Tag Archives: Spain

Los Toros de Pamplona

June 26, 2020 Andrew Zapf Leave a comment

Le pedimos a San Fermín, como nuestro santo patrón, que nos guíe en la corrida de toros y nos dé su bendición.

We ask San Fermin, being our patron saint, to guide us in the bull run and give us his blessing.

My heart was beating in my ears. My sweaty palms were helplessly empty. I had failed to bring a few Euros to buy the morning newspaper and my fidgety hands resorted to adjusting and readjusting the red sash tied around my waist. It was a flimsy talisman in the sea of fear and courage. At the bottom of Calle de Santo Domingo I was flanked by stone walls, exits blocked by a phalanx of police and a thick crowd of mozos – bull runners. There was no escape.

Above our heads an icon of the Saint Fermin rested in a small alcove, just out of reach of our outstretched arms.

Le pedimos a San Fermín, como nuestro santo patrón.

The stone walls reverberated with sounds of chanting. Puny candles flickered weakly over the assembled.

Que nos guíe en la corrida de toros y nos dé su bendición.

We were asking for protection, for courage, and for deliverance. In only a few minutes we would need all three as the first bulls of San Fermin were released into the streets of Pamplona, Spain..

Viva San Fermín! Gora Fermín!

The prayer was over. Shortly I would be making immediate and urgent demands on whatever grace god had bestowed on me. I moved to the top of Calle de Santo Domingo, just to the south of city hall. My plan was to cross Plaza Consistorial with the bulls and chase them up Estafeta. If I was lucky. As I waited with nervous energy, bouncing on my toes, my courage coalesced around my compatriots waiting nearby. My pañuelo rested on my shoulders like a magic cloak, tied in around my neck in a lifesaving slipknot – to release at the slightest tug while running. The first rocket shot into the air and the crowd quivered as it popped overhead, signaling the opening of the gates and release of the bulls onto the Encierro. Valientes began running immediately, clearing a space that would take the bulls 30 seconds to cover. My friends and I stood like boulders against the rushing wave of humanity. At last we saw the horns of the bulls bouncing up and down as the crowd parted in front of them. We turned, and ran like the devil was chasing us. The bulls’ heads were low to the ground as they powered uphill toward us, and gaining ground.

The Fiesta de San Fermin, better known as the Running of the Bulls, takes place every July in the Basque town of Pamplona, in northern Spain. It’s an idyllic setting of olive oil and pintxos 355 days out of the year, but for those other ten days the festival of San Fermin transforms the town into a crowded, raucous venue for one of Spain’s oldest and most controversial traditions. With origins in medieval Spain, celebrating an Ancient Roman-era saint, the tradition has morphed for centuries and grafted parts of different customs to become what is today.

The modern version of San Fermin is a combination of typical saint’s festivities with regional bull fighting. Bulls from the surrounding area are brought to the city for the bull fights. On their designated day, bull breeders move their bulls from holding areas through the streets of the city to the bullfighting arena where they wait for the afternoon’s bullfights. Young men demonstrating their foolhardy courage only began running in front of the bulls later on. To run as close as possible in front of the bull, known as “on the horns”, is seen as the perfect balance of skill and bravery in a delicate dance with death. Many towns still have bullfighting events and some form of bull running, Pamplona rises above all others in the public’s imagination.

Pamplona has been drawing outsiders, adventurers and thrill seekers ever since the fictional San Fermin of Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises published in 1926. Aside from the daily running of the bulls, San Fermin has become famous in recent years for nightly concerts, excessive drinking, and partying of all sorts. Tour companies specialize in experiences that cater to budgets of all kinds – from luxury hotels to overcrowded campsites. The festival has broken free from many of its local moorings and drifted into a global, heavily commercialized event. It no longer feels like a religious festival, nor a simple test of bravado – it’s turned into an unregulated spectacle devoid of meaning, the bare knuckle boxing of sprinting.

