Yes, it does happen.  The surf does go flat here sometimes.  

After a couple days of rain, yesterday dawned clear.  The surf cams showed a small clean swell here in Guethary but the tide was very low, so I made my way up to Landes in search of a good beach break.  Unfortunately, the swell was dropping fast and I couldn't bring myself to go out in the knee-high perfect barrels of Tarnos.  Instead I returned home.

Karen has become interested in watching French films (in French with no subtitles!), so we decided to walk the five+ miles into Saint Jean de Luz to see the new Marion Cotillard film, Deux Jours et une Nuit.  We were a little short on time, so we took the shorter route which touches the Sentier Littoral (coastal trail) but misses most of the spectacular parts. 

Of course the views from our shorter version are nothing to complain about.  This is what it looks like as you enter Saint Jean de Luz from the Sentier Littoral.  This is the Pointe Saint Barbe, a large park bordering the botanical gardens with views across the bay of Saint Jean de Luz to the Pyrenees beyond.  You can see Les Trois Coronnes in the background.   For me, this peak epitomizes the Pays Basque.  We've climbed it several times.  I'll include pictures of our hikes there in another blog post. 

We covered the last mile to the cinema and made it with just minutes to spare.  I'm not sure I can recommend the film.  It's the very unlikely story of a young depressive woman who must convince the majority of her coworkers to give up their bonuses so that she can keep her job.  Marion Cotillard is a great actress and I can't say the film is without merit, but maybe it's a bit too self-involved for me.  

We grabbed a light snack and a Perrier in the Place Louis XIV and then walked along the beach back towards Point Saint Barbe.  It was a beautiful post-frontal day with puffy cumulus clouds.  There were quite a few sunbathers on the beach but it was nothing like summer or holidays when you can't see the sand for the people there. 

After traversing the park and walking a short distance along a picturesque street lined with classic Basque homes, we reentered the more rugged part of the trail for the longer (6 mile) walk back to Guethary. 

The trail quickly climbs along the edge of the cliff where you have breathtaking views south towards Spain and north to Landes.  To the South, the Sentier Littoral winds around Saint Jean de Luz and Ciboure and continues south along the Corniche down to Heydaye and the Spanish border.  Other coastal trails continue from there into Northern Spain.  To the north, the trail goes to Bidart, the village just beyond Guethary, passing at least a dozen reef and point breaks.

This part of the trail passes old World War II bunkers embedded in the cliffs now overgrown with lush greenery.  There is apparently an underground tunnel (closed to the public) which connects them.  The trail ends briefly at the Croix d'Archilua, erected there in the 19th century, then it turns down the hill to Erromardi.

As you descend the hill, you'll see one of many ancient Basque markers found along the Sentier Littoral. 

Erromardi is a popular beginner surf spot.  Karen has surfed there many  times and has  very long rides.  At low tides with a medium sized  swell, it's a challenging left for more experienced surfers and at high  tide, there is a  Kamikaze right on the north end and a  solid little-ridden left about a quarter mile  offshore on the south  end of the beach.

Continuing along the road past Erromardi, you climb a steep hill and about a quarter mile further, you turn left onto a beautiful cliff-side trail.  There's a small parking lot picnic area at the bottom that overlooks the famous surf break of Lafitenia.  From the small picnic area, there is a trail that looks like it goes down the cliff.  It doesn't.  Instead it disappears from view - it isn't visible from above, but winds through the trees growing in the face of the cliff.  

When I first came to the area in the seventies (see my post Our Place in France  - Part 1), I surfed it alone for the winter months I was there.  I think it  compares favorably with Rincon near Ventura.  Now, it's rare to see even a  bad day with fewer than 50 people in the water and often there are over one  hundred.  

I was fortunate to catch it last week looking like this.  There were only 6 of us out for the first hour, but at lunch time, Quiksilver's employees all decided to join us and it got a little crazy.  Quiksilver is one of the largest employers in the area.  In general, the surf is more crowded in France than it is in California.  The crowds drop off in the winter, but during the summer and fall when the water is in the 70s, it can be brutal. 

The trail meets the service road for the Lafitenia beach then turns uphill onto the road that leads past several three and four-star campgrounds.  This is the Acotz area which is officially part of Saint Jean de Luz.  The area that was once filled with farmland is now home to dozens of campgrounds each complete with restaurants, swimming pools, rec rooms, cabins,  and more amenities than you should ever have 'camping'. 

Passing the campgrounds you cross into Guethary at Cenitz beach.  The road ends and you're back on a trail that winds up the Cenitz hill.  Karen and I often watch sunsets from here and the picture of us at the top of my homepage is taken from the hill at Cenitz looking south.  The picture above is looking northwest.  Cenitz has a small restaurant above its mostly rocky beach but is a popular surf break with a left point/reef to the south, a left and right reef in the center, and a right point/reef on the north end.  Just beyond that is the famous big-wave break of Avalanche.  You can see the 6 inch waves of Avalanche on the far right of the photo above.

Passing Cenitz, you're on a cliff side road with a train track on the right and multi-million euro luxurious Basque homes overlooking the ocean.  There are paths down to the beach and the famous Les Alcyons surf break as well as the seaside restaurants on the 'jetty'.  Most of the restaurants were completely demolished during the tempetes of this past winter (2014) where the cote Basque saw huge damage. 

This picture was taking in the early 60s, but the same thing happened this past winter.  When I was here in 1974, this building (Itsasoan) was Guethary's casino.  When I returned in 2004, I was surprised to find that it and the grand hotel next door had been turned into condos.  Worse, the buildings had been allowed to deteriorate with cracked bottle glass, peeling paint and rotting beams.  After this winter's storms and the additional deterioration of the building, the tenants of Itsasoan finally did some work on its appearance.  Final touches are in progress, but it certainly looks much better than it has over the past 10 years.  Hopefully the Geteria next door will do the same.

