Camino Lingo

As mom and I become one with the trail, we have both found and created words and phrases for our growing Camino vocabulary. We'll share it with you now, so that in future postings we're all on the same page. Here goes - The Camino Lingo. (Coinciding pictures underneath definition.)

French Breakfast: Bread, jam and coffee. Not a hiker's best friend, as it generally leaves you hungry about an hour later. Juice is a wild card. Once we were only given the empty juice glasses, as if to say, 'Here's what you're missing out on, suckers." Another time I took a huge swig of what was referred to as 'apple juice' only to realize too late that it was fermented and about 80 proof. A shock to the system, but did help ease the leg pain.

Worm Sign: Inspired by "Dune", the name we've bestowed upon the red and white trail way markers. As in, "Mom, look! A worm sign! We don't have to backtrack!" Sometimes also called Worm Tail in moments of trail delirium. Worm Signs signal straight ahead, left, right, and my personal favorite, an X (do not go this way!) just in case you were thinking about getting lost for a few hours.








Sticks!: A commonly used phrase when your absentminded trail buddy
nearly impales you with a trekking pole.

Big Boy and Long Guy: The toes that give mom the most trouble.

Hot Spot: A sore place on the foot that needs immediate attention to avoid a blister.

Moleskin: The savior of feet. Adhered to hot spots.


Gite: A pilgrim hostel in France. Sometimes your own room; other times shared dormitories.

Pelerin and Pelerine: Male and Female pilgrim. I have certainly made the mistake of using the wrong one. Raised eyebrows ensue.

Chemin Caillote: A rocky trail, of which France has MANY, that makes us consider having Aunt Liz bring us new boots in Spain.

Dessert: Cheese, cheese and more cheese. I awake each morning unable to breath out my nose. Is it worth it? Yes, yes it is.


Olive Break: A snack break often involving a package of olives. Green... Black... Pitted... Unpitted. We don't discriminate - is not the way of the Camino.


Top Notch, Side Zip, Bottom Rung, Main: The parts of our backpack. Often used when trying to get the other person to pull something out of your bag so that you don't have to take it off and put it back on again.

"Hught. Ugh.": The sound made when putting on said backpack.

Mireille: The author of one of our guide books. Phrases include, "Thank you, Mireille!" or "Damn you, Mireille!" depending on situation.

Oasis: Fountains intended for pilgrims to refill their water.


Joint Lubricator: Wine and/or beer.

Sleep Sac: A portable sheet-like sack used when bedding looks skanky or the heater doesn't work in the room.

Scavenging: Scouring the village for food be it for dinner, tomorrow's breakfast or food for the next day's hike. Scavenging is usually accompanied by bickering and/or expletives as we discover places are closed for 3 more hours or entirely for holiday.

Pulling A Shirley: Drawing from Shirley MacLaine's metaphysical journey on the Camino, a moment when we venture into the great beyond - i.e. when one must hover above one's own body because the pain is too great or when one hallucinates on the trail (like when mom mistook the sight of sky through the trees for a set of large white buildings.)

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Location:Gite d'etape La Gariguette, Angles, France

A Walk Amongst Giants

It's late, and mom is already sawing logs, but just wanted to share with you some pictures from yesterday's hike from St. Gervais sur Mare to Murat sur Vebre; another grueling adventure, but at least we undertook a few miles by car. Sure, it's cheating, but I dare you to ask me if I care.

The highlight of the day was the overwhelming feeling of being so utterly small and insignificant as we walked for miles on mountaintops amongst massive, looming, swirling windmills. As the rooters propelled the slender white blades round and round overhead, giant shadows swung at our feet like pendulums threatening to cut us down. I leapt over a few. Just for fun. Until my baby toe blister cleared its throat and politely asked me to knock it off.

The windmill picture is one of a hundred we took, none of them managing to capture the awe we felt tiptoeing beneath these majestic steel beasts. Perhaps we should have tried a video, as I would have loved to have bottled that distinctive sound - the steady whoosh of electrified air being pushed through the trees and echoing off mountainsides. It's like no sensation I've ever known. And it made climbing the tallest peak before the Pyrenees very well worth it.
























These slate slabs are a popular style in the region. No accounting for taste.





Our home for the night and a wonderful Gite. Sunbathing. Easter chocolates on the dresser. Fantastic dinner with an avocado app I promise to share the recipe of. Warm fire. Great conversation with our hostess Maripol (so sorry if I've butchered the spelling!) And two cats that gave us lots of love, proving that not all French cats are snobby.





If mom wasn't snoozing, I'd get the artisanal cheese plate pic we took at dinner off her camera. But I guess it's always better to leave your audience hungry for more...


