Venice, Italy to Lisbon, Portugal

    We flew over the Alps. The mountains protruded in bas relief. Pillar shaped clouds held up the sky. I sat next to a plump Italian woman on the airplane. She doted over her son. The attention and affection she showed him was touching. She said that children were a gift from God and she clearly cherished her gift.

    The Italians spoke with each other with an easy going friendliness as if they were long time friends or kin. I would’ve thought they had known each other for years.

    I could understand much of what was being said. The studying had paid off. I’d survive Italy. A French couple sat in the row ahead of us, but je nais compone pas.

   

Journal

August 22, 2004

My health and safety are my main concern. May God’s angels go before me and make my way safe. My body and mind are strong. A positive mental attitude is essential. It provides insurance against the inevitable setbacks: the flat tires, the wrong turns, the steep hills, the contrary winds, the mosquitoes, the fatigue.

    I started in Venice, Italy and cycled to Lisbon, Portugal. That sentence is 10 words long and easy to write, but I had to earn the privilege to write it.

    The streets of Venice were familiar to me. I had seen them on screen and in print and had walked them in my imagination. Strolling the streets was like stepping into a postcard. What I hadn’t expected to see, however, were the flocks of pigeons. There were throngs of them everywhere: under eaves, perched on the heads of statues, on lampposts, in the plaza, atop buildings... Funny. I go to one of the world’s great cities and what I recall most vividly are the pigeons.

 

   A storm pummeled the city. The windows of my hotel room rattled and the dark skies boomed. Next morning, it drizzled  intermittently. I geared up for a ride in the rain.

    I pedaled to a grocery store and loaded up on snacks. Italy supplies the perfect foods for the marathon cyclist: pastas, pizzas, breads, and cheeses loaded with carbohydrates, the athlete’s fuel.

    Italy has a long and noble history, splendid architecture, excellent cuisine. They export fashionable shoes and fast cars. In grade school, we studied the lives of great Roman emperors, poets, scientists, artists, and statesmen, Columbus, Da Vinci, Berlusconni, Dante, Machiavelli, Galilei, and Amerigo Vespucci, for whom the country was named. They gave us the opera and the Inferno, the Four Seasons and the Mona Lisa, the aqueduct and the coliseum.

    Cycled to Padova. Pedaled down quaint, cobbled streets to a  spectacular church with a dome and towers like I had never seen. I didn’t stop to scribble its name down in my notebook to investigate later. I didn’t study my route or research the histories of the towns I would cycle through. I knew there were stories worth studying. Perhaps I was cycling the same streets down which emperors and apostles walked.

   

Martedi, 26 di agosto

    I woke up with a song in my heart, grateful for my good fortune. I was living my dreams, cycling through history, and adding weight to my name.

  

    I stopped to rest at campsites and hostels. I enjoyed the hostels very much. I met couples from Amsterdam, cyclists from Germany, students from Turkey and China and Norway. I met a couple who had cycled from Holland through France and Switzerland. They were cycling though Italy and would continue on to Turkey and Greece where they would ferry to Asia and pedal through Thailand and Laos, and into China, then ride the Oriental Express to Vladivostok. That’d be a ride worth reading about.

    I saw many beautiful women in Parma, where all the shops and boutiques were. Beautiful women infest the fashion centers of the world: Paris, Milan, Beverly Hills, New York, Barcelona, Tokyo. And where there are beautiful women, there are rich men. City planners would be wise to take heed. If you build the high end boutiques, the beautiful ladies will come and the rich men will follow. 

    I cycled to a campsite in Berceto. It was a difficult climb, but I was accompanied by 3 Berliners. They were easy-going and made great riding buddies. They made the day beautiful.

    We parted at Berceto. They continued riding. I made camp. My routine had become methodical and efficient: pitch tent, clip on rain fly, inflate air mattress, shower, shave, clean clothes and hang out to dry, prepare a high protein/high carbohydrate meal with creatine punch, floss, brush teeth, pray, meditate, reflect, and scribble a few lines in my journal before I fall asleep on a pillow of shorts and jerseys. Out here, I improvise. maps are tablecloths, a bungee chord is a clothesline or a strap or a rope, body wash is the laundry detergent, and the toe straps secure the GPS to the handlebars; baby wipes are toilet paper and towlettes, not the same sheet, of course; garbage bags double as dry sacks. 

    There were many children with their families in the campground. They were adorable as children are everywhere. There was the pouting two year old “fake crying” and the girl who called for her friend impatiently as children do, “Ve-ro-ni-caaa!” with the emphasis on the “caaa!” The children shouted and played. A German family snapped photos. The girls posed for the camera the way children do. One girl crossed her eyes, the other stuck out her tongue.

     When I woke up, I heard birds twittering. I was aware of their absence. The forests were, at times, eerily quiet. It’s as if the noblemen of the past had hunted all of the fowl and left us with beautiful villas and old buildings to visit as a sort of consolation prize.

    I cycled through the city and pitied those imprisoned in it. How unnatural it seemed. Cities are like termite mounds teeming with salaried employees. 

   

Journal

August 29

    A crescent moon hangs over the Mediterranean Sea. I stare at the ridges of skin on my finger. I twist at the wrist. Now palms up; now palms down. What a marvelous body!

