A Lone Llama in Corsica

LLAMA IN CORSICA: Last June and July I traveled in Italy, Corsica, and the Russian Caucasus, and during the Corsican part I biked alone around the perimeter of the island. I reached Corsica on the fifth day of my trip - Spike Hampson, Pocket Llama owner since May 2003.

More: Best of 'What Do You Do On A Friday?' Holiday Reading 2004

Good travel writing is more about the inner journey than the mechanics of getting from A to B (guidebooks take care of the latter). We're delighted to bring you this outstanding essay about surmounting that wall of self-doubt that faces everyone in everyday life. Geography teacher and Pocket Llama owner, Spike Hampson, just happened to do it on a Friday. I wish, I wish, I'd had a teacher like Spike. - Ed

A LONE LLAMA IN CORSICA

My plan is to bicycle around Corsica alone. The trip has been brewing for a long, long time.

Five years ago I organized a circle-island expedition for students and faculty in the university geography department where I work. The plan was to have a support vehicle, move as a group, and stay in modest lodgings en route. But of course as the departure date drew near, the none 'committed' participants found no end of reasons why they had to drop out, and about a month beforehand it became obvious that the venture would have to be cancelled. Such practical people: I cannot understand how life can have meaning if all decisions are sensible ones. Only foolish, outrageous acts create new situations, and only a new situation can salvage a day from oblivion.

I was, as you can tell, mildly peeved at the time. Ever since, I have been plotting to do the trip on my own and the day has finally arrived.

From the ferry, Cap Corse in the predawn light was a massive, looming hulk of silent majesty. It was more than I had expected, more, even, than I had hoped. It's dark, dramatic flanks plunged to the sea from lofty heights and the tiny wavelets of the gentle Mediterranean gathered around its shores like a multitude of insignificant supplicants.

It was not as if the Corsica-Sardinia Ferry Service had made this grandeur easy to observe. The ferry was in fact little more than a floating convention center with bowels eviscerated to provide ample space for trucks and cars. The vessel was like a silent space ship. You could not hear the engines, you could not feel vibration, the Mediterranean offered no noticeable resistance to the forward floating motion of the hull, and the many decks were entirely closed in. Only a systematic search revealed the one deck with its few sets of doors affording access to the narrow, exposed space where all the lifeboats are kept. Out there you could see the breathing, beaconing body of the island, but otherwise, it was just a pretty picture through a window.

I will say this, however: the Corsica-Sardinia Ferry Service has raised its marketing to such a level that only the blind and the aqua phobic would ever be able to resist a ride on one of its floating wonders. The company has chosen as signature colors cerulean blue lettering on a background field of marigold yellow. And the smokestack of every vessel is fitted out with the outline of a Corsican warrior's head, a rugged profile in black and white with a yellow headband tied tightly in place and the tie ends splaying out behind the one visible ear. It is a good symbol and I think it fair to say that French business has exploited Corsican identity with far greater effectiveness than American business has been able to do with Indians.

Early morning rays slapped the sleeping city across the face as we all disembarked on the pier at Bastia and before the breakfast crowd had sipped its last cappuccino I was settled into a hotel room with my little green collapsible bicycle set up and waiting for action. Nothing to do but hit the open road.

The north end of Corsica is a long, narrow peninsula pointing straight and rising proud. Tiny villages sprinkle both sides while the continuous crest running down the center is high country devoid of people. Michelin says that an abbreviated trip up the eastern edge, across the mountain ridge, down the western side, and returning over the backbone is a 110 kilometer circuit, and that sounds like a good way to get started. After all, I won't have to haul the trailer.

I depart in a fit of excitement and only after a few kilometers have drained the surplus from my adrenaline tank do I settle into a thoughtful analysis of what I have undertaken. I quickly realize that this is going to take me a few hours and that I probably should not plan on any late afternoon sightseeing back in the city of Bastia.

