We first saw them coming out of Saint Gilles. Jean-Pierre gave us a quick 'Bonjour' as we let them pass. Florent didn't so much as look at us, his eyes remaining fixed on the trail like the surgeon of hiking he is, keenly and skillfully following the veins of the trail as they turned left and right and forked and looped. He whizzed past us and was gone, JP following soon after, trying to keep up. I later told them that Florent was the horse and JP, the rabbit, motivating JP forward at a hurried pace. What does that make mom and I, always hours behind them? Seeing as though we carry all our earthly goods on our backs, I suppose, snails. We are the 'escargot' in this analogy.
On the way to Lodeve the next day, we saw the boys several times, noticing the second time that Florent had a guitar sticking out of his backpack. I thought, 'this guy must be mad!' Here I thought my iPad was an extravagance. But walking 1000 miles with an acoustic guitar strapped to your back? What was he some sort of modern day Troubadour? We waved to them as we walked past them later in town, the boys eating lunch, us ladies carrying bags of groceries, but still didn't know their name or their story. We made bets how they knew each other. Father and son? Friends? Bandmates?
That night my mother and I tossed and turned in anguish trying to decide what to do the next day. Our British landlady claimed over and over just how bad the rain would be. She used the term 'massive dark clouds' several times, her eyes widening in disbelief that we would even consider walking. "But there are no towns on the way! You will be stuck in the mountains alone! When it rains here, it REALLY rains over there!", she exclaimed in horror, sipping from a tall drinking glass filled to the brim with red wine (her second.)
Nightmares of wet socks and muddy boots and running out of water or spraining ankles on slippery stone paths with no outlets in sight and getting lost in the mist and simply curling up in a ball on the soggy ground and letting the jungle overtake us, haunted our dreams. We spent nearly an hour the next morning haggling over what to do. We even had the thought, 'would the guitar pilgrim do it?'. Surely he wouldn't risk getting his guitar wet... Then, suddenly, it was decided. Mom shot out of bed with a definitive and perhaps ill-conceived "Let's do it!" We would not be wimps. We would throw caution to the wind and hope the rain didn't come until we were safe and sound in Joncels. When Florent, his guitar and JP passed us just a few minutes after setting foot on the trail and gave us a positive, "we will beat the rain!", we knew we had made the right decision. Fears be damned.
That night, having walked 15 miles to Joncels with not a drop of rain, we sipped pamplemousse cocktails with Florent and JP and ate a warm, comforting meal in the safety of the most adorable and whimsical pilgrim Gite this country has to offer - the Auberge La Villa Issiates - we knew we had made the right decision. Fuzzy playful cats roamed through the property. Fantastical wood-carved masks and caricatures filled every nook and cranny. The owner even greeted us with peach juice, telling us to lay down our worries, and most importantly, our backpacks, and enjoy the moment. In just 6 hours we had hiked over several high hilltops, beating by two hours our expected arrival time. Oh yeah, we're bad. So bad. JP told us they spotted us several times trekking up the mountainsides as they watched from above. "We said to ourselves, look at those brave brave women!," he told us in his thick French accent (using the same accent in the morning when he told mom he had a dream of an angel that night and it was her... the ole devil.) And I guess that's what we are. Brave brave women, doing our best to not let our fears take over and, rather, embrace what scares us.
After a long night of talking to our new friends, I was sad to see them and the guitar (now snug under a rain fly) go in the morning. They were on their way to a town we won't venture to until tomorrow night. We may never see them again, but as Florent said last night as we parted ways to our rooms, "You never know... This is, after all, The Camino."
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No trail pictures, as we wanted to keep the camera safe from the rain that, of course, never came, but some great ones of the Gite.
Auberge La Villa Issiates. The large wood carving at the gate is of a pilgrim.
The chime-happy bar where we toasted the Camino with our buddies.
The door to our pilgrim suite.
The fierce guard at our door.
Pilgrim luxury. Shampoo was even provided! It's the little things...
Spent the rest of the day reading by the pool until a very large spider asked me to please vacate the premises. I quickly obliged.
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Location:La Borio, Le Bousquet d'Orb, France
No Easter travel log?
ReplyDeleteDid Florent play you a plaintive French tune on his guitar??
ReplyDeleteAhh, so sad. He had promised to but by end of dinner we were all so tired I missed out. I would have been a drooling American groupie.
ReplyDelete