aeon of love

As the days pass by, I have talked about this trek with a few friends and ‘conocidos’ that have seen some of my Instagram photos. I have answered several questions, such as: Aren’t you scared? How do you sleep? What do you eat? What do you wear? How do you stay “clean”? How you know where to camp? How do you deal with threats? My human network is very colourfull; some have never set up a tent in their lives (or ever will, right, Aimi?), some are highly experienced in the outdoor world, and some are keen but unsure how to engage. I love to surrounded myself with people who are not only interested in the same things I am or have made the same life choices. Inclusivity is a core value. As in, “so long as you are not a prick, I’ll be happy to hang out” but of signs of conscious prickness arise, I’ll walk the other way. No look back, no grudges held. Like gear, is no point taking on what drags you down. Ok, back to gear:

Gear fails, yes, quite some. Gear triumphs, yes, of course. My tent is glorious. It is not as light as I would recommend others, but I don’t mind the weight if it means I can really stretch and pack dry in the morning. My tent is a Vango Xenon UL, which is about 4 years old, and it has been pitched more than 200 nights since I bought it. I love it. The poles are a battered now, bended by some extremely strong winds in Glen Etive (2021) and Iona & Mull (2024). Yet, this tent has always kept me safe and dry. I can order replacement poles easily but is still ok as it is.. It’s a tent that I can pitch in 6 minutes, pack up in less time, and sit straight. It keeps all my stuff inside and has a porch to cook on when the weather is unkind. It fits comfy two humans, and is a great hang out space when it daggles. Love it. 

Another gear triumph, were the La Sportiva Bushido 2 trail runners. First time taking trail runners on a long trek and not hiking goretex shoes. Now, considering that trail runners carry almost nothing on their backs, and I had about 20kg all the way through the shoes did ok. They were light, grippy, and dried relatively quickly, either overnight or while wearing them (with trail running socks) I prefer them now to waterproof shoes. Paired with sealskin socks on very wet days or long boggy stretches, they were no fuzz at all.

However, I had extremely painful calves & ankles the last week. I had bought a pair of medium arc insoles, a recommendation from the shop. The Superfeet Active Cushion Medium Arch Insoles, for £30 (😥)that should last about a year or 500 miles, and they were worthless just after I hit 100 miles. The result was an incredible amount of ankle pain, calf cramps, and tender knees before I hit day 5. I didn’t realise that the insoles were the culprit for some days and marched on with all the pain untreated. By day 8, I was taping the aquiles tendon, and by day 10, the whole ankle. Got cuddos from my sports masseur for the effective KT taping, inspired by tapping Eli’s ankles when he plays basketball.

Meanwhile, a gear failure was the trekking poles; they both broke down while navigating mud and bog on the right side of Uisge Labhair. They both got so deep in the bog that they created a strong vacuum, and as I tried to pull them out, the bottom third stood inside the bog. There I was, in the light rain, digging bog to rescue the poles, drying them with my towel, and putting them back together with the bits of silver tape I had rolled over the midgies’ spray bottle. It was not a terrible thing to happen, but it was an inconvenient moment on a part of the trail that was pathless due to rain, mud and bog. 

Lastly, I am still undecided about the new “4-season” down sleeping bag I purchased from OEX. Not the best brand, clearly, it kept me warm, especially the one night camping outside Culra bothy, which was extremely cold. However, I would wake up covered in down, the tent looking like a cockfight ring. By now, I believe it has lost enough down to be a 3-season sleeping bag. Disappointed, yes, a total failure, not really.

The last of the problems I encountered was the food. I had prepared supplies based on caloric needs and gave high importance to proteins, hydration/electrolites and rich caloric food. I did not want to lose too much muscle gains as I had been training quite hard in the last six months. However, as efficient as I am, the system failed me and I ended up losing about 4kg and went down in my lifting by about 20-25%. The trek days were long, the temperature quite cold, and the terrain, the last week, was quite challenging. I had posted supplies to Fort William and they got lost due to a double failure: I paid for a 48-hour service that took 168, the same amount of time it took me to walk from where I posted to where I was hoping to receive the package (Braemar -Fort William). The second failure was even more irritating, and that was the lack of kindness and attention that the staff from the hostel demonstrated as the package arrived day I was waiting in Fort William, at the hostel t and no one contacted me to let me know. I spent a day in Fort William spending money on less nutritionally efficient food and an extra night in a hostel for nothing. I could have had my maps, my clean leggings, my two squeezy bottles filled with peanut butter and honey and many other amazing things I had prepared at home. When I raised the complaint to the Hostelling association, all I got was a will deal internally with the unkind, slightly racist wee “sorry” we and resentful staff member. I don’t usually Karen these things as I know how innefective the system is, so Tom, you know you are a proper jerk.