I wasn’t alone in Pamplona. I had flown in a day before the festival began, invited by an old classmate – Dennis Clancey – as he pursued his dream of filming a documentary about San Fermin. The town was placid and had not yet donned the classic white uniform of the mozos or the red panuelo of San Fermin. Large wooden fence posts along the Encierro route were the most visible preparations made by the municipality in advance of the coming siege of revelers. In addition to my classmates I hadn’t seen in years, I also met and shared drinks with a dentist from New York, an equestrian consultant from Valencia, and a journalist from Chicago. In the calm pre-fiesta atmosphere they gave me an education on the history of San Fermin, the route the bulls would take, and strategies for running that could save my life.

Author celebrating the camraderie with fellow bullrunners. Joshua Selfridge, Randal Waters, Jorge Contreras

Red wine and stewed bull meat for lunch.

Parade of gigantes in the streets of Pamplona

Dennis Clancey - filmmaker, adventurer, and friend. Photo by Andrew Zapf

Jorge Contreras - traveler, equestrian, and friend. Photo by Andrew Zapf

San Fermin still strives to be a local affair. Peñas, or social societies of Pamplona attend the bullfights as a group and set giant tables in the street for each midday meal. For a few Euros, and foresight of a reservation, it is possible to book a spot in the shade midday to enjoy a refreshing Navarran red wine and traditional stewed bull meat. For one such meal I was surrounded by friends and acquaintances, witness to parade of gigantes and local musicians. Amongst the hordes of tourists, local families and peñas meet in the streets to celebrate their camaraderie, love of life, and their dearly held traditions.

Among those traditions are the daily series of bullfights. Bullfighting takes place all across Spain, not just in Pamplona. The sport is controversial because the bull is predestined to die. During San Fermin six bulls run in the morning, ushered to the arena by the thrill seeking crowd, where these six bulls die that same afternoon. I’ve attended bullfights in Plaza de Toros and watched the bleeding bulls, gasping for air, continue to fight until their literal dying breathe. It’s an experience impossible to be unmoved by. El Toro Bravo, the Spanish fighting bull, is the peak of its species. Majestic and noble they are the symbol for a proud country. Seeing them cut down slowly is brutal. However, veneration and fidelity still surround the bullfight.

It took time, but I came to learn and respect the hugely symbolic aspects and religious metaphor of the bullfight. I spoke with bullfighting aficionados, read articles and books, and watched the fights myself. Ernest Hemingway, an inspiration for many things, was also an expert on the sport. Although he is readily associated with San Fermin, it also ignited in him a lifelong affinity for bullfighting. Published in 1932, his work Death in the Afternoon is a study of the sport. It’s an exploration of the artistry and elemental nature of fear, courage, panache, and death within the sport. Although the names and rivalries are dated to another era, the principle features of bullfighting remain true today. Firstly, Hemingway describes the fight as a three-part act that mirrors the Christ story. In each phase of a bull fight the bull is challenged with three successive torerors – picadores, banderilleros, and matadors. In the end, Christ dies and so must the bull.

Secondly, Hemingway analyzes the skills required for the grim tasks of the toreros. In the first two acts, the bull’s strength is sapped as spears and barbed blades are thrust into the bull’s powerful muscles. These subalterns must draw upon their own courage and skills to perform their tasks. Mistakes against Toro Bravos can lead to lifelong disfigurement or death. However, the performance of the matador, who delivers the final death blow, is how a bullfight is ultimately remembered. Death in the Afternoon possesses excruciating detail on brave and intimidated bullfighters. Hemingway parses out the differences between raw talent and refined skill. The bullfight is an art form where the only colors are shades of bravery and cowardice.

Aficionados of bullfighting believe that to kill a bull in the ring is the most respectful and honorable way to take the bull’s life. They believe that the bull is a noble animal that is shamed when taken to the slaughterhouse. Although the outcome is certain, the bull is afforded a final day in the sun to fight with all its strength and determination. Revered bulls are remembered for their bravery when mortality wounded. The Bullfighting Museum at the Plaza de toros de la Real Maestranza de Caballería in Seville displays the taxidermied heads of legendary bulls.

