Heating up

 Day 19

     Because we had a kitchen, we decided to switch up the usual breakfast menu of bread, jam and coffee.  We made eggs with leftover kebab pork.  It was nice to load up on protein rather than carbs.  The sunrise walk through Cahors was beautiful, crossing the old Roman bridge.  But then it was straight up steep flights of steps for 500 ft of elevation.  Thus began another grueling day in the heat.

     Did I mention that French don’t like ice or cold water.   Restaurants and gites serve room temperature water, often with sweetener syrup.  We stuck our water bottles in the fridge over night and at least had cool water for the first couple of hours of the hike.

     We made it to a town that was pilgrim friendly, with water, toilets and a cool place to rest.  We hung out for an hour or so, eating our bread, cheese and chorizo, and taking a siesta.  The last 3 miles were brutal in the 95 degree heat. 

     We are staying at a farm gite run by a former blacksmith who converted his barn into a gite. We are sharing it with a single man our age and a family of six from the French Caribbean Island of Martinaus.  We do have a separate room.  Dinner was delicious and filling as usual.

Crash and Burn

 

Day 18

     Well, I bit the dust!  In the twilight of the early morning trail I stumbled on a rock and went headlong into the rocky path. Since I had my thumbs in the backpack chest strap I had no cushion but my knees. My face got the worst of it.  Fortunately, they are just surface wounds, and after slowly picking myself off the ground and brushing off,  I was ‘ultreia’ - ‘ let’s keep going’. I used my trekking poles for most of the rest of the day. Esther and I don’t like using the poles unless it is a steep downhill.  We may change our ways!

     Today’s journey was long and very hot (96 degrees by 2pm). In the 16 miles that we walked, there was only one water source.  Fortunately, we always carry 4 liters of water and our warm water carried us through. The landscape reminds us of the southern Texas hill country around Austin.  There are small hills covered in scrub oak, with lots of limestone rocks.

     Our destination today was Cabors, considered the half way point of the Via Podiensis, the French section of our route.  Technically, we have a couple days before we’ve gone 1/4 of the way of our entire Camino.  Cabors is very, very old city, established by the Romans and a few structures still remain.  It was an important trade city during the Middle Ages.  It is surrounded on three sides by the meandering River Lot.

   We are staying in an apartment in the old city. We found it through booking.com.  It advertised air conditioning, but it is just a small indoor unit that hardly does the job,  but anything is better than nothing, and we’re enjoying our privacy for the night.

The Old and the New

 

Day 17

     The heat of the day seems to control our itinerary.  Out walking at the crack of dawn. Wait! isn’t this supposed be like vacation!  To be honest, today’s landscape was pretty boring,  We walked the whole day through scrub oak forests with miles and miles of old rock wall fences. 

     A couple of highlights were the old and the new. Dotted about the forest are old shepherd shelters made of rock.  They’re also dolmens from the Stone Age.  But we also came across a modern pilgrim shelter shaped like the upside down hull of a boat with actual scallop shells for shingles.

     If last night’s host were persnickety, tonight’s was the exact opposite.  It literally took us an hour in the unbearable heat, walking in circles around this tiny town.  At one point I left Esther with the packs in the shade to find it, to no avail.  Ironically, forty-five minutes later we.discovered that she had been waiting in the shade of the back way of the gite we were looking for.  The host, Niko, was very friendly and fluent in English. But a was definitely the loosey goosey variety, which sometimes comes with less than the cleanest facilities. The place filled up and we are three men and four women- one bathroom and hot as the dickens.  We enjoyed learning more about French culture from our dinner conversation.

A Woman’s World

 Day 16

      Another early start because of the heat.  The landscape has changed from hilly pastures with many farms and hamlets to oak forests with sparse farming and very few villages and no place to fill our water bottles. The exception was the town of Cajarc along the banks of the Lot River.. A mid-morning expresso fired us up for looming climb.  Of course, once you leave a town on a river, you have to climb out of it.

     Esther made the observation that gites seem to fall into two categories: either loosey goosey or persnickety.  Tonight’s fell into the latter category: Shoes stay outside, poles go here, backpacks go in this room, put any belongings you need in a basket and bring it to your bed, etc.  The gite is very clean and well designed.  However, there is no meal provided, but some non-perishable items are for sale to make your own.  We ended up eating all together. A group of women had brought some provisions.

     Speaking of women, there are seven women sharing a large bedroom with me, the only man.  It is an observed fact that the Camino is more popular with women than men.  There are various theories of why, but I am still formulating some definitive reasons.  A curious observation is that almost all of the women have read the book’Wild’ about a young lady who hiked the Pacific Crest Trail.

 

Early Start

 

Day 15

     We got up early and were on the way by 6:30.  It was great to beat the heat.   A stiff climb out of town and the rest of the day was reasonably level.  There were very few hamlets and churches.  We typically pass through three or four small villages with big churches. The churches are always open and very cool, and we stop to cool down and marvel at the art. There were no churches today, besides the one in the hamlet where we are staying.  

