If you ask me what’s the best way to kill the pain – pills or weed – I won’t act stupid. I will always say weed. It’s not addictive and it has plenty of positive effects: it smothers physical pain, your backpack miraculously becomes lighter, nature is even prettier, hearing is sharper, and your brain turns into a lovely marry-go-round. And yet, you act relatively normal. Alcohol is a bitch, the destroyer of lives, relationships, and other stuff. My own 40-year-old doctor offers me silence and a smile as a reply when I ask him what he would take to alleviate pain. Sometimes I have a pint with him and I don’t have to bugger him at the clinic when I need something. He even gave me his private number, since I never show up at the clinic. When I do, however, it means I’m in serious trouble: SOS!
Let’s get to the point: I was wandering for a day since I had a choice to make, namely sticking to the Atlantic or go towards Picos de Europa. Scouring the latter is on my bucket list, so I picked that path. It lacks markings and there was no signal, so I was royally fucked. Nothing new, to be frank. I had to orient myself according to the sun. After a while, I finally noticed three silhouettes and I had to put a spring in my step. It was a happy bunch of Italian hippies, somewhere between thirty and forty, enjoying the moment. Two of them were equipped with guitars, the third one just beamed. People filled with happiness, carefreeness and timelessness. They were “KEEP IT SIMPLE” incarnated. Not giving a fuck on vacation is also my jam, so we walked together who-knows-where. I was also offered a joint and grappa, so it didn’t take long for my brain to go haywire. Music being their jam, I took my faithful JBL and the party could start. We all hold Freddie Mercury in a special corner of our hearts and we all know Bohemian Rhapsody by heart. Imagine now four doofuses with a wonderful energy, slightly inebriated on cloud number nine, goofing around to the rhythm of that song. We didn’t walk much thanks to laughing, singing, dancing and rolling around. TOP!!! But it was time to say goodbye since we didn’t share the destination. And as it befits the hippy kind, they gave me some weed for the road. They refused money, so I gave them two packs of Lucky Strikes. They delighted them more than money could. Exchanging goods, that was. I marched away, with sun in one hand, and a golden smile in the other. Three kilometers later I was back on my Path again.
It was one of the greatest excursions of the Path.