What Hemingway couldn’t know, and many now lament, is how much of a spectacle San Fermin would become in the Twenty First Century. The festival atmosphere of San Fermin far outpaced the community veneration. The crowds of Pamplona demanded the biggest and strongest bulls, which emphasized brute strength over skillful finesse in the bullfight. The atmosphere of Plaza de Toros became infected with cheap sangria and irreverence of the streets. It takes a calibrated eye and informed person to sift through the fiesta modernisms to appreciate the spectacle of the bullfight in Pamplona.

I was not gored on my first running of the bulls. I didn’t fall or get injured on the course. I didn’t get very far, but I consider it a rousing success. Over two sanfermines I would run the Encierro seven times. I’d start each run at the same exact spot, but each attempt was unique. Different bulls, different arrangements of escorting steers, sueltos and mozos. On my best run I crossed the Plaza next to a line of bulls, and then chased them the length of Estafeta. I ended up in the Plaza de Toros standing on the yellow sand of the arena. I’d kept pace with the slowing bulls, avoided colliding with other runners, and kept ahead of the shutting gates as they closed behind the procession.

I’ll always remember that feeling of finishing my run in the arena. My legs burned from a kilometer of sprinting, sweat soaking into my shirt, and my panuelo scratching at my neck. The stands were partially filled with spectators, mocking the valientes or “the brave ones,” who arrived two minutes early, and cheering the mozos as the bull run came to its completion. The morning was still cool then, but the July heat would burn down by the afternoon. I lingered trying to imprint the feelings of the morning’s triumph into my memory.

My other runs ended with less glory. Some would end in exhaustion on Estafeta, or on Calle de Mercado only a 50 yards from my start point. Many times I’d collide with other runners, some jostling for their own position. Many frozen by fear. Each year San Fermin is increasingly crowded with uninformed, inebriated partygoers with no respect for the traditions of the Encierro. I’ve overheard too many conversations of the ignorant runner assuming the course is safe due to the mere fact they are allowed to be there. Not understanding the danger a toro bravo presents to life and limb.

On my last run, in 2012, I stood at my mark as the bulls were released. I waited stoically for the bulls to arrive, affixing my feet to the cobblestones. As I had done six times before, I waited until I saw the shoulders of the running bulls before I dug my toes in and turned for a full sprint toward the center of the course. In three steps I slammed into a wall of gawking tourists, paralyzed with indecision, crowding the course. In an instant I was on the ground, arms protecting my head as the bulls ran past. I had exploded off my mark like an olympic sprinter and the force of the collision left me with a headache for days – probably a minor concussion. It wouldn’t run again that year. It was an inglorious end to my bull running career.

Whatever god there is protected me in Pamplona on those mornings, and I hope Saint Fermin continues to watch over Navarra. I had joined the ranks of the many that have seen Pamplona and left changed on a fundamental level. After that final collision I packed a bag with a change of clothes, a bottle of wine, and fresh cheese and headed for the coast. San Sebastian, on the northern edge of Spain, is a calm refuge from the boisterous atmosphere of fiesta. That’s another tradition of San Fermin – escaping to the Basque countryside to rest. A young Winston Churchill wrote after his first taste of combat in 1895 that “nothing in life is exhilarating as to be shot at without result.” In the same vein, the intensity of running with the bulls in the morning and emotion of witnessing their death in the afternoon fed a desire to appreciate the life I had. I may not go back to Pamplona again for fiesta, but I cherish the perspective it has given me on life and death, bravery and cowardice, and the traditions that bind us to our ancestors.

Viva San Fermin! Gorani San Fermin!

Andrew Zapf is a co-founder of Pushing Horizons.

Disclaimer: All views expressed are that of the author. As an REI Associate, Pushing Horizons earns from qualifying purchases.

Book Reviews, Mind

What We’re Reading This Month – June 2020

June 5, 2020 Andrew Zapf 1 Comment

My father doesn’t buy antiques. He always says that “antique” is a synonym for “overpriced.” What he does do is attend auctions, estate sales, and the like to find bargains before they get snatched up and resold by antique dealers. I’ve been to a few of the country auctions with him and seen him in his element. He’ll take his measured steps through the items, hands held loosely behind his back, gazing down like an eagle on a warm updraft. If he sees something of interest he’ll pick it up and look it over. If he’s really interested he’ll call out “Hey, Andy! . . . look at this” Drawing me closer to inspect. More often than not he’ll put the item back and walk away. If he’s still thinking about it in ten minutes he’ll go back for another look. It’s how he plays the game.

