After our longer walk yesterday, and also because of where the reasonable priced accommodation lies, we had decided on an easier day to Limogne-de-Query.
Last night when we went to bed at about 10 pm it was to a darkened dorm, all our French (and 1 Belgium) room mates having gone to bed about 9 pm. Again we had a bright emergency light, so out came the eye mask and earplugs.
At about 11:30 the silence was shattered by some crescendo of snoring (it starts quietly and ends in an ear splitting fanfare). After 10 minutes of gentle prodding Lesley managed to wake me up, tell me I was keeping the rest of the dorm awake, and get some sleep herself.
Our roommates got their revenge! At 6:30 an alarm on a phone went off, and for the next half hour or so all we heard was the rustle, rustle of rucksacks being packed. I pretended to be asleep so they didn't know they had won.
We got up at about 7.30, picked up the usual pain au chocolat (or as Lesley loves to call it Choc au pain - to the confusion of the assistants) for breakfast and bread for lunch, and headed for the cafe with free wi-fi access for a cup of coffee and to post yesterday's blog.
We then set off, and for once the trail was kind with the first 2 or 3 km on flat or gently rising ground, walking through fields of sweetcorn and past orchards of Walnut trees. We then gradually began to climb up onto the "causse" a limestone plateau. In fact it was the same sort of terrain that we had walked on yesterday, with the stunted oaks, beginning to show their autumn colours, but now it had a name! The sun came out and we had a great walk.
Before hitting the causse, we had stopped for a comfort break and been overtaken by a group of about 25+ Germans. Not wanting to be stuck behind them on narrow tracks, we power walked past them.
About ten minutes later we heard voices ahead and noticed bright floral hats. I said to Lesley "it's the Canadians" we had met the three Canadian women in Noailhac, and spoken to them more fully in Decazeville when we had an Orangina break. We then seen them again in Figeac when they had shouted to us from a bar. We had expected to see them yesterday but hadn't seen them.
When we saw them today they had multiplied into six as three other friends had joined them, we said we had expected to see them yesterday and they explained how they had got lost and at five pm a friendly native had called them a taxi to get them to Cajarc. We warned them about the large group following us and so they all set off again.
About an hour later we stopped for water and a break, followed closely on our heals by the Germans who we discovered had full vehicle support from a luxury coach, (surely they won't get as many years off from purgatory as us who carry everything? - that is if you believe going on pilgrimage is about gaining brownie points in heaven!) Which does seem a bit like cheating to us.
As we only had a short way to stopped for a leisurely lunch and got into Limogne at about 3:30. As the gite had a well equip ed kitchen we decided to cook and so bought supplies at the local shop and cooked pasta with pesto, finishing the evening with a game of Scrabble.
On the Camino in France
No comments:
Post a Comment