     We enjoyed meeting new pilgrims today.  One young couple were from Sweden.  Laura is from the US and spent time living in Port Townsend.  Hans is from Sweden. They met on the Camino and have done it 6 times.  They are doing the long route from Le Puy this time and will get married in Santiago in October when they get there.  We are invited to the wedding if we can make it in time!

     Our gite tonight is very artsy and funky, run by a Swiss German transplant named Esther. Her niece helps her run the place.  We were joined by two German pilgrims who were willing to use English and we learned about their six Camino trips.

Rest Stop

 

Day 14

      Partly because of exhaustion and partly because of lack of reserved accommodation, we decided to take a day off. Since we are staying in a small city, we had plenty of services to attend to our needs. (Figeac)  We enjoyed a lazy get up and stocked up on food for tomorrow’s journey.  This is yet another historic town with plenty of tourists.  We took a long afternoon nap in our hot third floor room, and found dinner at a local food festival.  We will get an early start tomorrow to try and beat the heat.

1/6 of the way

 

Day 13

     We had breakfast by ourselves, even had to push the button to start the coffee.  Our host likes to sleep in.  It was a hot day, but fortunately it was cloudy and kept the sun from beating down on us.  We had a quick downhill and then uphill before it leveled off for much of the day.  We had lunch by a cow pasture and pond enjoying a sandwich we had purchased in the morning. 

    We caught up with a large French family (4 girls and 2 boys) we had shared an evening with a few nights ago.  They have a van and do little sections of the trail.  One of the parents drives the van ahead and then hikes back to meet the family.  They lived in Iowa for a few years because he works for John Deer. We said goodbye as they are heading home.

     Tonight we are in the small city of Figeac and staying in a small hotel.  The city is another old city with lots of narrow streets and plenty of tourists.  We spent the evening walking the streets (as if we needed a walk!)

     Sometime today we passed the 250 km mark which is 1/6 of our total miles.  At this rate we will need the total three months to finish the walk!  But everyone tells us that the trail will easier and we will be able to pick up the miles.

 

Day 12

    Today was a workout!  Climbing out of the Conques valley was pretty brutal, only to be blasted with heat for the day.  Our walk to our gite was an uphill grind in a furnace. Thankfully, Esther’s blisters didn’t bother her much.

The highlights of the day were the pilgrims we met.  After a week and a half on the Camino, we had not met a single native English speaker.  Today we stopped at a picnic table at the top of an exhausting hill climb, and within minutes, five English speakers joined us, 3 from America and two from England.  Will, a high school English teacher from London walked with us for two hours. We covered a lot from COVID’s effect on students to British and American politics.  We also met Kelly from Los Angeles who was originally from Holland, MI. We had briefly met at the Cathedral in Le Puy the first morning.  Because of time constraints, she will be leaving the rest of the walk in France and jumping ahead to the Spanish portion of the Camino.

     We were apprehensive when we arrived at our gite. A DIY camping van conversion was in progress by the entry, and picnic benches by the road seemed to be the guest table.  It turned out very comfortable, and we were the only guests for the night.  Dinner was great and host very helpful.

Conques

 

Day 11 - Conques 

       After finishing our bowls of coffee (yes, bowls - to dip your toast) and saying goodbye, we headed down the hill and then up the hill and then down the hill, etc.  We are looking forward to some flatter landscape in a few days.  

     The village of Conques is very popular and famous.  They say that it was the model for Disney’s Beauty and the beast.  The steep hillside village streets have no vehicles.  You almost expect Bellle or Guston to pop out a door.  The medieval architecture is well preserved.  We were lucky to find a private room that overlooks the town. A bit of a splurge for pilgrim, but very reasonable by US prices.  The town has many tourists as well as occasional pilgrims.

     The room did not offer dinner so we had or second restaurant meal of the trip - excellent wild boar stir fry and sausage and mashed potatoes.  You can guess who had what.  We ended the evening with a light show at the church that highlighted a very famous sculpted mural above the door of the church depicting the eternal states of humanity with Christ the Judge.  The evening was so much different than our usual night as it was a romantic setting with just the two of us.

Sandals to the Rescue

 

Day 10 - Le Soulie

   In the coolness of the morning, the fairy town was even more magical.  We picked up our lunch sandwich from the local butcher and headed out. Esther developed another blister and our host suggested wearing sandals as she had walked the entire Camino in sandals.  With some trepidation, Esther donned her sandals 

and started walking.  She ended up walking the entire 13 miles in sandals and her blisters did not hurt.  PTL! 

   The heat of day was pretty overwhelming, especially in the afternoon.  There were only a few spots of rugged terrain.  Most of the way was quiet countryside road or path. The gite tonight was very unusual.  It is a roadside guesthouse with scattered buildings amongst overgrown vegetation.  Our first impression was of a hippie commune.  A few scattered buildings hidden in thick overgrowth, restroom facilities 30 yards from our room, an outside eating area covered with tarp.  

     Several of the guests were pilgrims from previous stops.  A new young man who teaches English here in France jumped in to help translate.  It ended up being a very memorable evening with the older gentleman host facilitating a share time for everyone at the table to share their Camino story.