François had asked me to join him for a weekend trek, a brief escape into the Pyrenees near Cauterets—a two-day, 45-kilometer march through high country, skirting some of the most luminous mountain lakes this side of a dream.

True to form, I was late. I left Bayonne in the dead of night, the road unwinding under my headlights like an old promise. By the time I reached the Pont d’Espagne parking lot, it was midnight, the mountains already deep in their own sleep.

Then came the night walk—15 kilometers alone under the weight of darkness, boots scraping against the trail, my breath the only company. At three in the morning, I finally reached the first lake where François had set up camp, the bivouac quiet except for the restless murmur of water and wind.

A short, restless sleep, then up with the dawn to follow my friend into the vast, open beauty ahead—another kind of cruise, one that pulled us further into the wild, where time no longer mattered.