Why is it a bad idea to go to bed at midnight for pilgrims? Well if you wake up with the noise of others in your room, and have problems going back to sleep that might be one reason... the less than friendly pilgrim guy from the day before, woke at four thirty and needed to leave and come back to the room three times and make a lot of noise each time.....it took a while to fall asleep again...I slept till 8 I had developed a head ache again, perhaps combo of sleep deprivation, not enough water and heat..... Oloron was one of those dangerous temptation towns...lots of open shops... and places to take 'mini breaks' along the way...so leaving Oloron took for-ever … mostly because of cafes ..churches.. There were some hefty hills in the beginning, as well..I did have a fair amount of shade in the beginning of my walk....first 8kms took close to four hours mostly because I kept finding reasons to stop and check things out.....
water was an issue again today..over all it was not fun walk...my feet hurt and the sun made my feel weak..and I was tired anyway...so I was really working with my resistance..but the landscape is nice again, one gets real close-up views of mountains now, probably the foothills of the Pyrenees... also the small towns look more charming again. I met some loose dogs here and there but it was a non-issue..i am still intrueged about how my trying to offer them food seems to totally change my relationship to them..i feel more like the person I thought i knew in Seattle, in relation to dogs. ..which is odd in and of itself.. how drastic such changes can be in a course of a few days..... my water stretched just far enough till I found a water tap... it was hot enough so that i dunked my head under it for a while......then the afternoon walk was mostly in the sun.. it is very humid heat.. which means my body does not cool properly.... there was one more water stop, before the final town, so i was able to refuel just often enough...
For the final section, I had to follow a narrow walk along a river, I finally had shade now but already late so it was not as hot anymore.....the trail had eroded in sections, I was getting tired... I almost fell down, who knows how far, a drop... but I barely grabed some roots in time...it was a sign of how tired I was that I did not really even get scared ..in fact there were a few steep spots...which when I was going through my height issues in italy would have triggered me but again since I was tired I was single pointedly focused on just finishing the walk today... I arrived in Sarrance and found the church easy enough but I did not know where the monastery gite was.....I found museum nearby, still open.. the lady there drew me a map of where to go...to me she reminded me of a spanish woman I knew again making me realize i was getting closer to the border.....the gite door was right next to the church, I had missed the light sign which said in french for 'pilgrims just to enter'... it seemed like a serve- yourself- gite .. I followed the signs for pilgrims....there were two dorm rooms, one had an older french couple in it I said hi to, I took the other dorm room..we would get no other pilgrims that night....
then, since stores might close soon.. I went to find one of two stores in town..it was a small shop attached to the restaurant... I got instant mashed potatoes and veggie soup box for dinner ... Back at the gite, a man in plain clothes showed up, I think he was the priest? The french couple, I think, called him father? He stamped our credentials and took a small fee for the dorm rooms.. he checked to make sure we had arrangements for dinner or if we were to dine with him..since none of us had known this was an option we had all made other plans... for me it was just easier to cook my own since I knew it would be vegetarian...i did laundry late and would end up having the wetest clothes to date to carry with me the next day... in the late eve there would be a strong thunderstorm clanging the shudders but not doing much to cool the place down...it would be a spotty night's sleep...
No comments:
Post a Comment