CAMINO REAL
On Thursday Susie and I got up early when it was still cool and skipped the breakfast that Casa Blanca, our hotel in Barichara would provide us, to hike down the Camino Real ancient trail to the beautiful old village or Guane. It was only a 4 1/2 mile hike but my 87 years caught up with me. The first mile to the head of the trail was uphill and I was tuckered out before starting down. The first mile of the trail was straight down.
The trail was paved long ago with rounded rocks but rain had washed out the spaces between the rocks making the road very rough so that every step was treacherous.
It had rained the night before and I didn’t want to slip or to trip and fall on the hard rocks as the road canted down at a sharp angle. The trail was beautiful with a view of the valley far below us but I didn’t dare look up except at rest stops at large rocks by the side of the path that seemed to have been put their for weary travelers. Climbing up the same steep path would have have been very strenuous for anyone. Even when the path leveled out for the last two miles it dipped in a number ravines and then climbed again over a ridge, rising for hundreds of feet which I plodded up step by step.
When I thought we were almost there it turned out that we had only gone a third of the way. Susie found me a rough stick which I used as a walking stick to help me keep my balance. For the last two miles I carefully balanced from rock to rock, completely exhausted. I took many photographs on the first half of the walk and then spaced out and just concentrated on one weary step at a time for the last two miles.
I do have a photograph of an Indian brahma cow, looking exactly like the Gujurat cows I had seen in India months ago, looking curiously over a stone wall at me as if concerned whether I was going to make it or not.
When we finally got to Guane we found a cafe on the square. By this time it was very hot. Susie thought I was having heat stroke, I thought I was having a heat stroke. I sat for a half hour drinking electrolytes that she found in a drug store and a huge glass of blackberry juice. We were on the town square. There was a beautiful church there and I could tell it was a beautiful old town. But aside from a glance I spent a half hour in the shade with a breeze blowing, drinking with my eyes closed, nearly passed out. Finally I felt a little better and Susie found a motor rickshaw, exactly like an Indian rickshaw, which took us back to Barichara and my bed in the Casa Blanca.
BILLYBABA’S WANDERING 