We walked by the ongoing construction at the Itsasoan, continued past the popular Heteroclito restaurant which is housed under the parking area for the lower part of Guethary, said hello to Bob Simpson who has a spectacular apartment overlooking the Parlementia surf break (the Sunset Beach of France), and made our way to the Le Madrid where Cyril greeted us with sangrias and conversation. 

True, there was no surf to be had, but our 11-mile hike in one of the most beautiful places in the world guaranteed us an appetite for another superb Basque dinner.

You've read about Karen's physical challenges over the last few years and the determination that led to her successful completion of the Big Sur Marathon Walk as well as some recent strenuous hikes in the Pays Basque. 

As I described, it was a rough few years.  We met dancing, and our dancing, hiking, whitewater kayaking, surfing, and skiing were all significant parts of our lifestyle and to some degree, who we were and what we shared as a couple.  The deterioration of her hip changed all of that. 

But there was an upside.  It may be a bit of a stretch, but her inability to walk more than 100 feet ultimately led to her fluency in French.

When I met Karen in 2004, in addition to being impressed by her dancing, her athleticism, and her drive, I was blown away by her fluency in Spanish.  Part of my dream in wanting to come back to France was to become truly fluent - something that I believe is impossible unless you live in a French environment and immerse yourself in the culture and language.  The fact that Karen was completely bilingual was a surprise to me and I was envious. 

Of course, she had a major advantage.  From an early age, she grew up in a Mexican household - her stepmother was Mexican. 

When we started coming to France, I learned that Karen had taken some French in high school, but had never kept up with it.  She did visit France in 2000, but discovered that she'd lost it all and other than the fact that her last name (Noël) was everywhere (it was Christmas time), she really couldn't understand any French at all.

When she and I first visited France together during the summer of 2005, I had to do all the talking.  Karen could say 'Bonjour', 'Merci', and 'Au revoir', but not much else. 

On subsequent trips to the Pays Basque, we had a deal - I would speak for us in France and she would speak for us in Spain.  Having spent some time on business trips in Spain, I can get by with my rudimentary Spanish, but like Karen, if you've got someone with you who is fluent, why would you speak?

Of course we spent more time in France than in Spain on our trips, and as our social circle started to expand, I found myself in the difficult position of attempting to do simultaneous translation while trying to be involved in a conversation at the same time.  It was awkward to say the least.  You may remember the challenging interrogation with the Basque family I described in Our Place in France - Part 3. 

So what does this have to do with Karen not being able to walk?

Well, just before one particularly miserable trip where we had problems with wheelchairs in the airports, Karen had begun physical therapy for her hip.  She had exercises to do and did easy workouts at Curves in Santa Cruz.  Her physical therapist suggested she find a gym in France, if at all possible, to keep strengthening her weakened muscles. 

The day of our arrival, we noticed a Curves franchise about a five minute drive from our mogul-ridden apartment.  It was closed.  We returned the next day.  They had just opened - it was their first week in business.  Since Karen spoke no French and the owner spoke no English, I had to be there to sign her up.  Of course, I couldn't be there during her workouts because Curves was for women only.  Karen was a bit nervous, but one of the physical trainers who spoke just a 'leetle' English assured me that Karen would be okay. 

Over the course of the next several weeks, Karen went to Curves faithfully, often twice a day.  Life continued as it had on previous trips with me speaking French for Karen and me encouraging Karen to try to order meals when we ate out (which was often). 

Early in the trip, we were walking around the Place Louis XIV in Saint Jean de Luz visiting with many of the artists who had their work on display there, hoping to find artwork for the apartment.   We fell in love with the work of Patrick Pierart and after a long discussion, decided to meet with him at his studio in Bayonne where he could show us more of his pieces.    Ultimately, we bought several of his works which grace the walls of our place today.

Just before we left France to return to the US, Patrick called and asked us to  join him for lunch at the Trinquet Saint-Andre in Bayonne.  This is a  racquet club in Vieux Bayonne (the walled city) that was built in the early  1600s and which has hosted people like Louis the XIV who played there. 
Patrick took us on a tour of the club, then we settled down to a superb lunch in the courtyard.  Patrick spoke very little English, so I interpreted as best I could while trying to maintain a conversation. 

At one point, I excused myself to go to the restroom leaving Karen alone with Patrick, hoping she'd be okay for a few minutes.  When I returned, Karen was speaking French with him.  While she made a lot of grammatical errors, she was perfectly understandable and she and Patrick "s'entendaient bien."  I was shocked.

I justified my obvious surprise to Patrick, and Karen, in decent French,
explained that as someone who loves to talk, she couldn't have survived at  Curves without talking.  Over the course of the six weeks we were in  France, she had spent several hours a week hearing and speaking French with the  women there and in particular with the trainer we'd met in our first visit to  Curves.  This trainer, Martine, has since become one of Karen's best  friends (as I described in my post My Miraculous Wife - Hiking in the  Pyrenees).

Discussing her much improved French on the way home, Karen decided that she needed to find a way to practice it while we were in the States.  Just before our departure, she set up Santa Cruz Speaks French - a Meetup Group for people who want to practice their French.    They (we - I was required to go) now have over 130 members and meet twice a week. 

What brought all this to mind is the lunch we had yesterday.  Several members of the nearby disc golf club  invited us to a Sunday afternoon feast to show us the food of Landes.  Landes is the area north of the Adour River and thus is not part of the Pays Basque.  For surfers reading this, the famous Hossegor is in Landes.

