"I crossed Slovenia on foot"

Without tact or empathy, he looked right in my eyes to tell me that my next big trip would surely be in a wheelchair. He gave me less than 10 years to enjoy my legs...

Wanderlix introduces to you the Odyssey of Céline, who, following a medical appointment, could have lost hope and drew a line on her dreams. Conversely, she preferred to open a new chapter, the chapter of a lifetime. Use her legs to travel, as long as she can still...

Prologue

When someone asks me what I do in life, I never know what to answer. I could say I'm a web editor. Or a blogger. Yet I often end up saying I'm travelling. A daring response when you expect a trade name. Because no, travelling is not my job. This is my way of life. I've been a nomad for over 15 years now.

When I was a teenager, at the age when I was looking for myself, I tried to go and see if I was there. As I watched foreign films, I needed to compare television images to “real life”. I am therefore a party in intercultural exchange at the other end of the world. For 12 months, I lived on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica . It was my first big solo trip. I was not aware of it, but it was the beginning of my nomadic life.

As soon as I got back from this parenthesis, I looked for every possible way to get back as quickly as possible. My solution: alternate between different European programmes and studies. That’s how I left in European Volunteer Service Slovakia in Erasmus Lisbon in training in Nicaragua and Chile , or in summer university in Czech Republic . Between two mini expatriations, I was going on vacation here or there. Always at a slow pace, I was taking the time to discover a city, region or country.

Juggling between travel and health problems

I built myself through these trips. And through health problems too. From a very small point of view, I have been running medical appointments. Between two escapades, I take stock of things, reviews, and I hear specialists tell me that we can’t do anything to help me. Or too little.

Yet I have no incurable or orphaned disease. My ills are known to the medical body. They simply prevent me from doing certain activities. They scare me. They make me refuse invitations.

For many years, I couldn’t do sports for example. I was accumulating the EPS dispensations and the frustration of not being able to run behind the last metro of the day. In the four corners of the world, I used to go back and cross my fingers so I wouldn’t end up in the hospital, I learned a few steps of salsa trying not to spread out on the dance floor and I was skiing for a simple sled. Quitting to be on the ground, so enjoy it.

I had to wait 28 years and several knee operations to – finally – be able to do things as simple as running behind my bus after a pillow failure. The kneads of scars, I thought I was finally going to be able to walk, jump and run like any thirty-year-old suffocated at least. I also took advantage of the screws planted in my tibias to make some treks. I have travelled many kilometers in the Chilean Andes, I walked in the patagon fjords, I climbed on the dunes of the Sahara and went through the Salkantay Trek self-reliance.

Without proper training, my body had difficulty following. But every step I felt the happiness of being “normal”. The eyes of the others didn't judge me. Medical appointments were less and less part of my life. Some will say that all good things have an end...

Never lower your arms...

Just two years after my last surgery, pains appeared. Some were so strong, that I had to put an end to a trip to Chile and France . I spent several months visiting specialists of all kinds. I spent so much time in the exam rooms that I could have taken a subscription to the local clinic.

Then, on a winter day, a rheumatologist taught me. Without tact or empathy, he looked right in my eyes to tell me that my next big trip would surely be in a wheelchair. He gave me less than 10 years to enjoy my legs...

After shedding all the tears of my heart, plagued against her diagnosis and looking for a second medical advice, I decided to send waltz all my pain. I took my cliques and slams, my hiking sticks and traced east. If my time to live up to me was counted, so much benefit.

Without training or preparation, I decided to cross a country on foot. Alone. I dreamed of spring, wild nature and green landscapes. I wanted mountains, rivers and meetings. A bit by chance, a bit by nostalgia of a past road trip, I threw my devotee on the Slovenia . This country was perfect: accessible without a plane, small but not as much as the Liechtenstein and relatively little tourist.

...and go beyond...

I was laid at the Italian-Slovene border on April 29. From there I had only one goal: to reach the hungaro-slovene border. I went away without knowing where the winds were going to lead me. On the day I arrived, I downloaded an application of hiking trails, filtered my k-way and set foot in front of the other.

This trip lasted six weeks. From one end to the other, I drew the path of my trip. Every day, I fixed a goal. Often, it was the pleasure to be there, without time or distance constraints. I crossed villages, along a national and learned to ask for water in Slovenia. I have accepted teas, coffees and biscuits offered by ephemeral meetings.

I made some detours to catch the sun, eat pizza and avoid an aquatic meadow. I bivout under trees, encamped by rivers and slept with strangers. Finally, I lost myself in forests, shared a break with a twink and admired a fox straight out of a fairy tale. In short, I had a dream awakened for more than a month.

I spent my first week with a Breton crossed in the middle of a village. He, the athlete, took the time to wait for me. I, the traveler with the kneelings too tight, learned to resist fatigue, pain and the desire to put my bag too heavy. The rest of the trip took place in a series of improvised hijacks and zigzags. I walked the Soča to the south to avoid the snow of the Julian Alps. I learned that the rain came to Slovenia in May. And June too.

I discovered that the wind could destroy a fabric and that waking up at 4 a.m. in a tent transformed into a pool was not really pleasant. I took a break too. Several. I waited almost a week for a new tent to arrive. Then, a few kilometers further, the pain came back. My knees doubled and I stopped.

On the edge of Cerknica intermittent lake, the words of the rheumatologist came back to me. According to him, my knees were good for the break. That day, I thought they were mostly good to spoil my trip. So I learned to rest. I put my bag down, I slowed the pace and looked for solutions. It was out of the question of abandoning the journey. There was no question of taking unnecessary risks.

For the second part of this crazy adventure, I adapted the journey to my abilities. Every day, I joined a place of accommodation by train. I left my bag there and walked between 20 and 35 km. In the evening, I was going back to the start box, by train. I knew that these round-trips made me waste time, but it doesn’t matter: I had time. It is thanks to this time and my freedom of freelance that I was able to travel almost 700 km in a country barely greater than Picardy.

...To realize his dreams

It was because I decided to listen to my body rather than a rheumatologist, that I found the strength to pursue this dream that seemed inaccessible to me. I, the inhabitant of the falls and the subscriber to the synovies, was crossing a country on foot, solo and autonomous. I was turning a dream into reality. I went to my own rhythm to where I wanted. Day by day, I pushed the boundaries. My limits. Alone, I made a detour by the village of Celine, just for a selfie. Tired, I put my tent in the middle of nowhere. Happy, I stopped at all the sunny coffee terraces.

Slovenia was my first major sports trip. Despite the daily rain, the fear of no longer being able to advance, the cold and fatigue, I managed to cross a country on foot. Despite my asthma, osteoarthritis, back problems and the threat of a seated life, I was able to realize my dream. Just arrived at the border Hungarian I understood that Slovenia marked a turning point in my nomadic life. If I had managed to walk 700 km, then I could start the conquest of the world.

Since that trip, I have continued to move on to the rhythm of my body. I crossed France by kayak, I made the tour of Corse Inflatable kayaking and I follow the itinerant hikes. Only, in duo or with friends, I move forward, one step after another, towards those dreams that become reality. My reality. The one of a nomad with a brinquebalant body, that of a dreamer who refuses fatality, that of a small vagabond heart that lives at the rhythm of encounters.

My knees always need rest, my back always asks me so many massages and my lungs stay sick. But my smile, my happiness and my joy of living have never been as powerful as ever since I realized that I had the means to go ever further.

My adventures will continue cycling, stopping, walking and kayaking around the world. I tell them about my blog Voyages d’une plume .