About forty kilometers into the ride, more or less as I crest the first pass at the north end of the peninsula, I hit the wall. This is a commonly used phrase = I've used it myself - but only if you have actually run into the wall full bore and experienced the totality of the event do you have any sense of how thorough and all-encompassing the physical disintegration becomes. It must be a little like staggering around in the desert with no water - not as deadly but just as disorienting. In fact, for me it is a lot like that since I ran out of water around kilometer 30 and I have not had any food except for a couple croissants, which would be fine if the French ever provided anything with them.

I will spare you the grim details of the remainder of the ride and only touch on the high points. Fool that I am, I descend from that northern pass on its western side, thereby sealing my doom. Around kilometer 70 I finally stagger into the courtyard of a restaurant where I consume a foot-long sandwich (very good it is, too) and systematically drain a 1.5 liter bottle of water.

After a half hour nap I venture out again and in the early evening hours begin my sluggish ascent of the second pass. It breaks me, eventually, and I have to walk the last couple kilometers to the crest. I get back to the hotel at 8:00 PM.

Is there anything to be learned from this? I should think so. For starters, get in condition before you go. Create a sensible plan for your ride. Food is fuel and make sure you have some. Don't get dehydrated. These are all pretty basic rules, aren't they? I knew them all before I got to Corsica. But it is never as good to just know something in your head; you must know it in your gut as well. If you do not, it is only a shallow and insubstantial sort of knowledge. I teach this concept to the students in my classes all the time. I wonder if they ever listen. I certainly didn't.

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Down at the old port, Bastia shows how little French fishing villages are supposed to look - a cubist choir of closely gathered structures arrayed around the tiny harbor, a sunny stonework promenade rimming the water's edge, projecting piers with their tethered boats that look as if they all are nursing, a bulwark jetty guarding against the sea, and splash after splash of bright awnings facing the promenade with their backs to the buildings. This is aesthetic. This is charming. This is really very pretty.

These little port towns, though, are much alike. The features I have described do not distinguish Bastia from the others; they define them all. The category is special - most small villages around the world are either poorly shaped or poorly dressed, but Mediterranean fishing villages almost always exhibit style and grace and good conformation. But what puts old Bastia in a different class? What makes it a special place, a cut above the rest? Nothing, actually. Old Bastia contains enough beauty and class to satisfy any reasonable person, not just for today but for a lifetime, but it would hardly be considered the best of the lot. So the question arises, ow does one distinguish between the ravishing and the merely beautiful?

There is no good reason for me to be here in Corsica; the choice is driven by irrational emotions. My appreciation of the old port of Bastia is a purely aesthetic matter, and there is nothing reasonable about beauty. It is aesthetics that drew me to Corsica in the first place and it is insufficient aesthetics that will keep me from throwing away everything and moving to Bastia to spend my latter days sipping cappuccino in the shade of a restaurant awning looking at the pretty boats and the pretty people. I might do it for some other village though.

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I have been thinking a lot about confidence; Cap Corse lingers in my mind. Those afternoon hours laboring across a peerless landscape's bays and headlands and clustered mountainside villages - with my mind consumed by the single question: 'Can I make it?' The experience chastens and the question remains, although now it adheres to the larger context. Can I make it around Corsica on my bicycle?

I have been considering the proposition from various angles and have settled on a different plan. There are daily ferries to the Italian mainland from Sardinia and ferries shuttle frequently from the southern tip of Corsica to Sardinia's northern extreme, and so instead of returning northward from Bonifacio up through the alpine heart of Corsica I shall traverse the island in one direction only and then abandon it altogether. Sardinia may offer a different flavor.

The start of the journey presents the biggest challenge because I must first ascend the very pass that two days earlier brought me to my knees - and it will have to be done with the trailer attached. The route to the crest runs past my hotel and outside its entrance the road already is steep. I prepare in all ways possible, but even so the trailer has never before been attached to the bicycle and I have no sense of what to expect with it fully laden. I am pleased to discover that I can move the trailer and the pitch is not impossible. I make it to the top in a little over an hour, maintaining a steady speed and without tiring in the final stages.

