Homeward Bound

i'm back home now and sitting at my computer at work on a slow Friday, after catching up with everything that transpired here over the past two weeks. i landed back in T.O. yesterday afternoon, and it took about 24 hours to get home. Wednesday evening, i hopped on a quick flight to Madrid, then had a 16 hour layover. coincidentally a friend i met early on in San Sebastian (another Scott who traveled across Africa for 2 1/2 months) was on the same flight back to Toronto, so it made the layover pass by less painfully. we slept in the airport overnight and were able to finally check-in 3 hours before our flight departed.

i'm happy to say it was a pretty nice holiday overall. i really did chill out and got to do everything i planned. but i suppose it would've been nicer to have met more people and partied more, but because of San Fermin (Running of the Bulls) most people were just passing through San Sebastian, staying one night, laying on the beach, and then moving on to their next destination.

on my last full day in Basque country, i rented a car and drove east across the French border and around the Pyrenees. i really enjoy driving the twisties in Europe - so fun! i ended up with a Skoda Octavia wagon, which surprisingly had a fair amount of torque from its turbocharged diesel engine. it was quite smooth on the highway at 140 km/h, but definitely not built for ripping down mountain roads. i was hoping to get a GPS and ended up driving in circles a few times.


driving east from San Sebastian, i headed to Saint-Jean-de-Luz, which is very picturesque and has much more charm than San Sebastian due to its size. i broke for lunch there and felt more natural speaking French, rather than Spanish (must be my Canadian upbringing haha). i then headed to Bidart & Biarritz, which were some more beautiful beach towns with French charm. Biarritz is built along a cliff where surfers ride the waves that crash on the rocks - very cool to watch! from there i headed inland to do what i originally planned. i discovered many wonderful twisty roads and proceeded to rip past as many drivers as possible. i stumbled upon some very lovely villages which are apparently the beginning of the pilgrimage hiking trail to Santiago de Compostela - Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port and Saint-Etienne-de-Baigorry. i was confused at first to see such flourishing villages in the middle of nowhere since so many other places were quite deserted. i spent nearly twelve hours driving that day and used up a half tank of diesel. i probably would've saved a load of time with a GPS (was looking forward to playing with one after driving around in the older Scott's Mazda6).


so this marks the end of my summer holiday to Basque country. up next: Delhi, Agra & Rajasthan!!! this is a trip i am seriously looking forward to. i'll be there for a couple weeks after New Year's, and spending a week in Hong Kong over Christmas visiting my parents & relatives. i've noticed the more i travel, the more the world looks the same. i need to travel to a place that's so much more different than everywhere else, and they say you haven't traveled until you've been to India. i've already started planning the adventure and will be booking my flights fairly soon.

in the coming days, i'll be updating my recent blog posts with some of the photos i took. copying my pics to my computer last night, i noticed i took more than 1000 shots!