    Fun Fact #1: Italians often do say, “Mama mia!”

    Fun fact #2: The French often say, “Voila!”

    Fun fact #3: The Italians and French talk with their hands. There are gestures for: “It’s expensive!” “It was beautiful” and “Fuggedaboutit!”

    I cycled through Monaco, arguably the most opulent city in the world. Hundred foot yachts were docked in the marina. Ferraris and Bentleys rolled down the streets. Lots of beautiful women shopping. I’m not wealthy, but I feel exceedingly rich. My bicycle will do.  I am healthy, I am loved, I am strong, I am optimistic, I am happy, I am living my dreams.

   

    Cycled to Cannes and rode the train to Marseille. I disembarked and cycled down dark streets. The city was seedy. Lots of boys there looked like me. They belonged to the lower classes- the Arabs, the Africans, the coolie labor. Whites in Monte Carlo and the darker skinned peoples in the ghettoes of Marseille, which reminded me of Harlem, which reminded me of London, which reminded me of Los Angeles. It’s something God wanted me to see. i was not surprised when, years later, I learned that the disaffected Arab youths were rioting in the streets of Paris. Reminded me of the LA riots near my parent’s home in South Central Los Angeles.

Friday, Septemeber 15

    The French have style. It’s impressionistic like a Cezanne painting. The people I met were very kind to me, like Pascale who offered me a ride to the hostel in his pizza truck or Jean Felipe, the cyclist who invited me to his home for lunch. Nowhere else was I greeted with such hospitality. Jean Felipe was a teacher, cyclist, and musician like me. His brother, Pierre, was a student of physics.

    A neighbor stopped by. I was surprised to see them greet each other with kisses on their cheeks  (Americans are hyper masculine and don’t kiss other men on the cheeks). The neighbor was a professor. He said that wages were low and teachers had gone on strike. “It’s the same everywhere,” I said. 

    I met a wunderkind at a hostel in Aix-en-Provence. Max was a German studying at the university there. He was accompanied by his best friends, Florian and Christian. He was searching for an apartment. Like all of the Germans I’ve met, the boys were easy-going and had a great sense of humor. Strange to think our nations were once bitter enemies. Max was in his late teens. He was a virtuoso pianist and had obtained his pilot’s license when he was 17. He was a student of law. And he was modest. He didn’t mention any of his accomplishments. His friends did. 

   

    I cycled through the French countryside to a campsite in Les Baux, near an ancient Roman arch and the remains of a walled city. Les Baux was perched on a hilltop. Crumbled walls. A medieval castle. Behind the walls, a catapult- an ancient weapon of war. Modern man still has etched in his genes a primitive fear and a penchant for violence. Alarms, gated fences, armed security guards, and surveillance cameras replaced the stone walls and catapults. Today, soldiers catapult ballistic missiles and mortar rounds.  And we still hide behind walls.

    Cezanne and Van Gogh painted on canvas the same pastoral countryside I cycled through. I see what they saw. I cycled up stony and winding streets to an ancient Roman arena and pedaled past an amphitheater thousands of years old. I crossed the Rhone and sat, barefoot, in a laundromat waiting for my clothes to dry.

    In the marshes at Palavas les-flots, I saw the birds I had sorely missed and more birds than I had seen the whole trip: coots and grebes and cormorants and gulls and mallards and egrets and plovers and herons and avocets and curlews and godwits.

   

    Crossed the border into Spain. Barcelona imports the world’s most beautiful women. Las Ramblas was like a catwalk of parading fashion models. Of course, Las Ramblas is lined with shops and stores and restaurants.  All of the hostels were booked, but one of the managers said, “You have a good spirit. We’ll find you a bed.”

   

     I spent 3 nights there clubbing with Norwegians and French and Israelis and Spaniards. I played drums with Russian musicians. I argued with Moroccans and shared a pint with a bloke from Liverpool. One people. One world.

     Cycling through Salamanca, I saw a fifty something collapse on the sidewalk. I rushed to render what aid I could and yelled at a passerby to call an ambulance. In emergencies, people often need to be told what to do. The old man reminded me of my beloved father when his glucose levels would fall. He had difficulty breathing, his eyes were expressionless and glazed over, his movements were inarticulate. I feared the stranger would die in my arms. I searched for a pulse. A pharmacist rushed to my side. He loosened the man’s belt and shouted his name. We sat him up. Slowly the old man regained consciousness. His pulse throbbed steadily. The ambulance came.  I wished him a swift recovery and continued cycling.

       I stopped at a cathedral in Ciudad Rodrigo. The architecture was a marvel. How did they build these great churches? What did they use to transport the stones? How were they cut and fitted? How many artists were commissioned? How many years did it take to build?

Journal, September 18

    Crossed into Portugal and cycled along route 16. The sun rises over the mountains in the east. The sky is the color of burning embers. I see vast stretches of land before me. I see fields of sunflower. I’ve added weight to my word. What I said I’d do, I’ve done. It was what I had spent hours imagining.                       

    On the wall of a restaurant stall it read: “When I was young, I wanted to be somebody. I should’ve been more specific.” Heed the writing on the wall. Be specific and watch your thoughts turn into things.