We had a sumptuous meal of duck confit, a salad which included the white asparagus of Landes, huge piles of grilled mussels in a spicy sauce, and magret de canard - duck filets, along with a huge potato dish, multiple desserts, and of course lots of French and Spanish wine, including some very rare vintages and one bottle from our host's uncle.  Normally, a situation like this would be very stressful for Karen.  And while she didn't understand 100%, she held her own, even in political discussions and discussions about morals and raising teenagers and the differences between France and the States.  'Lunch' lasted 6 hours - six hours of no English and several people talking and debating and telling jokes non-stop in rapid-fire French. 

I think you get the theme here.  Karen is tenacious.  When there's something she needs to do, something she needs to learn, an obstacle she needs to overcome, she digs in and works and works and works until she succeeds.  She truly is my miraculous wife.

One of the things we really missed during the years that Karen was injured was hiking in the Pyrenees.  For those of you who read my previous post of My Miraculous Wife, you know the joy we experienced when Karen crossed the finish line at the Big Sur Marathon 21-mile walk.  Now that we're in France,  I'll do a few travel blogs chronicling our experiences here. 

We've been walking daily on the spectacular Sentier Littoral (coastal trail) - I'll do a blog on that soon - and have been doing a few hikes in the mountains.  Last weekend we joined Karen's friend Martine and a group of local hikers for a climb up the Iramendy peak southeast of the village of Saint Jean Pied de Port.  Martine is a local personal trainer who Karen met when she was just beginning her hip rehabilitation.  Martine was a great help and she's since become a close friend.  She's even taken up disc golf here in the Pays Basque. 

We met up with Martine and the rest of the hiking group in Bayonne where the Adour and Nive Rivers meet just before entering the Atlantic in Anglet (a few hundred yards from the formerly great La Barre surf break).   The hiking group meets once a month and tackles a challenging peak somewhere in the nearby Pyrenees.  According to Alain, a well-tanned man in his mid-sixties, who does strenuous hikes 3 times a week and leader of the group, there were usually 6-8 people for these monthly Sunday excursions.  Today we were 14.  We caravanned to the parking area passing through Saint Jean Pied de Port about 45 minutes inland.   

As some of you may recall, Saint Jean Pied de Port is the starting point for the  Way of Saint James, the pilgrimage described in the film, The Way.  It's a picturesque village with restaurants bordering the Nive River.  There's a Citadel which dominates the village providing spectacular views of the surrounding Pyrenees and of the Nive River valley.  Not that long ago, the Citadel served as a lookout to help protect the town from Spanish invaders.  Control of this area changed hands countless times over the centuries.

Reaching Saint Jean Pied de Port, we stopped at the restrooms in the parking area for the pilgrims, then continued up the small road bordering the Nive for several miles.  We parked on the side of the river not far from the tiny villlage of Esterençuby, loaded up our packs, and started up the mountain. The beginning of the trail is not marked and we made our way past an abandoned farmhouse up a steep trail.  For the next hour and a half, we continued climbing among the beech trees (hêtres in French).  

We emerged into a clearing and encountered a rough dirt road with two rustic structures.  According to Alain, this was a Bergerie - a way station in the mountains where sheep were managed.  It was inaccessible in the winter and  the cabin-like stone building was occupied from time to time by the shepherds.  The other structure was also constructed of stone (hand built), and served as a covered shelter for the sheep.  He called for a 15 minute break.

Alain indicated that we were now about halfway to the peak.  We should have taken some shots from this vantage point because the peak looked pretty intimidating.  I haven't mentioned Karen.  While Alain made it clear that he had to lead (even when the trail was clear), Karen and her friend Martine (in the photo on the left) were never far behind.  At the half-way point of the climb, Karen wasn't even tired.

After the break, we turned onto the rough dirt road.  A mile or so later, we saw a trail to the source of the Nive River.  Apparently, this is a pretty spectacular place, though it's not the actual source.   At this 'Source' the Nive emerges from the side of the mountain in a rushing torrent.  The real source is a trickle in Spain which drops into a cave and travels several miles under ground before emerging at this 'Source' in France.  We're hoping to hike to the real source before we leave if weather permits. 

Walking on the road was pretty tame compared to the beginning and although the peak loomed above us a few miles away, everyone picked up the pace and conversations took the place of the heavy breathing and even panting heard during the initial climb. 

Our dirt road met up with another in a relatively flat area where horses meandered,  uncorralled.  Alain turned off the road and started up the peak without looking back, expecting everyone to follow -  no  trail, just rough hillside, rock, and occasional dried tiny streambeds.  The picture at the left is looking down just before it got steep and a bit challenging.

Everyone except Karen, Martine, and I had brought hiking sticks, but several of them were struggling with the next section and had to stop to rest and to find better, easier paths among the often loose rocks. 

We pushed to the top only to discover that there were two peaks and this was the first.  The next was only about fifteen minutes away but it was a couple of hundred feet higher.  The leader called a short break which let the stragglers catch up, and we were rewarded with our first of many exceptional views of the valley below and the surrounding mountains.

Minutes later we were at the top.  Martine, who is also an expert in ecology of the region as well as endangered plants and animals, described and named some of the rare plants and the huge vultures and raptors that soared upwards in the thermals racing up the peak.  I couldn't help being envious, wishing I had a hang glider.  I later learned that this peak did host a paragliding championship last year.

Alain called for an hour lunch break.  We pulled out our sandwiches as others broke out bottles of wine, exotic salads, breads, cheeses, sausages, pâtés, and deserts.  No wonder several of them struggled up.  Their packs must have weighed a ton!

We refused the wine but shared what we had and after an hour, we made our way down.  The descent was uneventful once down the peak as we turned onto a well-maintained dirt road for a leisurely hour and a half walk back to the cars.

