One day at the end of our walk Mary asked me if I would mind having "a very nice, old woman" join us in our walks once in a while. Figuring my pace was pretty slow anyway, I said of course she could join. "Oh, but she walks very quickly though," warned Mary.
The next morning Mary and the "old woman" (woman in red shirt below) showed up at my door to start our walk. Hmmmm....I thought to myself, I guess Mary considers late 50s to be "old".
Our new walking buddy told me her name was Lillian, and as soon as we headed out I realized she was in much better shape than I was. Both Mary and I had to pretty much jog to keep up. Here's a shot of Lillian walking:
About a half hour into our walk Lillian began talking about her daughter who's in her late 40s, and I started wondering how young she must have been when she had children. Trying to calculate quickly while keeping up with her pace, I tell Lillian she must have been quite a young mother. That's when I learned that this amazingly fit, very talkative, speed-walking French woman is 74!!!! I of course spent the next hour of our walk pumping her for information on HOW SHE DOES IT! To summarize, she walks 20-30 kilometers a day, eats small meals and uses normal facial cream from the supermarket. I'm not sure I can manage all that walking into my schedule, but I can say I'm definitely hooked on walking now and I guess I don't need to change creams.
Here are a few typical scenes of what we see on our morning walks through downtown Port-Gentil. In these shots Germaine, a Gabonese friend of Lillian, is joining in.
