The hurricane blew with a spooky sound
Experiencing a hurricane in Florida was something new for me. Its eye had supposed to hit us, but when it was a few miles from our coast, it unexpectedly changed its trajectory, turning upward and touching land about 60 miles north. But I felt some distant bands around its center: the wind was warm and dry as if coming from a furnace and smelled of algae, which had gathered from ocean water. It also blew with a spooky sound different from all the strong sea winds I had ever heard when I grew up on a building next to a beach in Cadiz, Spain. That area is well known for the intense eastern winds that originate in the Sahara Desert.
Bagnères de Bigorre or de Brigadoon?
Bagnères de Bigorre has 7500 inhabitants and lies at 20 km of Lourdes, the town of the Virgen Mary’s apparitions. Submerged in the dawn’s pink light like Brigadoon, the village wakes up in a valley amid glorious mountains every morning. The bells of the svelte 14th-century Church of Saint Vincent chime at 7:00 A.M. in the heart of the town to announce the arrival of a new day. Half an hour later, Ave Maria resounds in its bell tower to thank Our Lady for protecting the little town. At the top of a mountain, a giant statue of the Virgen of Bedat presides over small streets lined up with two-or-three-story ancient and recent buildings of various colors—red, yellow, blue, and white. Their architecture confers them a breathtaking beauty. The creek Adour crosses the townscape and sprays it with the peaceful reverberation of blue water.