We dropped our packs and made our way to a deserted local bar in the small village which the 14 of us quickly took over.  Karen and I had brought an apple tart made specially for us by the bakery about a block from our apartment and we shared that with everyone.  As it turned out none of the drivers (us included) paid for their drinks.  We didn't talk much about the hike.  Conversation went to the next one scheduled for the 15th of June.  Unfortunately, we'll be back in the States then.  With luck, we'll get to join them for their hike in September. 

And, in spite of climbing over 2400 vertical feet and hiking over 9 challenging miles, Karen was fine.  I think she was almost ready to do it again.  If we hadn't scheduled a dinner with friends in Ciboure that evening, she might have wanted to see the source of the Nive.  Hopefully we'll do that very soon.

Link to Our Place in France Part 1
Link to Our Place in France Part 2

Little did we know that the nephew who sold us the apartment was the black sheep of the family.  He  had done the unthinkable.  He had just sold his part of the Basque family home to two Americans.  The rest of the family was outraged.

For our part, completely ignorant of any potential drama, we returned to the States and began looking at flooring, tile, fixtures, etc., working remotely with our advisor and the architect contractor.  Knowing we were moving into a Basque family home, I wanted to reassure the original proprietor that we wouldn't be throwing wild parties and renting the apartment to questionable people.  I sat down and wrote my first letter in French. 

In it I told the original proprietor, a man in his 80s, a bit of my story - that I'd spent 5 months in Guethary in 1974-1975, that I'd fallen in love with the region, and that it had taken me 30 years to realize my dream of buying a place there.  I let him know that we'd be visiting two or three times a year for 6-8 weeks each visit and that we'd would not rent the apartment to anyone. 

Our advisor read my letter, offered suggestions on grammar and some phrasing, and off it went.  I didn't receive a reply. 

In the fall, we made our regular trip to Guethary to work with the contractor.  Construction (actually destruction) had begun a few weeks before because there is a moratorium on construction in Guethary during the summer tourist season. 

Shortly after settling into our rented condo above the small harbor in Guethary, we made our way to the apartment to see the progress.  The apartment had been totally decimated.  The were no interior walls, no floors, no ceilings.  There was just a large shell of stone all around, above and below.  What had once been load-bearing stone walls with one meter openings for doors, were mostly gone with huge stone beams overhead distributing the load of the house above, creating large open space throughout. 

Where do you begin when you start from bare stone? 

For us, it was the floors.  We decided that if we picked the flooring, the rest would follow.  After visiting countless flooring stores, we settled on a hardwood called Jojoba.  It was reddish brown, but its grain color varied widely from almost white to black.  The architect suggested we use a new subflooring/insulation called Fermacell because it would provide excellent sound, heat, and moisture protection.   

We then picked out tile for the entry and bathroom, designed a huge bottle glass shower with galet (small stones) floor, selected an exotic free-standing curved tub for Karen, and worked with a kitchen designer to give us the latest in French (actually Italian) kitchens.  Since we wanted the space to be as open and flowing as possible, the two bedrooms (actually a bedroom and an office) were to be enclosed by wall to wall sliding doors with beveled glass and shades/curtains for privacy if needed. 

We met briefly with the original proprietor who told us that the construction didn't disturb him because the contractors worked during the day when he wasn't in his apartment.  Our advisor met with him regularly and invited him to inspect the progress.  He never mentioned the letter and I was afraid to ask about it.  Our advisor had confirmed that he received it a few months before.  We left France with the promise that construction would be complete in early December. 

Of course there were delays.  The tile we selected was discontinued.  The wood flooring was unavailable for several weeks so the carpenter picked another exotic hardwood called Kampas, which was a bit more expensive, but in his opinion, much more durable and beautiful.

Over the course of these months, I learned a lot of French construction vocabulary as well as quite a few words used by contractors that you might never hear in polite conversation.

We returned to Guethary in January.   Subflooring had been installed, all the electrical and plumbing was in.  The Kampas was seasoning.  By time we left a few weeks later, the bathroom was nearly complete - the tile was installed, the shower was in, the bathtub was everything Karen had imagined it to be, and the Kampas was gorgeous - much better than the original Jojoba.  In spite of the delays, we were happy with the apartment.   Our only mistake was we'd  made the bottle glass wall for the shower too short, so that had to be redone.  All that was left was the sheetrock, the painting, and the installation of the kitchen and the glass paneled doors. 

We ordered rugs and furniture for delivery in April and left for the States looking forward to our next trip when we could stay in our new home in France.

And it was magical.  Our advisor had taken delivery of the furniture and set everything up for us.  The apartment was quiet with views of green hillsides and Basque homes, the ocean in the distance.  We began to buy everything you need for an apartment.

Three days after our arrival, the original proprietor's daughter, who came to have lunch with him every day, knocked on our apartment door.  She said the family wanted to meet us and that they had scheduled a get-together for that Saturday at 5pm.  Were we available?

We were innocent sheep heading towards the unknown. 

We bought flowers and a dessert and knocked on the original proprietor's door downstairs promptly at 5pm.  The room was filled with people who greeted us formally (coolly).  At that time, Karen's French was virtually non-existent, so I had to try to listen to multiple people and attempt  simultaneous translation. 

Champagne was poured and small dishes appeared.  Introductions were made and I did my best to keep track of the brothers, sisters, nephews, nieces, and children.  Then the questions began.  I wouldn't call it an inquisition, but clearly, they wanted to know about us and our backgrounds.  We did the best we could to respond to questions coming from a lot of different people.  Then they told us about the house.  

It was built by the original proprietor that we had met and his brother in the early 1960s.  They built it themselves carrying stones from the Pyrenees and sand from the beach, doing everything by hand over the course of several years.  When it was complete, their two families moved in and lived in the house for decades.  In the 60's, it was the only house in the area with large open spaces surrounding it and unobstructed ocean views.  The family build gardens around the house and raised vegetables that fed them for most of the year.  Then one of the brothers died.  