He doesn’t buy many items, but when he does they are always a steal. Typically, the auctions he goes to require you remove to your purchase within 24 hours. That’s a limiting factor. He’s seen solid oak armoires and giant kitchen hutches go for pittance. He’d probably have several dining rooms worth of furniture if he had a big truck and the strength to shoulder it all. It’s the boxes of books that he goes for. Sometimes he buys enough to outfit a bookstore in a single evening. He’d pick out what he wanted and donate the rest to his town’s library. In the end he pays mere pennies for the books he keeps in his library. He’s a master of his craft.

Last month he sent me one of those auction books. It arrived in the mail with a short note, the torn dust jacket tucked gently into an envelope. Worn out by over 70 years of existence. The pages are yellow and heavy, with a strong smell of decay. In the letter he explained how the author’s name had drawn his eye. James Hilton. Most famously author of Goodbye, Mr Chips, which was turned into a Hollywood movie in the 1960s. After reading this lesser-known work, and seeing his pencil ticks at the edge of some pages, I know exactly why he sent it on to me.

So Well Remembered - James Hilton

“Because, the English, after all, are a race of eccentrics. They don’t think it’s odd that people should be odd. And they always bear in mind the possibility that the lunatic view might, after all, be right. That’s what makes them tolerant of their enemies.”

So Well Remembered is a window into a different era. As a novel, it does not aspire to create a fantastical world with which the characters live in. They live and act in early-twentieth century England, before the world ever heard of nuclear weapons just as it was. James Hilton describes a pre-modern England when time is measured in seasons and small European wars are almost as predictable. His writing style is very different from most living authors. The first thirty pages are a single day, a single frame of mind, and an intimate conversation that takes twenty pages to unfold. He captures the easiness with which someone sits in a chair, with the inner dialogue when trying to impress, and the slow realization that one’s world is being turned upside down. It’s the title’s day, so well remembered by the protagonist. That’s how the book begins and eases into a story of a man’s life, and how life changes that man.

George Boswell’s life brings forth so many lessons about love and marriage, lifetime achievement and determination, failure and resiliency. Hilton’s main characters are complex, beautifully flawed people shaped by their respective families’ pasts and unique upbringing. They are interesting and I couldn’t help but feel sympathy as the moments of triumph turned sour or best laid plans came undone. The collective interactions of the people that come in and out of Boswell’s life left plenty of room for me to be contemplative.

I never would have picked this up on my own. I probably never would have even known of its existence if not for my father. He’s been reflective during these COVID times, archiving old letters from his father, and now reading novels triggering his nostalgia. I can tell he wanted to pass on some of the ideas captured in this novel, unclouded by the sensationalism and immediacy of present times. I understand him just a little bit better now and how the thinking of a different time shaped his perspective on today.

The Gun - C.S. Forester

“And the gun stood there with a faint wisp of smoke still trickling from its muzzle, immense, imposing, huge. It almost looked as if it were filled with contempt for the little marionettes of men who capered round it, little things whose lives could be measured, at the best, in scores of years, and who were quite incapable unaided of hurling death across five hundred yards of valley.”

I began reading The Gun as background research to another vignette I’m writing. It’s the source material for a Cary Grant, Sophia Loren, and Frank Sinatra film titled The Pride and The Passion. I had seen the film once. Long ago, back in the early days of cable television when anything and everything was played to fill air time, I watched it in our south Michigan living room. Like the movie, The Gun is a story set in the Napoleonic Peninsular Wars of Spain. Published in 1933, the novella only has one main character – a bronze, eighteen pounder cannon – 18 pounds being the size of the cannonball it could fire – a mammoth cannon in any age. The war in Spain was a brutal one. Napolean’s puppet king couldn’t quell the Spanish despite defeating the regular army in the field. It dragged on as a series of small wars against insurgent bands. “War” in Spanish translates to “guerra”; and this type of war in Spain became known as guerrilla, literally “small war” because of the lack of large, set-piece battles. The men and women that fought small wars can be called guerillas or guerrilleros. While the outsized cannon has devastating potential for those who could wield it, the guerrilleros seem cursed by its presence.