Further on, gear wise I am still happy with everything else I own, but I am contemplating a longer and much more demanding trek next year where light, less bulky everything will be needed without compromising watertightness, warmth and wind protection. If you have questions or suggestions, leave a comment, I am always open to learn and to share my knowledge. Keep it kind, keep it light, Like the gear.

(Next blog: Navigation, routes & trails: 18 july, 2025)

To stumble and not despair, to succumb to something mightier but not lose myself in it, to give in to something that scares me but not feel unsafe—these are the hills I love. The paths that, sweating, puffing, laughing, crying, with immense pleasure (and quite a bit of pain), I’m willing to walk at any time, any day.

I’m willing to feel the full range of emotions without manipulating them, without the intention to control, contain, or own them—because… who can own what? Who believes they can own the greatness of this expansion? Anyone who thinks they can conquer what life has to offer knows nothing about time, nothing about space, knows nothing about life itself. For there is nothing to control… not even the self.

All we have is feeling and experience, and as such, they are either memories of things that have happened or the direct, naked present moment. If we are honest enough, here, we can lose ourselves. There, and then, we might comprehend, in freedom.

Wtf, I love feeling dissolved into this world I see.

Dissolving into a story you read, becoming a character, feeling their feelings, living their life, even if just for a minute.

Dissolving as in the stupor of some psychedelic experience when your skin ceases to feel like a cage, and you extend beyond everything you touch.

Dissolving the self—as in an orgasm, shared or alone, so long as the whole thing builds up in a place of safety, of feeling, knowing you will float away without crashing down.

The metaphors and the dissolution are not new, but reading about them is one thing, and being in it is another. Being dissolved, not grasping reality, not grasping the ego, not grasping the body, not grasping time, not grasping the limits of my nerves or the matter that builds my body and constitutes my thoughts. But yet, it is not my matter because, in that moment of dissolving, I cease to exist, and everything exists in the silence of totality.

I often write about emptiness, silence, and totality as actual experiences—real as breathing. Maybe I’ve been lucky to find places that trigger me endlessly; perhaps the life I live and the things that happen to me tear away layers of illusion, painfully lifting veils and removing the comfort of the expected, the known. Possibly, my thirsty, truth-seeking soul, unafraid to crawl into the darkest crevices of feelings and thoughts, has been pierced by the sharp tongues of the hardened, bitter ignorance in the hearts of the unloved.

Dissolving is a kind of death. I wonder if learning to dissolve in nature, learning to dissolve in time, might help us prepare for death— for the ultimate participation in timelessness.

---

✹道✹ camino ✹ weg ✹ way ✹ 

 Might you find yourself comfortably fulfilling someone else’s expectations or under the overwhelming force of the social timeline, walk the path. Walk the path that has no certainties or expectations, walk the path that pulls your heart (which is one with your mind, your soul and all the other words we invented to separate that which is one). Offer no resistance to the path. Scream, shout, cry, laugh, fear, rejoice, repent, revive the original self.

The aim of meditating is to access the part of us, sentiment beings, that is not thinking nor feeling. When we think we are evaluating, judging and organising an experience, brain activity. When we are feeling we are connecting and relating the immediate to the past, to the future through past experiences. The combination of these two processes constitutes our states of being. Meditation techniques aim to disengage your focus on controlling these processes.