By this time, most of the children had left home to start their own lives in the area but regularly returned to the family home for weekly Sunday dinners, celebrations, and holidays.  With the death of the one brother, his portion of the house passed to his children, one of whom was the 'black sheep'.  We never found out what caused the rift with the family, but in his mind, by selling to us he was hoping to screw the rest of the family.

I was stunned by what we'd gotten ourselves into and did my best to explain this to Karen while maintaining some sense of decorum.    

Each member of the family had brought a dish for the get-together.  Unlike our store-bought dessert, all of their dishes were home-made, each their specialty.  They brought sausages they had made from pigs they had raised and slaughtered.  Pate from their own geese.  Cheeses that they'd made from their own sheep's milk (called Brebis).  Apple tarts with fruit from their trees.  Wine from a family vineyard.  You get the idea.  

Karen and I ate red meat for the first time in decades to avoid offending them.  As the evening continued and wine was consumed, the conversation turned towards recreational activities.  I talked about my love of surfing, whitewater kayaking, hang gliding, skiing, and running, and they were intrigued.  We discovered that they were all athletes in different sports.  The original proprietor's son was an ultra-marathoner.  His daughter did hard-core hundred mile climb/hikes in the Pyrenees.  Somehow, we connected on a love of the outdoors and individual sports.  

Amazingly, by the end of the evening, we were all good friends.  We still spoke in the 'vous' form, but clearly, the ice had been broken and we had been accepted.  All looked well.  

We spent the rest of the trip furnishing the apartment, searching for art work, and working with the original proprietor in his garden.  We left for the summer thinking we'd created the perfect retreat in a country filled with people much more reasonable than we see in the States.

Two months later, as a graduation present from Medical School, we sent Karen's daughter and her soon-to-be fiancé (he proposed during their stay in France), to Guethary where they had a great time exploring the region, visiting Spain, and playing on the beaches in the warm waters of the Bay of Biscay.   They loved our almost complete apartment but mentioned that there seemed to be some irregularities in the floor.

We discounted that, looking forward to our trip in September.  

About a week before we arrived, we got an urgent email from our advisor.  He, along with the person we'd hired to look in on our apartment from time to time, had discovered that the floor had pushed up in several places.  They sent photos of furniture leaning precariously, of storage areas in the kitchen being crushed from below.  They seemed unreal.  

When we arrived in late September, we discovered that the wooden floor had swelled in places.  People talk about problems like this, and you think, sure, it's up an inch or two.  That's what we thought before we arrived.  But the reality was unbelievable.  Areas of the floor had what looked like moguls on a ski slope.  Our advisor had called them Bosses - moguls.  They were huge.  Heavy furniture was tilted severely to one side.  My chair at the kitchen table sat at a 30 degree angle.  We quickly discovered after nighttime falls, that walking in the socks was dangerous.  If you didn't anticipate the bosse, you'd slip and find yourself facedown on the floor.  People who saw it, including the contractors said the apartment wasn't safe to live in. 

We contacted our insurance company who said that since the problem was a construction problem, we had to go back to the contractor.  The architect/contractor came to look and said he'd never seen anything like it in his career.  He blamed the Kampas wood and the carpenter.  

As you might imagine, suddenly everyone was finger pointing at everyone else.  The only point that they agreed on was that no one, in their entire careers, had seen anything so extreme.  

In the States, if you have a problem like this, you go to the contractor's insurance company.  They assess the damage, and assuming there's a verifiable problem, they pay for the repairs, then settle with the subcontractors' insurance companies behind the scenes.  It doesn't work that way in France.  

In France, you have to sue all of the contractors and the court will assign proportional responsibility.    You may think our court system is backed up.  In France, with all the civil litigation and issues like ours, it's much worse.  So, now we have two Americans, trying to sue several French contractors and companies with large insurance companies behind them.  We hired an attorney who told us it would be two to three years before this was settled.  Just as quickly as we'd found paradise, it was lost.

More in part four...  

Link to Part One

And Life got in the way...

It was thirty years before I came back to France.  Most of what happened during those thirty years is fictionalized in my first novel The Silicon Lathe. 

I was in the midst of a divorce (though I didn't really know that yet).  A few years before,  I had sold my second startup to an Israeli company whose stock had plummeted before I or my team could touch any proceeds.  That company was suffering and so were we.  I was depressed, and I just needed a break.    I decided to take some time away from the stress of my crumbling life in California to work remotely from France. 

I flew into the Biarritz airport and easily found my way to Guethary and the small hotel across the street from my former studio apartment.  I was greeted by an ancient Basque woman who had difficulty understanding my French.  I knew I'd lost quite a bit over thirty years, but I hoped I could at least be understood. 

She showed me to my small room with a superb view of the Pyrenees to the south and the ocean to the west.  I quickly unpacked and went out to explore.  For some reason, I expected that not much would have changed.  And while the village hadn't grown in size, many of the old Basque homes were now apartment buildings.  The ornate casino on the beach  (which was closed for the season when I had been there 30 years before) had been turned into condos and the building was run down.  The world-renown hotel next door sported broken bottle glass windows and peeling paint, and it too had been turned onto condos.   Only the surf breaks looked the same, but it was windy and rainy and unsurfable. 

I made my way to my magical point break to the south and discovered homes built in the field where I used to have lively discussions with the farmer.  I turned north and drove through Biarritz to see if La Barre was still there.  As I passed the Biarritz lighthouse, I was shocked to discover that miles of empty sand dunes had been turned into an endless array of expensive homes separated from the beach by a park with a paved running trail that extended the two or three miles from the lighthouse to the Adour river.  There were at least a dozen seaside restaurants along the path with nearby parking areas.  Worse, they'd build a huge jetty exactly where the famous La Barre had produced perfect waves years before.