C.S. Forester writes a tightly written story where human life is local, simple, and short. Names are inconsequential and the suffering of men is commonplace. I’ve highlighted many passages, noting the horrible conditions of war and the easy deaths many suffered. Passages like are representative of this constant themes (note: el Billbanito is the name of a guerrilla leader in the novella):

“The men did not die. They cursed el Bilbanito, they cursed the gun, and the cattle, but they lived. During this period el Bilbanito slept more securely than before; he knew that mutiny breeds in idleness, not in hardship or hard work. The men might curse, complain, grumble, but they were secretly proud of their efforts. There was a thrill in looking back down a seemingly endless mountain side and in knowing that they had dragged a gun all the way up it. Unremitting toil of the most exacting nature had always been the destiny of those peasants even in peace time, and now in war their labour was made more attractive for them because each man wore a plume of cock’s feathers in his hat and belonged to the noted guerrillero band of el Bilbanito, which was soon to sweep the plains of Leon by the aid of the gun.”

There are no heroes for the reader other than the cannon. Unlike formulaic war stories of action, heroism, and climactic victory, Forester provides a flat narrative that allows the reader more reflection on the real face of war – much as he probably intended when he wrote this in the aftermath of World War I.

Wind, Sand, and Stars - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

“We must throw out bridges into the darkness.”

I’ve got quite a few books on my nightstand that are so dense that I couldn’t split them with an axe. I’ve attempted to chip away at them night after night, but sometimes it feels like whittling with a dull knife. I picked up Wind,Sand, and Stars as a reprieve. Saint-Expuréy’s writing is poetic and smooth. He delves into camaraderie, the magic of flight, and the mystique of the desert but with a light touch. It’s a pleasure to read and a reviving contrast to my usual reading selections.

Too young to join the army in World War I, Saint-Exupéry spent the 1920s and 1930s as a pioneer of flight chasing the respectability he thought he missed by not being in the war. Earning fame as a commercial pilot in Europe, South America, and Africa, and saw the world before it was interconnected by globalized travel. While a pilot he also began to write, using his time above the clouds as inspiration. Taken from a small portion of his interesting life, Wind, Sand, and Stars is a breath of fresh air and a reminder that beauty can exist in austere and difficult circumstances. It was the mental break that I needed and a true joy.

“For such is life. We grow rich as we plant through the early years, but then come the years when time undoes our work and cuts down our trees. One by one our comrades deprive us of their shade, and within our mourning we always feel now the secret grief of growing old. . . there is only one true form of wealth, that of human contact. When we work for material gain, we build our own prison. We enclose ourselves in isolation; our coins turn to ashes and buy nothing worth living for.”

Andrew Zapf is a co-founder of Pushing Horizons.

Disclaimer: All views expressed are that of the author. As an REI Associate, Pushing Horizons earns from qualifying purchases.

Book Reviews, History, Mind

What We’re Reading This Month – April 2020

April 24, 2020 roland.minez Leave a comment

The current situation has many limitations but equally it has presented us with certain opportunities, in this case to continue to read great works. Limited, for the most part, to the confines of our own house; surrounded at all times by our loving but rambunctious children – we can escape into (and learn from) the worlds of great authors. Below are some of the books I have read, and recommend, from the month of April 2020, when the spring weather arrived in its full glory.

The Landmark Julius Caesar: The Complete Works

“Gaul..is divided into three parts.” With those immortal words, once memorized by most of the educated western world, Julius Caesar began his commentaries of the conquest of Gaul. To read Caesar’s writings, which also include the Civil War he would later fight against Pompey leading to the final collapse of the Roman Republic, have long been an objective of mine. However, only now, did I believe I had the time and freedom to take on the daunting task.

