EASTWIND, part 2, journals of a drifter

by Bernie Lopez

Author's Note. This is an excerpt from the unpublished book Wings and Wanderlust, the Art of Discovering Yourself. There are life-long lessons on the road of adventure that I learned in my youth. You can say I took my Doctorate in Adventure from the University of the World. Let me share small portions of that intense period I called eastwind. For they are very relevant today in our age of confusion. As a young man, I did what few Filipinos dared. I hitchhiked 25,000 kilometers for 18 months through 18 European countries with just $1,000 in my pocket. I have written a book about it.

Portugal 1976. After the fiesta of the bulls, I headed towards Lisbon. I wanted to make a pilgrimage to Fatima by walking 80 kilometers from Lisbon.

I hated New York because, as a 'rat-racer' (ie, Systems Analyst), it was a spiritual desert to me, absurd and irrelevant. I would relish New York later only after eastwind, the name I gave to my adventure, radically changed me and I was no longer a 'rat-racer'. Eastwind was not really a quest for adventure. It was an escape. I was looking not so much for new places but more for myself. My pilgrimage to Our Lady of Fatima was to pray that I find myself somewhere in this vast planet.

 

I normally kept my backpack below six kilos. For the long hike from Lisbon to Fatima, I reduced it further to two kilos, just a sleeping bag, a wine skin bag, food for the day, extra shirt and a toothbrush. Lesson of the day - simplicity is a virtue that can make you happy just as complexity can make you sad.

 

Gradually, the big highway narrowed to a country road. The romantic Portugese countryside made me calm and mellow. I did a leisurely three kilometers an hour for four to five hours a day. The entire trek was 80 kilometers for seven days. I prayed the rosary two to three times a day as I walked. I slept under the stars. I had a candle for light, the cheapest and lightest. One evening when it drizzled, I asked a farmer if I could sleep in a smelly sheep shed, reminding me that it was one such shed where the Creator of the universe was born in all humility.

 

In two villages, rowdy kids came up to me shouting 'perigrino'. They smothered me with fruits from the nearby farm. I would brush my teeth in the village fountains. I alternated wine and milk in my skin bag. Too much wine was not good for hiking. Everyday, I was awed by new discoveries.

 

On the last evening, I slept atop a knoll under an olive tree. In the pink misty dusk, from the distance, the bells tied to the necks of sheep pealed like music. It was the gift of peace from Our Lady that overwhelmed me almost to tears.

I reached Fatima in the evening and decided to sleep at the doorstep of the giant church. The church bells started pealing at four in the morning. At dawn, I joined a group hearing mass. The pilgrimage was a spiritual cleansing from my worldliness in my adventures. Lesson of the day - prayers are answered. Long after eastwind and the Fatima pilgrimage, I would go back home and become a writer.

 

I headed north towards Coimbra. Night overtook me there. I had no place to go. I walked helplessly along the highway until three kids came up to me. I asked them where I could sleep. They pointed me to a place. It was a sand bar in the middle of the beautiful Mondego river. We waded through shallow waters. One kid carried my guitar on his head. They left me there.

 

My candle would not light in the wind. In the middle of the night, it began to drizzle. If it rained, I had nowhere to go. I went inside my plastic sheet which was a tube. Finally, the drizzle stopped. The dawn bathe the river gold. To my surprise, the three kids came with my breakfast - a hot roll of bread and some cheese. Lesson of the day - people not places make your day.

 

From Coimbra, I got my longest ride of the entire 18 months, all the way to Meximieux in Switzerland. In fact, the British oil rig diver who picked me up in his snow-white MGB 1.6 litre sportscar wanted me to ride with him all the way to London. That would have been a record ride. But I was not after records. I wanted to see friends in Winterthur in Switzerland.

 

We had a problem at Marseille. I will not make him pay for me in a five star hotel he was to stay in. So we looked for a place where I could sleep. A beach loomed in sight and he dropped me off there.

 

Tough luck. It was a private beach. They were all urban people in their trunks and bikinis. Desperate, I went in anyway. There was no guard. But they were all staring at me. Perhaps I was not wanted. A good looking woman came up to me and spoke rapid French. I took out a tiny French English dictionary from my pocket and started to search for words. I stumbled through my French, no grammar or tense, just infinitives and root words.

That broke the ice. They all smiled and dispersed. The French hate people who answer in English. They admired me for trying hard to speak broken French with a dictionary. The woman gave me a glass of red wine, then another and another. By the time I knew it, the beach was deserted and all mine. They left for their homes. I slept nicely with the red in my head. The beautiful kids of Mondego river flashed in my mind.

 

The next day, the diver came at the crack of dawn. We were on our way. Portugal was but a tiny chapter of eastwind. The lessons you learn on the road are mind boggling. Travel changes you, the deepest part of you.

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