A few days later I made my way up to Hossegor where I discovered that although there had been tremendous development, the huge dunes that ran for 150 miles up to Bordeaux had been turned into protected zones with pathways for beach access.  Areas to the south near the Adour River had remained surprisingly untouched over the 30 years.   The surf was perfect.

Over the course of my five-week stay, I met a lot of people and made friends.  Weirdly, several of the older French surfers claimed to have seen me surfing there in 1974.  Somehow this earned me some respect in the huge surfing community.  And it was huge.  The breaks were much more crowded than I could ever have imagined, more crowded than those in California.  But the waves were good and the place was still magical.  I hiked the Pyrenees, kayaked the whitewater of the Nive river, explored the small villages in the interior, and even found the old mill that ground its own grains.    My French improved.

I returned home to try to face up to the fact that my marriage was over while I struggled to decide what to do with my Israeli-owned business as our parent company battled their own demons.    It was a transitional year where once again, I renewed my goal to return to France.

If you read my post about My Miraculous Wife, you know I met my future wife Karen during that year. 

In 2005, I brought Karen to an IETF meeting in Paris where we danced along the Seine.  She told me that she wanted to live in Europe again (she had lived in Spain for several years).  Starting in 2006, we spent three to six weeks each year in Guethary, staying in one of the condos in the former hotel, four surf breaks and spectacular sunsets visible from the windows.   We hiked, surfed, danced, and got to know people. 

I bought my startup back from the Israeli firm and worked with my team to build new technologies and products.  In 2008 we sold the company to Citrix, this time in a deal that wasn't all stock.  I could see that after my 3 year employment agreement expired, if it didn't work out at Citrix, I'd have enough money to take some time off for the first time in my life to give writing a try. 

In 2009, on one of our trips to France, Karen and I started looking for a place to buy in Guethary.  We thought about a house but decided that  upkeep of a house was substantial if you're only there once a year, so we decided to look for an apartment instead.   In France, you can buy an apartment - it's the equivalent of a condo in the States. 

We quickly rejected the many apartment/condo complexes and ultimately found a work in progress on the second floor of an old Basque house.   It was in a very quiet area about a 7 minute walk from the main surf break, had a small ocean view, but was surrounded by rolling green hills and stately Basque homes.  It was a bit dark and needed lots of work, but the price was right.  

Seeing our simultaneous interest and hesitation, the realtor called an architect who showed up within 20 minutes.  We told him we were looking for a place that was open, not a space that had small dark rooms.  He listened carefully and noted our requirements, then excused himself and went into the crumbling kitchen.   Thirty minutes later, he returned with sketches.  He showed us which walls could be removed, where beams would have to be rebuilt, and laid out what to us appeared to be the perfect apartment, rebuilt from the bare stone up.  Then he quoted a price which was shockingly low.  He said the work could be completed in two months. 

The next day we met the owner of the apartment, the nephew of the original owner who still lived on the first floor.  We finalized terms, shook hands and found a consultant who could help us manage the final closing and be our liaison to the architect/contractor once work began.  We left France excited, knowing our next trip would be to pick out everything - kitchen, bathroom, flooring, tile, fixtures - we were going to be busy.

Little did we know that the nephew was the black sheep of the family.  He had done the unthinkable.  He had just sold his part of the Basque family home to two Americans.  The rest of the family was outraged.  Little did we know...

Link to Our Place in France - Part Three

It's a somewhat dreary, windy day here in the Basque region of France on the Atlantic, a few miles from the Spanish border.  We have a place in the little fishing village of Guethary.  During the off-season, there are only about 1,000 full time inhabitants, but the population swells to over 5,000 during the peak of the tourist season which we assiduously avoid. 

As I sit here writing on the second floor of an old Basque house, gazing out at the lush green hillsides peppered with coastal Basque homes and their red-tiled roofs, the wind blown waves of the Atlantic in the background, I can't help thinking about what it took to get me here.  It started almost exactly forty years ago. 

In the spring of 1974, I was going to school at the University of California at Santa Barbara.  Although I officially took over 20 units per quarter, I spent most of my time surfing and a bit of my time working enough to pay my tuition and support myself.  When the surf wasn't too good or there was a midterm or final, I'd usually make my way to one of my many classes.  It seemed like an ideal life. 

On the other hand, I really didn't know what I wanted to do with life.  Every subject interested me and I couldn't imagine focusing on just one.  My mother's brother, who had started from nothing and become quite wealthy in the construction industry, asked me what I liked to do best.  I replied that I loved to surf.  Without blinking an eye, he asked if there were any money in surfing, and after careful reflection, I had to admit that there really wasn't.  It was the 70s and surfing hadn't become the commercial phenomenon that it is today. 

He suggested I go somewhere to get surfing out of my system - surf until I got sick of it.  Then my mind would be clear enough to choose a career.

A few days later I dropped into the local surf shop to buy some wax and saw the cover of Surfer Magazine.  At first glance, I thought I saw a picture of Banzai Pipeline, but on closer inspection, I discovered that the perfect left-breaking barrel was in France at a place called La Barre, just north of Biarritz. 

I decided to work the summer, saving every penny, and to spend  two school quarters in France to get surfing out of my system. 

I arrived in France on my mother's birthday, the 17th of September.  I took a train from Paris to Biarritz where I'd reserved a room in a pension for three weeks.  On the train, I met a young Canadian woman  who spoke no French and had no place to stay in Biarritz.  The train was scheduled to get in after 11pm and she had no where to go.  She spent a few days with me sharing my room before moving on to continue her European adventure.  That's another story.