While many versions of the book are available, some for free online, I cannot recommend highly enough the Landmark edition of these works. The Landmark series, beginning with Thucydides, are incredible acts of devotion by Classical scholars. They include numerous maps, footnotes, and additional essays that provide invaluable context to the ancient writings.

The lush detailed editions of the Landmark editions of the Classical texts.

In the case of Caesar, this is essential. For not only was he one of the greatest military commanders in history, he was also a politician desperately sparring with his rivals and using the commentaries as a means to influence public opinion in Rome.

Which makes their (selective) honesty, in hindsight, even more interesting. Caesar does not disguise the fact that his is a war of conquest, or that his opponents-whether they be Gauls (from modern day France) or Germans are fighting for their freedom from Imperial domination. He allows his opponents to be heroes in his own writing, and his sparse, clean writing style holds eternal truths about war, leadership, diplomacy, politics and the human condition.

Interestingly, Caesar highlights the bravery of working class legionnaires and centurions. Their exploits are known to history only through Caesar’s words. The passage below captures his technique of dramatizing the actions of these men, without whom none of Caesar’s brilliant achievements would have been possible. Caesar was much more sparing in his praise for the senior commanders and nobles in his army, who in the future might be political rivals.

“In that legion were two superbly brave men, centurions,…Titus Pullo and Lucius Vorenus. They had unending arguments about which of them should rank above the other, and every year they were involved in high stakes rivalries about their position. Now while the fight was most intense.., Pullo said, “Why are you hanging back, Vorenus? What opportunity are you waiting for to prove your bravery? This day is going to decide our competition.” Having said this, he…rushed toward the enemy forces.. Vorenus…followed right behind, worried about what everyone would think of him. Pullo threw his spear at pretty close range into the crowd of enemies, and it went straight through a man who was in front and had been running toward him. Pullo’s shield was pierced by a javelin…and while he was struggling with this, the enemies surrounded him. His rival Vorenus ran up to help him …and stood by him. Vorenus faced the threat, fighting at close quarters with his sword. He was surrounded in turn, but Pullo now came to his aid… Fortune thus brought it about for the two in their fighting and competition that while each was the other’s rival, he also helped and saved him, and there was no way to judge between them as to who should be thought to rank above the other in bravery.”

It is from that short vignette, that the creators of the HBO show Rome decided to make Vorenus and Pullo the protagonists of their tale, rather than the more famous and powerful characters of that era. Of course, while reading Caesar, I had to dust off my old DVD collection of the series and introduce it to my wife. It had been my favorite show when I was younger, and learning my trade as an infantry officer. One of my friends later told me that every man’s watchword should be WWTPD, What Would Titus Pullo Do? Long after we put the girls to bed, my wife and I watched the artistic rendering of the momentous acts of Marc Antony, Augustus, Pompey, Brutus, and Caesar himself that led to the end of the Republic. Throughout it all, would be Pullo and Vorenus- representative of the many nameless individuals whose lives make the history whose spotlight is on the elites’ competition for power.

On the Ides of March, Caesar was famously assassinated by a conspiracy of senators, who feared that the tremendous dynamism of the man would ultimately lead to tyranny. As such, while reading Caesar, I also studied the works of the ancient biographer Suetonius to gain another perspective. Suetonius, who lived during the era of Hadrian, compiled all the strengths, weaknesses, and quirks of the Emperors starting with Caesar. According to him, the dictator Sulla hunted Caesar as a young man for daring to defy him. When other nobles begged the dictator to spare his life, Sulla responded “Have your way…but be aware that the man you so desired to save, believing him to be attached to the aristocratic cause… will be its downfall.”

Caesar was clearly no ordinary man, and his skills far exceeded those of solely a strategist or ambitious politician. It has been well worth the effort to read his commentaries, thousands of years later, especially when accompanied by critical notes that explain the intent and purpose behind those words

The King’s Gold: The Adventures of Captain Alatriste

Alatriste is drawn into a complicated plot to steal Gold from the New World for the King.

