Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The campground outside Pamplona was another rolling pastureland, grassy with shade
trees and a baño . The tent campers were sectioned over there, just beyond the van campers.
The motorcycles were backed to a hogwire fence so we could roll out our sleeping bags right
beside our scooters—our salvation—and sleep the restful, soulful sleep of youth fulfilled,
which we did till eleven or noon, not to worry; we could cop a couple hours more at siesta.
If you picture a perfect setting in a faraway place and a long lost time with campers of every
stripe and color convening in a single spirit of life and light, then that was it. The bulls
wouldn't run for six more days, glorious days of idling away the hours, trading adventures and
road yarns, smoking kief and drinking wine—oh, and meeting a certain señorita by the creek.
Dark and mysteriously lovely as an exotic woman could be, Marisol taught the universal
language with unforeseen fluency, yet it remained ethereal, on the breeze, understood as a love
everlasting but without real-world consummation. Yes, it had the scent, touch and potential
of romance. We held hands. She murmured sweet nothings. She may have referenced love or
eternity or maybe humility in requesting assistance and guidance as only a man can provide
on this sensitive issue.
I watched her. She watched me back. I averted my glance while imagining her naked so
that I would neither frighten nor offend. She seemed perplexed. I smiled. We held hands. We
kissed. She tasted of paella and eggs but remained very nearly perfect.
The campground filled with adventurers seeking bulls. Two high-spirited women pulled
right in front of the motorcycles in a VW camper—the place was packed by then, and new
arrivals pitched or parked in any space available. Jane, the driver, soon demonstrated that her
revolutionary spirit had in no way been dampened by a multi-million dollar trust fund. John
introduced himself as a photographer from LA. Small world—Jane was from LA too. Then
they compared impressions of the European landscape, certain segments of which resembled
those hallowed grounds of the California coast, like Mendocino, Big Sur, Pismo, and on down
the Pacific Coast to Ventura Highway, where a Californian could hook a thumb in any direc-
tion and catch a ride, including up to the Cosmos and as far out as you cared to go. John and
Jane got it on. Why wouldn't they? Two carefree souls in a carefree time that valued freedom
and anarchy over all else—mix that with vigor, stamina, peak hormonal output and five more
days till the bulls would run, and what do you get? Boom shacka lacka, to put it mildly. John
and Jane seemed made for each other, a perfect match with all variables optimally met.
Jane's travel companion Rianne was less gregarious, which is not to say circumspect or
reserved or even reflective. She seemed merely more self-contained, observant and cautious,
perhaps driven inward or even made defensive by so many bulging eyeballs scanning her per-
fectly curved torso and svelte Levis to boot. Rianne hailed from Oregon, which may have
factored in her softer demeanor, though Billy and Chas also hailed from Oregon, arriving
soon after and camping nearby, where they whooped and hollered all night long, allowing a
sleepless camper time to reflect on a little Spanish nightingale.
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