My first full day in the Basque region of France, I found my way to La Barre.  I put on my full wetsuit and proceeded to paddle out into perfect 6-8' waves.  The only problem was that the water was 75 degrees and I was dying in my wetsuit.  I hadn't brought any trunks with me so I had to sweat through the session of perfect waves.  I was the only one out. 

Transportation was a problem.  Hitchhiking with a surfboard worked, but the waits for a ride were often long, causing me to miss the right tides. 

I didn't have the money to buy a car, so I bought a Mobylette - a moped.  It was a small motorbike with pedals to help you get up steep hills or to continue moving when you ran out of gas.  I was then able to travel pretty much anywhere with my surfboard under my arm.  I explored the beach breaks north of Biarritz up to Hossegor (now famous).  Unfortunately, on many, if not most days, the swell was too big for the beach breaks to hold.  Some Australians I met suggested I check out the surf further south and I discovered the reef and point breaks of Guethary. 

Surprisingly, I met very few French surfers during my stay and those that I did meet were pretty much beginners.  There were no surf shops and finding equipment was almost impossible.  On the other hand, I met Mickey Dora, Richard Harvey (the world champion at the time), and Nat Young (the Australian former world champ, not our local ripper from Santa Cruz).  In fact, most of the surfers I met were from Australia.  Aside from Mickey, I met no American surfers.  Nat had a car, so for the duration of his stay, I showed him the many breaks up and down the coast  and I had a chance to surf every day with a world champion. 

I found a studio apartment in Guethary not far from the two of the best breaks I'd ever surfed.  It was part of a well-kept Basque house owned by the Subras, a stunningly beautiful Basque woman and her husband.  As winter approached the village grew very quiet.  When there was no surf, I explored the countryside on my Mobylette riding through rolling hills at the foot of the snow-capped Pyrenees. 

Surprisingly close to my studio apartment, I found an old mill.  They ground their own grains with a water-driven millstone, and made bread on site twice daily.  This became my primary source of excellent bread and started a love affair with French breads that has lasted all my life.

One day I discovered another point break south of Guethary.  On my way back home, a farmer waved at me and I stopped to talk.   Of course he asked about surfing, California, Richard Nixon, and Kissinger's threat to drop a nuclear bomb on the Middle East if they didn't end the oil embargo - something that made the front pages of all the papers in Europe, but which, as I learned after my return to the States, was never reported there. 

Over the months that followed, he and I had countless political discussions where I learned a lot about French and European politics.

At Christmas, my girlfriend came to visit.  I met her in Paris and we came back to my studio in Guethary.  I made my traditional Christmas Kugelough from an old recipe given to me by my Swiss grandfather, and gave a mini version to my landlords who demanded the recipe.  Although I tried to explain that I didn't know how to convert American volume measurements to European weight based measurements, I couldn't convince Madame Subra that I wasn't just being difficult about giving her the recipe. 

When it was nearing time to leave, Monsieur Subra proposed I give him my Mobylette in exchange for my last month's rent.  Apparently, he had lost his driver's license due to a drunk driving incident and a 'free' Mobylette the only way his wife was going to let him back on the roads. 

Over the course of the 5 months I stayed in the Pays Basque, I surfed constantly, usually alone and often for six or seven hours a day.  I met countless Basque people who welcomed me warmly, and I had more fun than anyone deserves to experience. 

My uncle was right.  My trip to France did help me understand exactly what I wanted to do with my life:  I wanted to earn enough money to return to this idyllic place to surf and write full time. 

Unfortunately, life got in the way.

more in Part 2...

I met my wife Karen almost ten years ago.  I was struggling to recover from a very painful divorce and spent most of my non-surfing, non-working time dancing or taking dance lessons.  I was trying to make the transition from years of dancing Lindy Hop and Swing to Salsa, which had taken Santa Cruz by storm.   Anyone who has tried to do this understands that the big, fast, muscular moves and lifts of Lindy Hop don't translate easily into the small, quick, light-touch moves of Salsa.  My lesson partners suffered. 

But Karen was patient and over time we danced together more and more often.  She had her own small business, was physically active, intelligent, beautiful, bilingual, a little OCD, and she could often beat me  at Scrabble.  

During the summer of  2005, she accompanied me to Paris for the IETF meeting.  We spent my non-meeting time at Paris plage where we danced to the bands along the Seine.  Our dancing was even featured (and replayed) on TF1, the French television station.   In subsequent years, Karen joined me for my annual pilgrimages to the Pays Basque where we surfed, danced, and hiked the Pyrenees.  She was much more fearless than I walking up to the edges of gaping precipices while I cowered several yards away.  (Yes, I have a fear of heights.  It's not a problem with a hang glider strapped to me or if I feel I'm protected in some way, but out in the open, the edge could give way, there could be an earthquake, I might get distracted and slip - you get the idea.)

We danced several times a week, hiked, surfed - a very active life. 

Then, a few years later, Karen started having hip problems.  Her left hip swelled and she was in great pain after any significant activity.  She saw doctors who diagnosed hip bursitis.  A first cortisone shot worked and she was fine for several months.  A second shot worked for a few weeks.  The third did nothing.  Her ability to walk, dance and to be physically active diminished quickly.  Ultimately there was no more dancing. 

As a couple, you plan to grow old together.  But somehow you never envision just one of you declining so rapidly.   Somehow you think it will be gradual.  Somehow you think both of you will decline simultaneously.  Karen's sudden disability was a shock.   It was difficult for me to see our very active lifestyle come to a complete halt, but it was ever harder for Karen. 

