Heading Towards the Sun

Trading a husband for freedom in the South of France

Carla King
I spent the first two weeks of the trip suffering
in one of the most beautiful places in the world.
I wanted to go home but my pride wouldn’t let
me, nor would it let me hunker down in a first-
class hotel on the Riviera looking like a bimbo
waiting out a divorce. So I got on the
motorcycle each day and rode to the places I’d
planned to visit with my husband – the casinos
of Monte Carlo, the Roman ruins of Arles, the
medieval village of Carcassone. In the evenings I set up my tent alone in a campground filled
with families and tourists from other parts of Europe, cooked a quick dinner over my camp
stove and washed it down with wine. As soon as it was dark I was asleep, ready to get up at
the crack of dawn for another day of riding.

Each night I studied my maps with obsession and talked to no one, rebuffing the
relaxed, multi-national, campground camaraderie. Each day I kept strictly to the routes I
had planned. That was easy; the problem was how to eat. An inexperienced traveler, I was
too embarrassed to dine alone in restaurants. At least breakfast I could handle; cafés served
good strong coffee with croissants and the cigarette-smoking customers were buried in their
newspapers. But for my other meals I stopped at small-town marketplaces – no difficult task
in France – to buy supplies for sandwiches and foods to cook on my camp stove that night.
For lunch I’d find a picturesque spot to fix myself a sandwich that I still make today
whenever I want to think of France: I’d split a freshly baked baguette with my Swiss Army
knife, spread it thickly with triple-crème Brie on one side and Nutella chocolate-hazelnut
spread on the other. I’d slice a handful of fresh strawberries and press them into the Nutella.
I’d also discovered Orangina, the sparkly orange soda I admired as much for its nubby round
bottle as its fresh bubbly taste. I remember those meals today as my most decadent ever.

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 At the end of the second week I made my last call home. Since I’d arrived in France,
our phone conversations had all been difficult; they felt forced and unnecessary. After all
what was there to say? My husband had given priority to his job, seeming to hold to the
opinion that his corporation couldn’t possibly survive without the daily presence of a middle
manager in engineering. Our trip had been planned months in advance, but a major project
had slipped and he felt obligated to see it through. Admirable, but I thought he should feel
even more obligated to see through a vacation he’d planned with his wife. Maybe I could
have been more understanding if this vacation hadn’t been delayed for three years. The only
trip we’d taken in our four-year marriage was our honeymoon in Jamaica. We fought about
it every day for a week and then, in a huff, I said I was going with or without him. I booked
my flight, handed him a note with the travel itinerary, and left it up to him whether to join
me or not. He drove me to the airport, but I boarded alone.

By week two of the journey I was still continuing on our planned route. This week I
would be skirting the Pyrenees, riding west toward the Atlantic Ocean. The smooth black
asphalt road wound through small villages and farms, past fields dotted with yellow flowers
where black and white dairy cows grazed. It seemed just my luck that dark clouds were
gathered in the direction I was headed, and I resigned myself to weather that matched my
mood. However, to the north the sun shone and the sky was blue. When a split appeared in
the road I surprised myself by veering off, heading into the sunny blue sky. My heart raced as
I took an ever-narrowing path up a mountain, which dead-ended at an outcropping of rocks
and a medieval village.

I thumped across a wooden bridge lowered over the moat and rode under the wide,
arched doorway to find that the ancient village had been invaded by a traveling carnival, with
festivities in full swing. Children lined up for carousel rides and gathered around a puppet
stage in the village square. I parked the bike and walked through town, anonymous amongst
the clowns and the music. After buying a cone of pink cotton candy, I strolled down some
rough-hewn stairs into a quiet part of town; the thoroughfare stopped abruptly at a wide

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public balcony with views of the surrounding countryside. I gazed out on the hills and fields
toward another mountain far away that looked like it might have a village like this one built
on top of it. I had no idea where I was, and suddenly I didn’t care. Rain was falling to the
west, but here it was cloudless and sunny. When I got back to the bike I took my carefully
marked maps from the tank bag and tucked them deep into my pack, headed back down the
mountain, and turned up the road that led to a clear blue sky.

Read an expanded version of this story in American Borders: Breakdowns in Small Towns All Around the
USA.

Carla King is the author of the Miss Adventuring series of dispatches from her solo
motorcycle journeys around the world. You can buy her book American Borders:
Breakdowns in Small Towns All Around the USA on Scribd or her website, and from
your local independent bookstore. Subscribe to be notified when she uploads new
stories about her journeys in China, India, and Africa.

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