Our brain is an organ as any other organ, although it has some of the least understood functions and process, in my opinion, due to the fact that it is this very processes and functions that we are trying to analyse to “objectively” describe them. As an organ, it does what it is suppose to do: process information both internal and external and execute the required actions to continue our existence in its most efficient way possible with the resources we have. It is the executive center. So far it would seem that I am putting forward a functional & computerized concept of the brain. Might it be the case. However is not the mind I am talking about but brain proceses

This book is about me, my explorations, reflections and thoughts, and my experience. This is my story intermixed with other stories, stories of other beings and other things that are not me. Although I might not be doing a lot of “I see”, “I do”, “I feel”, the I is implied. This is my subjective take on the world I find myself in. You and everything else that is, is in this world. As if this was my dream, and only that, my illusion. The sections are organised in a chaotic structure, as it is a task left to my monkey mind and reflecting the nature of it. The photos have been selected to illustrate something in the text, and sometimes, they match the moment I came up with the thoughts I am sharing with you. 

Wandering and wandering off the roads and known paths started when I was a kid, and I was not allowed to ride my bike across the paved roads in Pinares. The area had no straight paths. It was a residential area, far from the busy centre of this seaside summer town. At least where I was, very close to the beach, the forest and the lake. I made it my sport to find creative ways to ride as far as possible. Without a map, without navigation, just me and my bike when I was 11. It was not about reaching anywhere, as I knew that paths ended somewhere, but due to the labyrinthical nature of the area’s trails, I wanted to know all of them, every path. Dead ends and all.

As I wrote this, it became clear to a certain degree that is the same I am doing with Scotland. I want to know it all. Know all the paths, and be aware of its geography. Build a complete 3D scan of the land in my head. 

We don’t get to know everything in depth. Things change, and in the eternal flux of time, growth and decay are unavoidable. But just like a scholar, I acquired general knowledge of the subject and am now choosing my in-depth subject. Scotland.

People often ask me about the dangers of travelling alone, the loneliness, the skills necessary to succeed, the gear (in this case, usually middle-aged men), etc. The fact that I am a woman has played a significant role in this question; however, people tried to conceal or address it in such a way that I wouldn’t feel offended. But not always. Like my friend Alex, who was bewildered by the idea that I would go hiking alone wearing yoga leggings. Or Donate to whom I had to invent a schedule with hostels so she wouldn’t freak out with my “I’ll throw the tent somewhere when I feel like it is time to sleep” plan. 

It is the exact things they feared or rejected that things that fill me with joy. Not knowing where I would sleep, not having a destination, not considering “the gaze” or how others see me, peeing when I needed to and with a view, carrying all the things I needed in my back. Specially curated life. As minimal as possible and as comfortable as I could afford.

While sitting in the first pub I ever sat in Inverness, some 5 years ago, I look outside to the snow-covered road. I do not have a car or know how to drive. Maybe by the end of these stories, I am about to tell you, I will have a driver’s license. I’ll let you know. But for now, I am bound to my two legs and my bike to roam the lochs, the glens and the mountains of Scotland. The snow must be amazing out there, in the Cairngorms. My friend in Cannich fears she’ll be snowed in this week. I wish I was there. I’ll share a detail… the first time I ever saw snow falling, was when I was 17 years old on my way to Bariloche with my high-school class. Until I moved to the Netherlands, I had no direct experience with snowing. And although I am not fond of cold weather, I fell in love with falling flakes. There is an eerie silence on a snowing afternoon, and the type of light coming from the bright, shining, frozen, watery fluff is magic, just like the white sand of the Western Isles beaches. Its whites and blues taking over the vision field forever.

Let me continue with what these stories will be. This is a book about moving, words and change. My interpretation of these concepts might be broader or narrower than yours. It might be that you had already thought the thoughts I thought and saw the things I saw, and nothing you see or read is new information to you. It might also be the case that something you read or see on these pages triggers something in you; even though the information is not new, it casts a different light on the structures of your thinking. Or it might be gibberish, nonsense, words without any meaning. Like the discourse of the Mad Hatter.

Whatever this book does for you, I am grateful if it does something. Combating numbness in a world of illusionary realities is a challenging job. One way or the other, most of us fall into a state of apathy at least once in our lives. The man-made world becomes easily predictable, routines, timetables, categorised, and organised in linear manners, forcing the flow and ebbs of nature to fit the limitation of our understanding.