More like a chapter than a post. Get comfy

Wales has been an absolute adventure and now I'm going to tell you all about it. One thing leads to another on journeys like this...you don't take trips, they take you, as my dear Ali reminded me. I hopped a coach (bus) from London to Cardiff and felt like a real traveler, just hopping a ride to the next town for the hell of it. I took a seat by a friendly young guy from the States named Dan and we chatted the whole way. Even though he's 30, lives in Cardiff, and works as a programmer, we're very similar and I knew it too, that's why I sat by him. Turns out he bikes to the Brecon Beacons so I asked if he wanted to come along in a few days and he was totally down.

Cardiff for two days was a nice break from London...it's a mini-London with nice shops and bustling people on St. Mary Street but it's also on the ocean. I accompanied two cute blondes from Germany down to Cardiff Bay and we sipped drinks at the coffeeshop in the morning sun. I love Wales...everyone is naturally friendly and they call people "love" and "dear," even total strangers (tried it on a gorgeous girl working in the market, I did). Anyway, I met up with Dan and we watched Batman, went to a pub, and ate curry at his place. We planned our trip and Dan told me how he'd hiked such humorously named mountains as Fan y Big and (Somebody's) Knob...he'll have to help me out on that one. The next morning at the bottom of Corn Du and Pen y Fan (two tallest in south Wales) we were greeted with miserable stinking British rain. It was too much. We decided to have a hike to my hostel instead which was actually a gorgeous walk. This is sheep country out here in the Brecon Beacons--or shit country if you like; the two ideas are entirely synonymous. We dodged around the most profoundly defecated countryside I've ever seen and got a real kick out of one sheep scratching his backside on a fallen tree limb.

Llwyn-y-celyn Youth Hostel is literally in the middle of some woods and sheep pastures, a good ways from any road. It was like an abandoned farm when Dan and I found it, with no signs of life at all. I tried the door and it opened. I even yelled "hullo" inside...nothing except a warm mountain lodge. You could cozy by the fire, take a shower, and sleep on a couch and no one would care because the staff doesn't arrive until five. Dan and I said our goodbyes and life started buzzing at the hostel. You couldn't really call it a youth hostel...I seemed to be the youngest patron by twenty years. They serve a Beacons original ale there called Breconshire Brewery, and over a pint I got to know a charming Birminghamian (!!!) named Rory. He's in his forties but very much alive with the wonder of youth and can really see the natural art of the world around us. We decided we'd tackle the two mountains I'd failed.

Pen y Fan and Corn Du are twin peaks and a formidable climb for anyone. It was a real challenge of thighs and will but somehow we found ourselves with our eyes set on the final stony ascent. I felt like Frodo so I pushed on, and in dramatic fashion, we reached the shorter peak only minutes before the long-threatening hazy storm rolled in. Pen y Fan was within our grasp but our total satisfaction and the now surrounding cloud turned us back. So we hiked the second tallest moutain in south Wales, and it was a bloody accomplishment. I decided two days in the hostel was enough--I was ready to pitch my tent in some sheep field and forge for myself. I equipped my pack with canned food, Mars Bars, and a butane mini-stove and Rory dropped me off at a trailhead in a tiny settlement called Penderyn. He'd be rolling through town three days later to take me to Birmingham and the next adventure but for now I was on my own like I'd never been in my whole life.

I walked into a stunningly pastoral world of sheep grazing on rocky hills, horses standing under pathside trees, and compact evergreen forests patching the endless rolling hills. And I was soon lost. Bloody hell it's so disappointing being frustrated in such a picturesque setting. It literally took me hours to find my bearings...nothing was making any sense. The sun was setting and the nearest public campground was miles away. I lay exhausted on a rock and pointed my new cheapo compass at the setting sun...East. Now I'm no geographist, but I'm pretty damn sure that in no place on Earth does the sun set in the East. So on top of having an admittedly poor sense of orientation, I had a compass all day telling me the perfectly wrong bit of information. I left my bag in some tall grass in a thicket and hurried back to Penderyn for some water. I don't think I've ever challenged myself more than those final two miles, but I arrived back at my pack as the sun set. I was able to pitch the tent and eat (O glory) just as true darkness fell and the midges began eating my forehead. As I stumbled into the tent the rain came down and I fell back, finally at rest. I was on someone's land but I'd snuck there, and I'd gotten away with it, I knew. The lovely rain came and went and an occasional upset baa cleared the fields. The sound outside that I would so often take for the ambience of tire on distant pavement was only wind through miles of pines and bracken. I fell asleep.

The next morning was my own to take at my own pace. I surveyed my new private countryside, did some Chi Gung in the woods, and finally left. My idea now was to hike the miles to Merthyr Tydfil where I had the luxuries of a cash machine (ATM) and coach stop (bus stop). Perhaps then I could make it north to Hay on Wye which, besides sounding vaguely like some sort of sandwich, is the second-hand bookstore capital of the world and a true mountain village. I set off and this was roadside hiking. This was Kerouac and Dylan and it was an experience, folks. Curse it all but I ended up making bad time and planned on camping somewhere in a town called Hirwaun. I passed a middle aged man and his Jack Russel, and the man quite kindly gave me advice on where to grab a bite and where to pitch my tent. The dog and the way he talked reminded me of Pip's dad back in Birmingham. A few seconds later I heard a "hey" from behind me. I walked back and the man called Steven in his thick Welsh accent said I should come back home with him and he could take me somewhere cheaper to eat, so I turned to the dog and said, "Well come on then!" Trips take you.

As it was I wound up eating food and drinking Orangina and coffee prepared by Steven's wife Celia. Simply the most hospitable people in the world. Having offered their yard for me to pitch my tent, they drove me around a bit with the pretense of showing me a hostel I could stay in the next night. Now I'm sleeping in their house tonight and tomorrow night. The openness of the British people knows no bounds as far as I'm concerned, and that's my story. Monday is Birmingham and eventually I'll be in Scotland and to the Scottish islands known as the Hebrides.