I still had enough food for breakfast, but sadly no coffee... and I had eleven or so miles to go before the next village.. the rain had stopped, I got going fairly early by my standards 7:15... now that I was taking frequent breaks I was worried that I needed more time to cover distance..also in order to stay at pilgrims places it was better to roll into towns mid afternoon...so I had to change my schedule. There was a lot of fog... at times so much so that I was worried about missing the markers..but the path was well enough marked so even in sometimes thick fog I did not miss the anything.. the trail started out with a lot of up hill, it was a slow grade..but since I could not see far ahead it seemed like it was endless.. my calf muscles were very tight, probably because I walked funny the day before trying to avoid getting the sensitive areas on my front pads more sore... also I was body tired in a way that seemed different... so the town with coffee and more food could not come soon enough... and it eventually did... I found the baker and got some bread, apple, and chocolate there, and then at the cafe for the much needed coffee and a sandwich... also a break from walking of course.. I had another 15kms ahead of me... when I hit the road again the coffee seemed to work like magic... the body tired was gone and also my calf muscles seemed to have relaxed a bit.. I put on my ipod and listened to some dharma talks to distract me from the foot pain a bit, since I still had some.. the walk continued through mostly woods...at times the trail got quite rocky and narrow but was manageable.. I came to a place that seemed to be a historic site and tourist attraction, I had lost the trail marker signs here so I just walked in..apparently there was another neolithic site here and an old church. There was a shop with drinks and local honey and wine.. eventually the proprietress came in and I got a coke, glad for more caffeine. She disappeared again, I noticed on the wall a photo of the Dalia Lama, he had been here, in the photo he was shacking a local man's hand. When the lady came back in, she spoke some english and I asked her about the photo. Apparently he had been here in 2002 or so, and there was a buddhist center outside of Lodeve about 20kms but sadly not along my route...she also redirected me onto the correct path but warned me the road would be better since two days rain made the trails bad.. she gave me a brochure of the place in case when I had more time I could come back and see this place... it did look interesting Prieure Saint-Michel-de-Grandmont especially the old burial mound. I tried to find the tar road she talked about but could not... so I continued on the trail hoping for the best...the rain would get harder and harder and harder.. the trail was okay for a while but then it became a little river and eventually my left shoe made that tell tale soggy noise... totally wet... the right would not fair much better... I came to a road and I knew from there I had another six kms to Lodeve... I continued on for another two hoping I would not get even more blisters from walking in wet shoes...when a car pulled over, an older woman rolled down the window, and although again I spoke no french and she was going in the opposite direction she offered me a ride to Lodeve... I took it without hesitation.. I was worried that my wet gear would get all her seats wet, but she just shrugged it off...the last four miles even by car seemed to be long..she did speak a few words english, she asked me if I knew where I would stay in lodeve, I said no, but I would go to tourist office...so she dropped me right in front of tourist office... I thanked her for her kindness...in I went and asked about pilgrims place.. I gave my excuse of no french, and after the woman showed me a brochure of the place, I asked if she would mind calling to find out if they had room.. she did and no problems, it was a short walk from here across the river... when I left I stopped in doubt on this street trying to find it's name to make sure I was doing it right, and this little woman started directing me in french..she too knew where I needed to go...pilgrims are common here.. what surprised me I actually understood her instructions...i found the place and the man was waiting at the door for me... he helped me get the wet gear off.. and showed me where to put my wet boots.. I got slippers instead and we went up.. he gave me a tour, showed me a nice clean room with three beds, I would have on room mate and the common room..there I recognized someone, it was the german woman from ulm...so instant conversation. We caught up on the last few days of each others walks or lack there of. I got a shower, and although it was a bit prize-ee, given that a lot of my stuff was wet already... I splurged for laundry services. Non of my things had been washed in a machine for over two months so I was very happy. In eve we had dinner included.. I had gotten wet and my feet of course still sore so I had no interest in leaving the place to try and get food elsewhere or explore the town. The host made omelet for me while the others got meat. I was surprised how nice the place was and also the meal considering this was a place the price of a youth hostel.. a big salad for starters, red wine, then pasta alfredo with omlette and mushrooms on the side, and even desert a sweet white cheese crème with wild honey on top... besides me and the german woman, there was also a sweet older french couple who did not speak english, so most of the evening was in french with no translation. The host was pestering me to repeat things in french after him.. he insisted that one month with him, i'd be speaking french...as the evening progressed and I proved to be a slow student he kept adding a month...in our room me and Ms.Ulm shared some travel stories, she'd traveled extensively when she was younger... and we talked about having to rely on the kindness of strangers at vulnerable times and especially with men, having to trust our gut, or else having to extricate ourselves from uncomfortable situations...but we both agreed when the need was really great it seemed then that we only dealt with the most ethical of men...she also told of a funny story on this trip, when she put her pack on the side of the road with her walking stick and went in the bush to pee, she heard a car, but decided to just trust fate...when she came back out of the woods, the pack and the stick was gone... of course she was a bit panicked..she could understand why someone would take the pack, but why the simple walking stick,she had just found it in the woods.... she flagged someone down, and this person was willing to drive with her and every time they passed a car they looked inside it to see if there was a pack inside..finally they went to the police station, when they got into the police station to report the theft, there was her pack and stick...someone had been worried that it would be stollen and had put it in their car, and in their confused need to help had brought it to the police station...this was definitely one of the funnier travel oops's I had heard in a while...I got too caught up with the social stuff so I did not journal and rushed to do my mantras before bed.. I slept fairly okay although I still have that strange 'wake up in the middle of the night for a while' thing going...it's as if I never fully switched time zones, which is odd after two months.
No comments:
Post a Comment