as usual I got up with the morning noises of others getting going. I ended up having breakfast with the french man. He spoke a little english he was from the coast of France near Nice. He had walked to Santiago already and was now heading home..i asked him about the route out of town and he told me what to look for....i was surprised that you could remember each town he'd been in, and its lay out. I am not sure I would. He was also able to give me advise on how to get to Lourdes from Pau.. he kept running back upstairs getting information to help me.. he was going out of his was going out of his way giving me time and information... taking the pilgrims ethic quite seriously of helping other pilgrims.. he also was able to give me the address of a gite in Lourdes which I needed since my book has no information on that town. I said my goodbyes and managed to mess up somehow his instructions about leaving town..so in order to get back on the trail I probably took half hour. The sky was overcast although it was plenty humid but I had no head ache worries today... I felt almost darn good... the humidity and eventually the increasing heat reminded me of someplace like India or SE Asia … I got more interested in the landscape again..
I was feeling better and somehow even though I dont know what ingredients changed in my surroundings, but it seemed to be more interesting, perhaps the only thing that changed was the viewer's attitude. One thing that is completely absent because of the weather is regrettably, the view of the Pyrenees... apparently I should have been seeing them for days..either its too humid or too grey..
Maubourguet came around threeish, it seemed soft + friendly. I found the tourist office, my book did list stay options, but I like to know what is the best deal and where.... I got steered to the camp-ground they had a cabin there which was for pilgrims.. it looked like it might rain so that sounded like a better option than tenting... the campground was real close to center town..it was run by a very young couple from Toulouse, they were very nice and spoke english (lucky again) they had just opened the camp ground two days ago for the season and they were new to the job, which meant they still had a lot of enthusiasm... I got a bed in the cabin..no other pilgrim would come so it was all mine... they had wifi which I immediately abused... I was able to skype video with my two friends back home..amongst other things they mentioned a rumor that there might be a Clark look-alike out there (yes I am talking about the stuffed bunny again). We decided that perhaps it was an Parallel Universe Clark.. known as PUC for short... it's good to be silly...they also clued me in to the fact that in the USA people were celebrating a long weekend because of the Fourth of July... I felt very out of touch when I heard that.... back at the camp ground, they had a laundry machine... and the price was good..so I did a load... of course it would start raining...i dreaded the idea of having a whole backpack full of wet laundry..but I hung it under the eaves of the cabin and things were pretty dry next morning.... again I had a hankering for salad so I went to the supermarket and got ingredients... I got almost too much food I had plenty to lug with me the next day.. I probably stayed up a little later than I should... it took for ever for the rain to cool things down to a pleasant sleeping temperature...
but then there was some sort of party across the river under giant tents... and the whole cabin vibrated till close to three in the morning...of course I could not really sleep, I know this is what happens sometimes when you travel... cant control the timing but yeah ...loud music etc until the wee hours.. if I was lucky I slept three hours... making me again re-assess the length of my walking the following day.. i was surprised at how well i tolerated the incursion on my sleep...accepting that which cant be changed is usually hard but somehow i managed...
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