Now in my mind the Corsica trip is done. The days must pass, the distance must be pedaled, the climbs must be made, but I know that I can do it. A certain heavy doubt has been removed and now I can enjoy the trip.

We all know that success requires confidence. It does not matter if it is sports or business or love, the end is achieved only when we believe it is going to be. And yet, for most of us the training and preparation to accomplish things in life is dedicated to learning the relevant skills. This may not be the best approach.

Those who develop competence without accompanying belief in their ability often fail to realize success, whereas those who simply presume to do something typically end up doing it, and manage to develop the necessary competence along the way.

We might be better served by an educational system that teaches us presumptuousness rather than competence.

My most vivid lesson in the power of confidence occurred when I was a shy, young teenager attending a private boys' school in New England. It happened that one of the teachers there was Warren Witherell, a remarkably tall and lanky man who had recently become a national champion water skier. He was utterly sure of himself in everything he did, and even I could tell that he had more than a passing acquaintance with Narcissus. I was taken by his charisma, however, and counted myself as one of his devotees. We were numerous, but so were his detractors, and there appeared to be no neutral ground.

Warren had never done any snow skiing, and yet the school had a national reputation for the quality of its skiers. Late one fall, he let it be known that he was going to become a ski racer, and for those who detested his arrogance this was received with unconcealed glee, for no person - not even an acknowledged athlete - can reasonably expect to become highly skilled in a very different sport without a fair amount of training and practice. Warren was no longer young, and it certainly appeared that his mouth had gotten a little too far ahead of his overconfident self. Over Christmas vacation, Warren went off and learned to ski, and in January he entered a regional slalom race and won it.

In subsequent years, he became the ski coach at a competing private school and his protégées were of national caliber. He went on to write a book on how racers ski, and it was received well by those who take the sport seriously.

At the time, I was astounded that anybody could have such athletic ability - and especially someone of such size. In those days, big, tall slalom skiers simply did not show up as competitors in races. I saw him as blessed with supernatural athletic skill, and worshipped him for it. Now in retrospect I realize the truth: he was naturally gifted, but the real source of his quick success was his inability to question his own ability.

Back in the early part of the twentieth century - during the 20's and the 30's, I believe - a man named Harry Pidgeon decided to build a sailboat and sail it around the world. Harry was in his late 40's at the time. He knew virtually nothing about boats and he had no experience on the ocean. Nevertheless, he ordered a set of sailboat plans from Popular Science magazine and proceeded to follow them. He set himself up next to a lumberyard on the west coast and at a cost of about $1,000 built himself a hard chined sailboat. Eventually he launched and christened his new boat, 'Islander', and then spent the rest of his life sailing her. He sailed around the world alone, something that had been done only a couple of times before, and only by experienced mariners.

He wrote a book about his trip, but it suffered from a lack of near disasters. He avoided hurricanes; he made landfalls when and where he expected; he never was put up on a lee shore or torn from his anchorage by unanticipated conditions. In short, Harry was so successful that he had little to work with when writing his book. I doubt this bothered him much, however, for landfall in some new and exotic place appears to have been his passion and book writing nothing more than a means to this end. In his simple, homebuilt boat, Harry went on to do a second circumnavigation. Then he got married and took off again. He did not complete the third circumnavigation; Islander met disaster in the South Pacific. Undaunted, Harry returned to the States with his new wife and when nearly 80 years old began construction of a new boat. Although he died before completing it, his presumptuous behavior rewarded him with maritime success that most sailors born with the wind in their teeth might only dream of having.

He was a confident man.

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Spike Hampson, Pocket Llama owner and inspiratinoal geography professor, can be contacted at hampson at geog dot utah dot edu or hampson at csbs dot utah dot edu

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