West Highland Way: day 1

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Morning at Dryman camping.
Ima decided we should use the "Travel-Light" service: get some bags taken by car to our next destination, and this way lighten our load a great deal. But since she and Bam had to go return the car, it was up to us children to re-pack the camp and have the bag sent. I put the tent and some sleeping bags in one of the spare bags we had (two of our backpacks come with special bags to put them in during flight, so that they don’t have all the handles and shoulder straps dangling about while being handled by the airport crew) now the problem was to locate someone to ask about how to get that bag sent. We looked where it seemed to be the camping reception, and there was no one, only a sign with a phone number to call, which we did and no one answered.
To make a long story short, at the end we did manage to send that bag, of course - but not before I got toatlly stressed out, because once I finally got the phone number of the guy from Travel-Light, he had such an accent that I didn’t understand most of what he said, only the most important detail: in 10-15 minutes.
While we waited for our parents to arrive, we busied ourselves re-destributing the weight between the backpacks, eating breakfast, playing the guitar and singing, arranging here and there. The beautiful rooster who had come early to make us company was joined by some hens less confident about getting near us. At last ima and Bam arrived: they had had difficulties getting back, having missed two buses, finally deciding to take a cab. more arranging, as of course we didn't get to finish packing completely. and then finally, we were on our way.

We walked a short distance on the little asfalt road joining the road to Dryman village. but before the junction we encountered our first Simon: a short wooden pole indicating the West Highland Way (see picture), that ima nicknamed Simon because it's close to the hebrew word "simun", which means marking or indication. Then bagan one ascending out of many. The day was warm, and to top on that the slopes were relativly steep all day long. This was what we'd call in retrospective the hardest day of our journey. The view, though, was spectacular in a way that made up for the aches of the body. The Way circled a mountain to go down again till it reached Loch Lomond. This loch is long from north to south, and not from east to west like most Scottish lochs, and since we joined it our path followed its easten shore, sometimes taking some distance and sometimes virtually touching the water, all the long of the remainder of that day and a big part of the next one.
It was a painstaking walk: following the banks of a lake along all the ups and downs during miles and miles. My feet that had started hurting badly relativly early in the journey, now were simply torturing me: I felt like Andersen's little mermaid, who in exchange for her fish tail was given by the sea witch a pair of legs whose every step felt like walking on knives. By the time the sun was starting to show signs of setting, everybody's feet were equally hurting. We all were striving to get to Rowardenan youth hostel, were it was stated a grass patch was intended for camping.

At last, the feverent glances at the map revealed we were getting very close. It was getting dark when we finally destinguished the gray stone building rising majestically against the darkening sky. Ima went in to ask about our camping spot. But following the directions, that as ima reports were given in a laconic indifferent manner, we found nothing resembling what we were looking for.
And then the midgies came. We had been warned that they were a nuisance in Scotland at this time of the year at nightfall; we even equipped ourselves with a special repellent; but none of that prepared nor protected us from the unexpected attack of dense clouds of tiny mosquito-like insects, that get to your eyes and ears and bite every centimeter of exposed skin. That was the first in many moments in which I envied the women who daily wear burkas that cover them completely, with even the eyes behind a protecting net.
It was undoubtedly the worst night we spent in the Scottish hills. Putting up a tent in some clear spot that we managed to find, cooking dinner in the dark, and going to sleep with aching feet and bitten bodies.

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