I was in Spain visiting a friend I’d known since fifth grade. We’d driven from Madrid up into the mountains to go hiking, spending the night in a hotel, where my snoring kept him awake all night. We headed out on a 6-hour hike through rough brown country to a lake and back. Strictly speaking, the trail was paved, but paved with the kind of ankle-rolling cobblestones that were perfect for some ancient religious pilgrimage where suffering was the point. I’d felt weak and brittle from the outset, as if fighting off a bad cold. I tried