the road, to the countryside, to the landscapes, to the mountain, when my legs start to hurt I know that it has already been fifteen or twenty km and that perhaps I am already halfway there.  The soles of the feet stiffen and the knees begin to ache. In every walk I come to the same reflection, I have to take things out of the backpack.

I had to go through a couple of fences, scraping my arm to continue my way, where I came to a river, a lonely river that I followed in the direction of the flow until I reached where it emptied into the sea. You could see the fish jumping into the water and you could hear the tide slowly hitting the shore.

I put down my backpack and sat on a rock, saw nature and felt peace. I had started walking in the morning and it was only at sunset that I understood that I didn't like getting there so much but I like walking much more.  I had understood that on my trip, I did not want to reach a destination, I wanted to keep walking, I was not looking for anything, I was just enjoying.