Mom and I slept surprisingly well last night. We both agreed that having the morning to finish up packing and prepping the house. I also made a stop to the chiropractor and set Grace up to watch the house and cats.
I am really going to miss the cats. Slate slept in my arms nearly all last night. I wonder if she knows what is coming.
Susan picked us up from home and, as I write now, we are on the way to the airport.
I took a self portrait and two pictures of my shoes. I wanted a record of what I look like and the shoes that will likely change as much as me through this trip.
We ate at Vino Volo at JAX and each had a glass of vinho verde blend from Portugal and cavatapi with chicken.
We made it to IAD in spite of delays at JAX due to weather. While we made a valiant effort to make our flight to Brussels, including sprinting down the concourse with our heavy hiking packs on our backs.
Instead, we are headed to London and then onto Lyon.
At IAD, we ate burgers and fries and frozen mango lemonade. We both agree that our fruitless sprint has done something terrible to our lungs because we both sound like smokers.
After our flight from DC, which can only be described as the best possible rest on an overnight flight, we arrived at London Heathrow. Which is to say, we did not rest great.
We are getting some breakfast at a place called the Curator while waiting for our next and final flight to Lyon.
Mom is having the full Monty brunch, with the British staple of baked beans. I’m eating ham and Mac and cheese because it’s basically lunch time here anyway.
We eagerly await coffee, as we are exhausted and both have caffeine headaches.
Edit: coffee has arrived
So we made it to our hotel in Lyon, but our luggage apparently did not. Luckily, I had some changes of clothes packed in my backpack so we do have something to wear for the next 24 hours while we wait for either our bag to arrive, or for our travel insurance to kick in.
After showering and figuring out what clothing we had left, we hit the town for dinner. After our hotel concierge suggested we get Euros near a restaurant, we decided to eat there. The waiter was a very sweet French young guy who suggested I try the steak tar tar and he did not steer me wrong.
I do not usually eat meat, but in the interest of cultural exploration, I agreed to the tar tar. It was genuinely one of the best meals I have ever had and the portion size was downright Texan.
The only negative event of the night was that I could see a whole human butt during part of dinner. I do not know what that person was doing pants-less and I do not want to know.
We continue to muddle our way through French conversation. Yesterday felt hard and today, it is getting easier. I appreciate everyone’s patience as well as the fact that most people are multilingual.
We ate at a little cafe in Lyon and met a pigeon with only one foot. He got around impressively well, in spite of the other food apparently also missing a few toes. I genuinely cannot imagine the misfortune that took his foot but am glad he bounced back.
We missed the first train to Le Puy but eventually got on the next one with a stop in Saint-Étienne Châtscreux where we got a baguette, some cheese cubes, and our first real French macarons, in France, ordered in broken (but functional) French.
We woke early to get to the pilgrims blessing at the cathedral. It was a beautiful chilly morning and the service was nothing less than a production. We got there late (like we always do to church). Mom and I agreed that Catholicism was not for us and that we didn’t like the gatekeeping.
Regardless, the descent down the main road to Santiago was breathtaking. At the end of the service, the path down the middle of the pews rose up to reveal the chemin down through Le Puy.
Sadly, we could not leave with the rest of the pilgrims since we still needed to sort out our lost luggage. We ended up shopping at the local Decathlon and storing any unused items with a local service.
Finally, in spite of a difficult few days, we were on the road to Saint James, called Saint Jaques in French. Here, instead of saying “buen Camino,” most pilgrims greet each other by a simple “Bonjour!” Or by wishing “bon chemin!”
Finally on the chemin, we climbed the considerable distance up through Le Puy to the countryside beyond. We are staggered by the variety of road and vista as we walk with our heavy packs and walking poles.
The road varies from single file secret pathways through dense forest and undergrowth to walking on rural roads and through small towns. We have scrambled up steep rocky trails and down deep valleys. All this terrain in only a days walk!
The walk is hard, since we did not get to train at all through elevation changes but we are happy with our pace none the less.
We paused briefly for lunch that we bought at a boulangerie back in Le Puy at Saint Christophe and aired out our feet. Luckily, my first aid kit was not in the luggage misplaced by the airline so we dressed any hot spots with moleskin and silicone toe guards.
The water here is amazing. Even the public taps for walkers and locals flow with refreshing, cold, and pure tasting water. It is such a different way of life here. I get the impression that people here respect and love the land in a different way than in the US.
After a mad dash for the last two kilometers to the town to get to the gîtes before they closed, we managed to snag what we believed to be the last two beds in town.
The gîte looked like a modern a-frame cabin with huge windows overlooking the valley that we all but sprinted up.
Our room consisted of a main level with one bed and access to the bathroom and a loft area where we each had a twin bed. While our roommate was not the most courteous (hogging the shower, listening to things without headphones) it was a relief to have our own space.
