48: The broken moped

I don't know how many hours I had been walking through a dripping, foggy forest when I saw a broken moped lying in a garbage heap in the middle of the forest.

For the second time.

For a moment it struck me as strange to find two broken mopeds in one day's walk. Then I had that "oh, no" reaction of realizing that I'd been walking around in a circle.

Where the forest trail met up with a paved road I had searched long and hard for the yellow arrow that was the trail marker. Not finding one, I had taken out my compass and tried to at least follow the road in a westerly direction, but at this place it ran north to south, and in both directions it bent westwards further down. I eventually tried one direction and, when I finally hit another yellow arrow, thought I was back on track. But I was back on a part of the trail I had already done.

I had gotten lost a few times before due to what I considered ambiguous or missing trail markers. I always thought ruefully that this would never happen to a real outdoorsman, remembering the hikes in Patagonia with my friend Bryan Ward.

The second time I hit the paved road I went the other way, and sure enough, there was a yellow arrow on the pavement quite close to where I should have been looking last time.

I was angry with myself for this waste of time and energy. I was also feeling hungry. Since yesterday's late lunch at the taverna, I had only eaten a few cookies which I had bought at the Cenarruza monastery. They were all gone now, and my blood sugar was running low.