So I packed up and left the sight around tenish... I could at least get coffee there.. today I would feel the weight of things more... there was of course the foot soreness but also an increase in heat.. Initially the road continued to have the red brown cliffs and mountains in the back-drop looking like something you would expect in Wyoming or the Dakodas..so it was interesting to see them so close to water... at the beginning part I found a small church and stepped in, it was very simple inside.. not as ornate as italian churches. But I also notice a prominence of the female saints being represented here. There were small paintings of the stages of the cross on the wall... and I was surprised that it evoked pretty strong emotions...i think I have heightened empathy right now to physical suffering and of course the stages of the cross are very much about physical suffering and cruelty of man onto man... and that part is what got me... thinking of all the countless beings who before and after Jesus were treated in same ways all because of cruel laws and other unjust systems... anyway, all this seemed much more physically real because of my own physical discomforts... heightened empathy hopefully leads to increased compassion..
the path itself again was not rugged or challenging either with heights of cars.. there has been more or less a side walk or a wide enough shoulder that I dont feel scared. I want to say that the french drivers over all seem a little more careful than the italians.. only ever so often you get a high-speed daredevil who does not seem to think he has to slow at blind curves... I noticed a couple of times, friendly horn beeps from moppet drivers, at me.. it seems as if they are showing their support...
.. it felt like it was taking all day to walk only 14 or so kms into St Raphael... by the time I got into St Raphael I was disparate to look for some sort of sanctuary from the heat, I saw and went for the big church of the town ...dark cool... chairs... I sat in there for a while... I felt over heated again... and I stayed as long as I could till I felt I was back down to normal....
then I walked through town ...which like many had a thriving tourist industry...lots of shops and restaurants... I saw things only peripherally... I found the tourist office and asked for camping information direction to Freyus, I found out Freyus was actually adjacent to St Raphael therefore it was only a block away...but the nearest camping was another 8kms away...she gave me a map and had called the grounds to make sure they had room which was nice...so I started walking inland.. more heat..but now I had a goal.. I think it might have been a bit closer than 8kms.... I got a glimpse of the highway I would be walking along the following day... my heart sank..fast traffic and seemingly no sidewalk... I had to keep going beyond this... like I said it was hot... I took two shade breaks getting there.. . Finally I saw the sign for the campground... I saw a pharmacy and supermarket before it... I stopped at the pharmacy before because I was afraid it might be closed sunday.. I need more ibuprofen... I found out that it was not as exorbitant as in italy... it was less than half the cost...but if your from the USA, buy all pharmacy stuff you need there.. its cheaper than this part of europe... I was kind of checking out various foot insert stuff … since lately I had seriously un-fun heel pain... the pharmacist tried to help me because I could not find my size for one of the products... than he showed me another model and in french described it's finer qualities... it had some sort of rubber middle pad for the heel that acted as a bouncy spring or some such... he demonstrated by bouncing a pen on it... and also it was a lot cheaper than what i'd been looking at... I had tried some stuff in italy but it had not done much to enhance my walking experience.. so I was dubious cuz all this stuff is kind of overpriced... but I did cave into his pen test sales pitch.. .and found out next day..that my heels actually were happier... then I got to the camp ground, the lady running it was jolly and also only spoke french...but yes I could use the pool... and I had to buy a coin to use the showers... she let me know I could pitch my tent anywhere... this was a grassy camp ground near the road...with some trees...and hardly any guests it seemed... the snack bar was not in operation.... so I got into my bathing suite and tried the pool...after such a hot day I was excited...but it was a bit chilly... I did a few laps trying to stretch my feet a bit... I realized that there were bugs floating on the surface, this pool looked like it had not been used today.. I was not sure if they were dead or not... I remember this one young man at a retreat I did in Nepal..he had depression issues so he could only participate half of the time... a lot of the other times he just roamed the monastery grounds which were quite lovely..they had a fountain and in it where always bugs struggling and he would spend time rescuing them and chanting mantras... and others from our group would start to join him during our breaks... so here I was in a pool somewhere in france picking out bugs...some proved to revive...for some it was too late.. I was kind of talking to them and muttering mantras... when some men walked by and totally grinned at me... I think perhaps i've spend too much time alone and in the sun... ha ha... after the rescue mission... I took a hot shower and got dressed... I walked up to the mini-mart and got ready-made salads of beet and cucumber.. a can of artichoke hearts.. a bag of mixed cheese and baget crackers for dinner... it was a pretty buggy place so I went from rescuer to shooer-awayer of bugs, rather quickly... I went to bed a bit earlier and actually slept fairly well.. and long...
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