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Published: November 26th 2006
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Today we woke up bright and early, in better spirits, and ready to walk! We spent the morning buying food. It was a mission to find anything other than baguettes! We sat in a park and I opened my Vegemite, which I was very excited about! It was the first time I'd had Vegemite since leaving Australia. It was the best Vegemite sandwich I've ever had! The we set off on our walk. It was a beautiful sunny day, and warmer than we'd expected. A lot of the walk was along a road, which was frustrating, I was anxious to get off the beaten track. We were all a bit nervous about this really steep hill that the people at the pilgrim's office had warned us about...but in the end it turned out to be not quite as steep as we'd expected. It was hot though, and we were glad to reach the fountain halfway up the mountain. We were a bit embarassed by the couple in their 60's at least who passed us on our way up the hill!
After another steep incline we came to a hotel. It had a gorgeous view! We thought we'd stop for lunch but everything was so expensive! So we bought a baguette for about 3 euros and kept walking. According to our guide, there was no supermarket! We kept walking and the terrain became more mountainous and beautiful. We were in the Pyrenees. Green expanses stretched on for miles around, the air was fresh and crisp, and the winds up in the mountains were strong. At times cars would pass us, which was a bit frustrating since we'd spent hours walking to where cars could go in minutes! But we kept on going, taking endless pictures and videos as we went. There were sheep everywhere. At one point Ezra stopped and bent down. He stood up with a piece of sheep poo in his hand. I was a bit curious as to why he was holding sheep poo, my thoughts drifted to my childhood when my siblings and the neighbours' kids and I used to have horse manure fights. I was about to look for some ammunition of my own when I noticed the little brown shoots growing from the poo. "Hey guys! I think these are magic mushrooms! Magic mushrooms usually grow in shit apparently!" So for the rest of the day we were stopping frequently to pick mushrooms. By the end of the day mine and Kellie's pockets were filled with a brown mush. We never ate them.
At about 5.00 we came to a small stone shelter on the very top of the mountains, in quite a windy spot. It was small and looked like it could fall apart at any moment. But we climbed inside anyway. It was warm and sheltered from the wind, and we figured there wouldn't be another place to pitch the tent, so we made the decision to sleep in the shelter. Kellie busied herself making a campfire under what was probably the most spectacular sunset I've ever seen. We didn't have much food, only one baguette, some vegemite, cheese and some ginger cakes from Austria. After a while it was all gone, we were hungry, cold and tired but in great spirits because we were all alone on the top of a beautiful mountain with nothing but the stars and sheep to keep us company (oh, and one horse. yep just one.) Kellie and Ezra recovered to the cave, which we soon realised was big enough for about 2 and a half people to sleep in comfortably. I grabbed my sleeping bag and headed to a sheltered part of the mountain. I found a perfectly squishy piece of grass to lay on and was sheltered by rocks on either side of me. I lay under the stars and let my mind wander. What had we discovered here? Was the rest of the walk going to be as amazing as today has been? How were we going to survive for over 1 month of no civilisation? The world at that instant was so powerful to me. The sky, the stars, the rocks, the mountains, and little me. It was incredible. I was overwhelmed by the beauty and magic of it all. What better moment to practise my lucid dreaming?
I have been studying lucid dreaming for about a year, in short it's the ability to control your dreams through meditative and memory techniques. I've had a few of them and they are amazing, well worth the months of meditation it takes to acheive them. Tonight, surrounded byt the beauty of nature, I decided to try my hardest to lucid dream, to connect with my surroundings. I closed my eyes. I concentrated on my breathing. In. Out. In. Out. I became aware of the images forming under my eyelids, swirling colours and obscure, elusive patterns. In. Out. In. Out. I rolled my eyes as far back in my head as they would go. In. Out. In. Out. My eyelids began to flutter, the images became more solid, I felt a wave of relaxation overcome me. The tips of my fingers began to go numb. This quickly spread to my arms, my toes, my legs, until I had the sensation of floating, as if my body was lying dormant and there was another one of me, my spirit, trying to escape. In. Out. In. Out. The images behind my eyes turned into a bright white light, and in my ears I began to hear a ringing noise which grew steadily louder and louder, like a plane flying overhead or a train approaching. I knew there were no trains on the mountains, I had experienced all these signs before. I remained calm, relaxed, and excited. In. Out. In. Out. White lights. Trains. And then.....nothing. I was disappointed. After attempting for about half an hour to lucid dream I eventually had to give up. Unfortunately tonight wasn't the night for me to awaken in my sleep. I let the sleep overcome me and drifted off. But the winds picked up and I was cold, especially my toes! I was wearing my warmest pair of socks, Holeproofs, Australia's warmest and toughest socks, as well as being wrapped in my sleeping bag, but the cool mountain air tore through them. I gave up. I headed back to the shelter. I climbed in and began what would be a long, cold, uncomfortable night. I don't think any of us got any sleep inside the shelter. The wind howled around us and I had a big rock sticking into my hip and someone's leg sticking into my stomach. We were thankful to see daylight.
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