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Paths of Desire and the Useless Sea
A walk along the sentier littoral from Collioure to Argeles sur Mer, France
One more day in the world
That’s all we ask.
And then one more, and again one more. The winding paths of desire that bind us to the world. It moves us, and we make it move. We move through it, scaling walls, climbing cliffs, scrabbling over boulders and crashing through thornbushes to reach — somewhere else. Anywhere else.
Once we’re there, we head for someplace new.
It’s not a long walk from Collioure to Argeles sur Mer
The two towns, along with several others, cluster together in a crooked constellation that hugs the coast. The railway tracks run like a straightened spine from one to another, bringing traffic and tourists and the trappings of a less beautiful world to gust like the northern wind out of the sliding doors.
The path, though, is older.
The sentier littoral winds along the craggy cliffs, a last crenellated wall between the mountains and the sea. The vermillion sea that throws itself against the rocks in columns of silver spray, roaring and hissing in quiet coves where the wind doesn’t go, where only the sun reaches.