“If what I have I do not fear to lose,

nor yet desire to have what I do not,

I’m safe from Fortune’s wheel whate’er I choose”

After wading through an intense ancient work, I was hoping for a light fictional adventure. When I was younger, I enjoyed historical fiction and occasionally still like to delve into a swashbuckling tale. When we visited my Pushing Horizons’ partner, Andy, and his family in England during Thanksgiving, we came across an old Edwardian phone booth turned into a community library. Among the pile, one book caught my eye. It was an English translation of one of Captain Alatriste’s adventures.

England. Check the phone booth, you never know when it may be filled with free books.

The Alatriste series, written by a Spanish war journalist, now novelist, are loved in Spain and I have a few of the series on my bookshelf in their original language. This translation, however, is excellent. Of course, it had all the sword fights, plot twists, and romance one could hope for in an adventure. Beyond that, the author Arturo Perez-Reverte also artfully tells the story of Spain at the height of its power, awash with gold from the New world, but beset by a myriad of enemies, and increasingly hobbled by its own corruption. This is no ordinary adventure.

Sunset in Ronda, Andalusia, Southern Spain.

The Broken Road: From the Iron Gates to Mount Athos

A young man walks through the Balkans in 1933.

“One is only sometimes warned, when these processes begin, of their crucial importance: that certain poems, paintings, kinds of music, books, or ideas are going to change everything, or that one is going to fail in love or become friends for life; the many lengthening strands, in fact, which, plaited together, compose a lifetime. One should be able to detect the muffled bang of the starter’s gun. This journey was punctuated with these inaudible reports: day springs veiled and epiphanies in plain clothes.”

A scrutinizing reader may notice that we at Pushinghorizons.com are devotees of the author Patrick Leigh Fermor. His books, his ethos, and writings by his companions are scattered like clues throughout our articles. During World War Two, while serving in occupied Crete, he led a successful operation to kidnap a German general. However, it is his walking trip in 1933 from Holland to Constantinople that he took as an eighteen year old that provided an inexhaustible resource for his later life as a writer living in Greece. The first two excellent books detailing his trip were published during his lifetime.

A few years ago a group of us spent New Years on the Cote d’Azur in the South of France. Amidst the camaraderie, and many bottles of Champagne, Andy and I discussed Patrick Leigh Fermor. I had just read his biography by Artemis Cooper, and was enamored by his life. However, I am ashamed to admit it, I had yet to read his actual writings. It was high time for me to rectify this omission, so I have taken the opportunity to read the third and last book in his trilogy detailing his youthful walk through Europe on the brink of armageddon.

This manuscript had not been finished at the time of his death, but has been rescued and published by Cooper. It is filled with the experiences of a young man whose deep sense of cultural and historical knowledge and evident charm allowed him to penetrate and understand the diverse wonderful societies which he passed through.

If you are not already intrigued by the Balkans as I am, that mysterious beautiful land troubled by violence and a crossroads of great power competition, you will be after reading Fermor. Passages like that below easily transported me from our current situation to a much different place and time:

“..prompted by the moonlight, our group sneaked away, armed with a bottle of wine, to a boat in the Maritza, and rowed out on to the wide river singing and drinking in turn from the same glass and moored under a clump of trees. At last, and with great delight, I heard, and finally learnt the words, of that strange wavering song the women had sung in the bus from Radomir. I got the students to perform it by humming what I could remember of the tune:

Zashto mi se sirdish, liube?”

(‘Why are you angry with me, my love? Why do you shun me?…)

..Sirdish ne dohojdash? Dali konya namash, liube Ili drum ne znayesh?

It ends in mid-air in an oddly unfinished fashion. They sang beautifully the slow and complex tune, with many modulations: an entrancing and melancholy sound over this moonlit river. I wonder what has become of them all?”

If one could all live such a life.

– RM
Roland Minez is a co-founder of Pushing Horizons.

Disclaimer: All views expressed are that of the author. As an REI Associate, Pushing Horizons earns from qualifying purchases.

So Well Remembered - James Hilton

The Gun - C.S. Forester

Wind, Sand, and Stars - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

The Landmark Julius Caesar: The Complete Works

The King’s Gold: The Adventures of Captain Alatriste

The Broken Road: From the Iron Gates to Mount Athos

For those who love adventure, friends, travel, and all that is rich in history