I still remember my trip to Madeira, an island in the Atlantic that belongs to Portugal. Back then, after a somewhat stressful phase of my life, I just wanted to relax in a remote cabin in the forest and do something for myself, read, do a bit of sport and eat well. Day after day there was only bad weather. Until I couldn’t stand it any longer. Necessity is the mother of invention. A flash of inspiration gave me the idea of getting in the car and simply driving as high up a mountain as possible. At some point, I drove into the cloud and came out at the top again after a while. Tata, problem solved. Because the sun always shines above the clouds.

And that’s how it was again and again on this hike. We often overcame more than a thousand meters of altitude and thus defeated the bad weather. Don’t get me wrong, this solution was not always available. There were days when we were soaked down to our underpants and even had to put up our wet tent in the evening.

Somehow, up on a summit from which you can see far into Spain and across the Atlantic, you feel like Greek gods enthroned above the clouds and looking down on the simple, not quite so divine people.

On some days, we didn’t hike any further for this very reason, because it would have meant descending to below the clouds.

Traveling alone as a team

As we have often mentioned, everyone goes their own way. Even if you are in a group, it is rare for everyone to walk at the same pace. This is also the case with us. Sabrina and Sebastian like to take their time in the morning to wake up, have a coffee and have breakfast. I, on the other hand, prefer to have breakfast after I’ve already hiked a few kilometers.

Especially in the morning, I often have bumblebees up my butt. Well, relatively. I read when I wake up and meditate almost every day. But I usually wake up before 7am. That way I often get going before the others.

As it’s difficult to estimate how far you’ll get in a day, especially in the steep middle section of the Pyrenees, we meet at an agreed point for lunch. From there, we discuss our plans for the rest of the day, eat together or simply lie in the sun for a while after a swim in the lake.

In the evening, we cook together and if we still have energy, we throw dice or Seba and I play a game of chess.