While everyone has been incredibly kind and understanding, there was only one other fluent English speaker: a woman from Amsterdam. She was kind enough to sit and chat with us during dinner since the entire time, mom and I were both totally lost listening to the boisterous French crowd.
The food here is incredible. We are lentils (a local crop,) mashed potatoes and sausage, cheese, and a custard pie. Not to mention the wine that flows constantly.
Even our breakfast was quaint and delicious. Every cup of coffee here is better than any I’ve had at Starbucks and the sugar cubes can come individually wrapped!
Our day takes us through some flat terrain but a significant amount of downhill as we descend deeper into the valleys of this incredible region.
Our constant companions are tiny butterflies who flit and float among the abundant wildflowers.
Monistrol D’allier looks like a town picked up from the mountains of Colorado and plopped in the French countryside. The town is situated on a large river, from which the area draws hydroelectric power. Our gîte for the night was across the river from the power station.
After dropping our bags in our lodging, we walked down to the river and stuck our aching feet in the freezing water.
As we walk, we periodically see little lizards that remind me so much of the anole lizards back home. It reminds me that there are some experiences that are shared across oceans, like cute little reptiles.
Today we washed our very sweaty clothes by filling a gallon ziplock with washing soap and water, agitating the slurry, and repeating the process with fresh water.
We also met some English speakers along the trail and at the Gîte. On the way to Monistrol d’allier, we encountered four Canadians who clearly were more used to hiking through mountains that us, as they passed us quickly while walking through a forested area.
At our gîte for the night, we also met two people from New Zealand, an older couple who had also lost their luggage in Heathrow. They, however, had time to recover it as they were visiting one of their sons in London for a few days.
Dinner was delicious again, but for the ambiguous aspic that was served atop the salad course but that abomination of gelatin was redeemed by delicious ribs and a pasta casserole.
Staying in our room was two French women and a Polish woman named Agatha. Agatha spoke more English than she did French, although she kept up well with our majority French gîte-mates. This is her sixth Camino and she shared stories of how her first pilgrimage made her addicted. I think I understand what she is taking about. Although I am incredibly tired every day and my joints and muscles scream for rest, I find myself pulled into the landscape. It is so green here and unsullied by human industry. The closest thing to a factory we have seen are the countless cow farms with huge, lazing bovines grazing in the most incredible hillside fields.
The first few kilometers from Monistrol-d’Allier were grueling and straight uphill. The views, however, made the difficulty worth the price. Every break in the trees reveals a stunning vista of valley and river. Atop one of the ridges is a small chapel built directly into the solid rock mountain. I wonder what it was like to build such a structure without the aid of modern construction machinery and technology.
After the brutal first five kilometers, the landscape began to flatten. A group of three French woman, who we had briefly gotten lost with on our first day walking, pointed out wild blackberry bushes growing along the road. We stopped and ate our fill, with our fingers stained purple by their sweet ripe juices.
I also drew first blood, as my zeal for blackberries led me into the pointy end of their defensive thorns. However, I did not notice this injury until later, as I was enthralled with the magic of eating wild berries right off the vine in France.
Arriving in Sauges, we approached with our new Kiwi friends and snapped a few pictures for each other in front of these strange and wonderful wood carvings. The city itself was mostly closed down for their version of a siesta so we walked through looking for our lodging for the night. Other than the hotels we had in Lyon and Le Puy, we are not making reservations ahead of time. Whether this is more because we want to walk freely or if it is simply too difficult for us to call ahead to make our next reservation, I do not know. Regardless, the Camino provides. We ended up at a gîte near the church and ancient English watchtower in Sauges that doesn’t even appear on our maps. It is also a crêperie and our room sits on the top floor of the building. While the smoke from the restaurant below is hardly pleasant, we have the room to ourselves (though it sleeps up to four) and I even got a nap in before dinner. It is just before 10pm as I write this now and I am very thankful to have a good 9 hours left to sleep before breakfast tomorrow morning.
One of the things that Annabel Abbs talks about, in her book “Windswept” about walking women, is how women walkers are simultaneously trapped by their female bodies and empowered when they push their physical limits. I feel this here. A vulnerability to the elements, to other people, and to my own frailties. However, I also feel my power. I feel addicted to the way I can travel. I want to go further, faster, steeper.
My feet have been the part of my body that I have to listen to the most. A Camino rule is to stop when you feel any twinge of a hot spot and address it before it gets bad. Two layers of socks, antifriction cream, moleskin, and silicone toe covers mitigate the blisters, but my feel themselves are bruised from carrying myself and my pack over elevation changes that would make any Floridian faint.
I am thankful for my walking poles, as they have saved me a number of times already from nasty falls down steep and treacherous rocky declines. Mom and I agree that we feel like we had been lied to about trekking poles. For years in Colorado they seemed excessive, and just one more thing to carry. Now, we have realized their immense value to stabilize our top heavy packs and recover from rolled ankles due to loose rocks.