The doctors were at a loss.  They proposed surgery, but the surgeons couldn't find anything specific to cut (though one wanted to do surgery anyway).  Karen's condition continued to deteriorate to the point where she couldn't walk a hundred yards without pain.  If we stopped and I did several minutes of massage, we might get another hundred yards.  Instead of walking, we had to drive everywhere and I had to find parking very close to our destination. 

If we travelled, Karen needed a wheelchair to get through airports. 

And then a friend recommended a physical therapist.  I sat in on the sessions.  In the first, the therapist had Karen sit in a chair and asked her to stand.  Karen stood up easily.  The therapist then asked her to stand up without putting her knees together.  Karen couldn't stand up - she was stuck in the chair unless she put her knees together.  "But this is how I was taught to stand up," Karen protested.  "I grew up wearing miniskirts in the 60s and you had to keep your knees together at all times."

Karen and the therapist jokingly called the problem 'the miniskirt syndrome'.  Officially, it's hip adductor syndrome. 

They worked together for several months and while Karen got progressively stronger (and she could stand up with her knees apart), her pain didn't diminish and her walking didn't seem to be improving much.  The therapist suggested Karen see Jeff Moreno at Precision Physical Therapy.  Jeff specializes in gait problems and works on correcting posture and muscle imbalances.  He gave her exercises, making it clear that after decades of sitting, standing and walking incorrectly, it would take time to retrain her body.   With her incredible sense of commitment, Karen went to work.  If she got discouraged, she never showed it.  She did her exercises faithfully and continued tirelessly as Jeff added more and more - month after month after month. 

Eighteen months ago, Karen was in a wheelchair during our annual trip to France.  When we returned to France six months later, she was able to walk about ten minutes without stopping for massage, and succeeded in making airport connections without a wheelchair (after several stops).  Returning from that trip, she signed up for the 2014 Big Sur International Marathon (21-mile walk) which was to take place less than a year later.  I was skeptical. 

We began walking four to five days a week, slowly increasing distances, with regular massage stops.  When we arrived in France in September of 2013, Karen could walk a mile without stopping.  Just before we left seven weeks later, we did our first walk into San Jean Luz along the beautiful sentier litoral (coastal trail), five miles away.   This was a dramatic improvement, but getting to Marathon distances in 6 months seemed unlikely to me. 

Upon our return to the States, we started a formal training program.   Each week, Karen got stronger, walking further, faster.  Unfortunately, her son's destination wedding interrupted her training and then Tax Season hit.  After several setbacks, we got the training going again, but we were behind schedule by several weeks.  We pushed a little to try to catch up and so delayed the prescribed taper.  On the Sunday before the big day, we did 14 miles at a 3.8 mph pace.   Unfortunately, she suffered from shin splints during the last half mile.   We did the taper the last week and Karen carbo-loaded for the first time in her life.  The shin splints were still present each of the taper days.   

On Race Day, we got up a little after 3am.  Karen ate her race breakfast, I massaged her legs, and she stretched.  I delivered her to the bus at 4:30am then went back to the hotel to watch as the results popped up.   Highway 1 is closed for the race and spectators are only permitted at the finish line in Carmel.   The tracking program was the best way for me to keep an eye on her progress.

At about 7am the tracking program showed that she'd crossed the start line at 6:31am - results appeared to be delayed by about 30 minutes).  I was nervous.  The next tracking point was at 4.8 miles and indeed, at about 8:25am, her time popped up - just under an hour twenty minutes.  A rapid calculation showed she was averaging 3.4 mph, the pace we'd discussed - a pace at which she could finish within the required time - a pace which she could walk comfortably, saving any push for the end (if she made it that far). 

The next tracking point was at 8.2 miles.   At her current pace, she should have been there by 8:50.  I expected a delay, but by 9:30, no results had posted.  I was very worried. 

The subsequent tracking point was at 10.6 miles.  Maybe they had just missed her 8.2 mile passage.  At her somewhat leisurely pace, she should pass the 10.6 mile mark by 9:30 or so.  But by 10:15, there were still no results. 

I packed everything up to get ready to go find her, saddened,  knowing how disappointed she'd be not to have been able to accomplish what she'd trained so long for.  I decided on one last pit stop before shutting down my computer and just before I clicked on shutdown, both mile point results popped up.  She was right on track - like a clock - exactly 3.4 mph.  But, she was only halfway there.  The next tracking point was 17 miles - a big gap. 

I checked out of the hotel and drove to the finish area, very lucky to find parking.  I booted my laptop, connected via my Audi's hotspot and waited.  Less than 15 minutes after she passed the 17 mile mark, the results appeared.  I couldn't believe she was still at EXACTLY 3.4 mph - unbelievable!  She was going to finish!  I quickly calculated the time for her arrival at that pace - 12:40.  I bought roses and made my way to the finish line.   The forecast rain which had held off all morning never came, but some light mist was falling at 12:25.  I had decided I'd pull out the camera about 12:30 to be prepared for her finish.  As I watched the finish line, I saw her coming.  She wasn't walking, she was running!  I fumbled with the camera and clicked off two unfocused shots before she was in my arms at 12:29.  She had jogged the last four miles and beat my projected time by more than ten minutes.  I've never been so proud of anyone in my life. 

She wasn't even tired.  Aside from two damaged toenails, she's perfectly fine. 

We were on a plane for France the next day and she had no  problems walking.  It's raining here but beautiful weather is forecast for  Sunday.  I can't wait to go hiking in the Pyrenees again.  And of  course we'll be playing disc golf Sunday morning, doing the thé dansant Sunday afternoon, and we'll be  Salsa dancing Sunday evening. 

You think your life is headed downhill and then it's not.  I'd call her recovery a miracle, but it's not.  It's the result of her work ethic, her dedication, and her unwillingness to give up. 

My wife is the miracle!