Afterglow

I had come back from the Sahara. And soon, I took the TGV train for Bordeaux because I had heard that there were good dunes in Aquitaine region. I still wanted sand although I had just returned from "the world of sand".

I took a local train for an hour from Bordeaux. I arrived at the seaside town named Arcachon. Casinos, most of hotels and restaurants were closed because of off season. A pier looked so lonesome. However, I loved the atmosphere, and fortunately, I could have a vacation house in low season price.

The main subject, dunes, was 10 km from the town center. I went through the forest and got off the bus at the entrance of dunes. Shortly after, I saw the dunes behind the woods. Once I climbed up the sand hill, all in my sight was just a series of dunes.
The left foot of dunes deeply fell into the forest and to the right into the sea. Environment which surrounds dunes was completely different from the Sahara. I got totally different impressions between them.

Good and bad weather came every other day. Choosing the good weather, I visited to the dunes. Sand was tight after the rain and had many marks of stream. Strong wind from the ocean was so cold. It hardly believed that I had been walking on the deadly heated dunes in Mauritania just few days ago. I took shutters on the dunes. There were no sound but the wind. I spoke some words like a monologue. The voice wasn't echoed at all, and absorbed into the gap of sand grains in a moment.

The sky was covered with gray clouds and I saw glow light off shore of the ocean. It looked like an after glow behind the season.
On the day, I knew the winter came on the dune. It's a long and wet winter of Europe.