After breakfast I tied up my boots on the terrace by the street, gave my farewell to my obliging hosts and crossed the bridge on the Albert canal. The first attraction I passed, was Fort Eben-Emael, the impregnable fortress which, in 1940, took the invading Germans 15 minutes to occupy and subdue.
Hitler congratulates his officers (May 1940)
The area between Eben-Emael, Wonck and Haccourt bears a touch of mystery. It's situated on the boundary of two separate cultures, and the upperworld of hills and valleys is resting on top of an underworld of caves and corridors. People have dug themselves in and are still honouring their traditions. Into the privacy of the land and psyche time finds it hard to worm its way.
Here, there is continuous strife, a struggle on an elementary level, Air and Earth, Fire and Water, only visible for an outsider, when spirit raises matter to a monumental prophecy which bursts forth from the land like a frozen shriek.
The hiker on the GR5 is kept at a distance and shelter is but scarce. Yet he is hard pushed to wrest himself free from the pull of the soil. Fire and water are blocking his way, and the trail itself is winding along the slopes like a snake that bites its own tail. After an hour you get the feeling you haven't advanced one single step.
In the empty hills above Wonck I met a young couple, apparently from the neighbourhood, and on their way to a quiet spot where they could improve their knowledge of each other. On my way down I reached the Rue Pachlauw, where the GR5 has a sharp left turn in front of number 22. I decided to continue straight down to the road, as I hoped to find a café there, but I was disappointed. Under a little bridge the Geer was flowing between two houses. I climbed the steep street back to the turn and behind the row of houses descended to the brook again. There wasn't a living soul anywhere to descry, but in front of the last house I found a little landing-stage between the reeds and there I ate my lunch of two Brokamp rolls.
I had a strong feeling the scenic trail along the brook took me in the wrong direction, but at last I reached a kind of park with a foot-bridge across the Geer, where I happened upon the couple mentioned earlier, who were sitting at a camp-table. Rather, he had placed himself on the bench, but she was laying before him stretched on her back upon the table, as if to rouse his wavering appetite by unconscious association with the delicacies of the local kitchen. I passed them by and presently got myself entangled in a web of decorative footpaths, made almost impass-able by a fresh layer of broken rubble.
The genius loci of Wonck only seemed too well pleased by my confusion and took his time to let go of me only after a while.
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And then the long journey to near, yet distant Visé. Passing by, I observed several churchtowers in the distance, but the trail kept me aloof from any café. In Eben I went by one - it looked too shabby for comfort.
Once beyond Eben-Emael,
in the distance
a weird construction jumps into sight, a tower run up of roughly hewn flintstones, dominated by four cherubs on its corners, a creation of the philosopher Robert Garcet.
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However, I should have welcomed the opportunity, because further on the route became more and more rural, the temperature was climbing to 95 degrees and the trail proved unwilling to leave the surroundings of Wonck, insisted on offering me views of it from every side and altitude, and yet the sightings of Wonck seemed much the way it sounds.
Halfway into the afternoon, after a last and almost reluctant climb from the source of Halembaye - no drinking water - when I had passed by a black beetle, which hung impaled by a local sadist on the barbed wire fence along the path, suddenly the Meuse valley opened up before me in all its majesty, and on the other side, at last, Visé.
Straight down, in line, as it seemed, with the trail, there was a big arched bridge that would give me access to the little town and its cool drinks, but alas!
The arched bridge only spanned the Albert canal and beyond it there was another stretch of trembling asphalt, for a mile or more, unto the lower but even longer bridge crossing the Meuse. What helped me to engage this second bridge was the sight of two oases, one on either side, right across the bridge. To the left a café fully exposed to the sun, but to the right the cool roofed space of ice cream parlour 'Pam-Pam', which had been recommended to me by my host in Kanne.
Not a déjà vu, but as a déjà entendu equally welcome, and by a hint the sudden death of my hike.
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