Day 100. Arles. Nov 14 2001.

I began to wonder If there was not, perhaps, some sort of problem in Avignon. Yesterday as we walked we saw more genetically damaged people than anywhere we had yet traveled. The streets had far more people exhibiting deformities, twisted arms and legs, wrenched feet and hands, that I believe I have seen in my entire life and everywhere we stopped it seemed that there was a person with some form of brain damage or mental handicap. Even as we left the campground the people working in the office seemed only modestly functional. Perhaps there is a hospital nearby and those out and about are part of a program to reintegrate them into society.

The hard part of the day's trip begins at once. We had to leave Avignon by a small southbound highway. We followed the road around the city all right but after what seemed like hours of pedaling and fighting unsympathetic traffic we found ourselves on the road to the autoroute. Definitely not where we want to be. The wind was not helping, pushing us into the paths of oncoming traffic. We backtracked and, after another hour in the chaos, found our exit. For some reason it was not sign posted from our original direction. 

Heather has announced that the cycling portion of our trip is drawing to a close. After much discussion I convinced her that we must bike to Marseilles before we well and truly decide but the chaos of this morning did little for the cause of biking.

But the ride outside of Avignon was almost ridiculously easy. At times the Mistral pushed us with such force that we didn't have to pedal to reach our top speeds. If it was always like that then the whole world would be on bicycles.

The landscape became very rocky and promontories of white stone thrust skyward with unexpected power. The maps shows only a small rise and green forests but the hills seem to be living things rearing from the land with vengeful fury. At one point the railway tracks the road follows cleave though the middle of a small but steep hill and it suddenly looks for all the world as if a massive Faberge egg had been folded back to reveal the miniature trail within.

The land began to level out after that and soon we were on grass flats that rippled and swayed to the wind we couldn't feel as it pushed us along. There seemed to be castles spreading from every hillside and I realized that this will be the thing I miss most when we return home, the sense of history surrounding you whether you visit everything or not.

I am happy that we have reached our hundredth day. We have been in Europe as long as Napoleans failed return to power lasted. “The Hundred Days” his return is derogatorily called to emphasize its ephemeral nature. But a hundred days seem like eternity to us. I look back in this journal and even things ten days ago seem hopelessly out dates. England seems like a lifetime ago and Canada a fevered dream of the mystic who believes in reincarnation.

We reached Arles faster than expected. We arrived before noon and coasted into the city in bewildred amazement. The youth hostel was closed for the afternoon, from ten until five. Neither of us was in any mood to explore the city and we are both tired. The coldness of the day grows and once we are no longer moving we feel the cold as the bitter bite of a million tiny needles. We wrapped ourselves in jackets and mitts and as much clothes as will fit and still we were cold. We waited and we waited. Time passed at a snails pace and by the time the hostel opened we were frozen and almost beyond caring.

We stood mute in the entrance for long minutes while the old woman who runs the place looked at us impatiently. Finally the warmth seems to thaw our frozen brains enough and we get a room for the night. We are led to a room with a leaking radiator and we remembered with a sudden laugh that Chantal, from Nimes, and her boyfriend had complained that they were forced to stay in a room with a leaking radiator in Arles. This then must be their room.

This time our hostess notices and leads us to a dorm upstairs that we have to ourselves. It is cold but the blankets are plentiful and thick and warm. We turn the radiator on full and pile beneath the blankets. We are tired. Too tired. We do very little this night.

I have begun to worry in recent days. I wish for my journal to be so much more than a record of places and dates, an index for the inevitable photos. I want to paint pictures with words and bring us back in all our later incarnations to the travelers that we are now and to what we now experience. But I am so exhauseted by the time that I set pen to paper that my mind is numb and the least desire of my heart is to search for adequate words. All I can do is a mechanical recitation of facts and figures, places and things. The only witness to the beauty we have seen is photographs after all. 

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