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Location:France

Thank You, Erica Piedra

Kay:

She was my French teacher for 3 semesters at City College. I think of her at the pharmacy where I can ask for things for my ampoule (blister) coup de soleil (sun burn), and un pansement (bandage). It is great to ask for and understand directions, request things politely, express gratitude when people go out of their way to help us and to be able to make polite chit-chat across the dinner table with complete strangers. I'm not afraid to ask for information in the train station, discuss the wifi and other mysterious problems with hotel management, get the laundry done and and order food. Even the French educational system is not a mystery. This, incredibly, came in handy one night at dinner. Charlotte of "Chez Charlotte" renown - fixes dinner for her guests on Wednesday when the only restaurant in town is closed (ferme). Her daughter was visiting on school break. After some discussion of her studies, I was able to ask her if she was in "prepa". Surprised, and, I would like to think - perhaps a mark up for Americans. Not that I don't have my share of blank stares, barely surprised smiles and the occasional chuckle. Trying to communicate in a foreign language, Learned as an adult, is a humbling and amazing experience.


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Location:La Salvetat-sur-Agout, France

Misty Mountain March

You know the saying, 'What goes up must come down'? Well, sometimes what goes up just keeps going up and up and up with no end, or should I say 'no mercy', in sight. Although today's trek from Le Bousquet d'Orb was only 15.5 miles, a whopping 11 of it was uphill. The first 11 to be exact. Continuous. Unrelenting. Grueling. Higher and higher and higher we climbed through the mist laced mountains until it seemed as though we'd stumbled into the Camino twilight zone. How could the uphill grade just keep going? Was this the M.C. Escher parallel universe of hiking? I can see now why this is a religious pilgrimage - because you literally walk your way right up to Saint Peter's pearly gates. "Hi, Saint Peter? Yes, do you perhaps have a room we could rent for the night on a cloud or something? Our feet are simply killing us... And is there a washer and dryer available?"

This has literally been one of the hardest days of hiking ever for us, and this coming from two women who have successfully climbed the beast that is Mt. Whitney. I will say, however, that 'what goes up, must come down' is true in a more figurative sense, as exemplified in our lodging transition from exquisite to disheartening. When mom and I arrived in Le Bousquet d'Orb yesterday afternoon we found ourselves in a quaint and adorable converted barn with the most comfortable bed and comforter we've so far come upon on the Camino. So comfortable, in fact, that we spent the rest of the day, all 8 hours, in bed. The only thing worth tearing us away from our quilted sanctuary was dinner. The proprietors of La Borio, Victoria and Ray, served up warm salmon quiche atop crispy butter lettuce, Kiev cocktails, curried vegetable, olive and chickpea stew (for me) and tandoori curried chicken (for mom) and couscous, with a martini glass of strawberries, fresh whipped cream and meringue for dessert. Other than being delicious, it was a reminder that we have to remember to bring the camera to dinner.

Breakfast was equally inspired, filling us with fuel and a positive outlook. The room we have found ourselves in this evening, on a lower note, is the most expensive so far, yet holds the record for the dustiest and most bizarre decorating sense. I have included pictures, of course, so you can see fully the contrast. [I do want to note that the owner was a gentleman and made us a sweet meal, despite the fact that the only two colors in in were white and yellow. He also arranged a ride for us the next day to get our hike down to a more doable 10 miles.]

Thankfully, the mist did not turn to rain on our hike other than a few scattered sprinkles. Yet, as we dragged our weary bodies up the insatiable mountainside, using our trekking poles as crutches and our water tubes as I.V.s and listening to the constant ironic chant of the cuckoo birds that inhabit the forests of France - "Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Cuckoo" - I realized their taunting might hold some grain of truth. Are we crazy to be doing this? As I write, mom is looking for a shorter route for tomorrow as another "Hard" day, as the guide refers to today and tomorrow, may take us so far down, we may never come back up.


Last night's lodging is lovely.


The shroud rolls in.








We take time to savor the details.


An unexpected shelter - i.e. lunch.


Our own green tunnel.


The only other pilgrim we saw on the trail. Take note of her keen fashion sense.


Someone took a wrong turn. And for once it wasn't us.


The odd decor begins, but my favorite is next...


I mean, huh?


But the village - once we finally reached it - is picturesque.

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Location:Chez Camille, Saint-Gervais sur-Mare

Facing Fears and Making Friends

I am currently eating pizza and drinking white wine in bed (jealous yet?), trying to take the edge off the chill earned from walking the last five miles to Le Bousquet d'Orb in the rain. Oh, rain pants, I picture you now lying snug in my dresser drawer, having been discarded in a fury of lightening my load. Mainly, though, I'm lamenting the fact that I forgot to take a picture of our new friends Florent and Jean-Pierre, a young Frenchman and older Québécois gentleman who paired up on the trail back in Saint Gilles to keep each other safe, and unbeknownst to them, became the guiding light in our rock-ladened path.

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

Highlights - Aniane to St. Jean de la Blaquiere to Lodeve

Tea time at La Colombe Verte in Aniane. Annie - a poet, baker, cookbook writer, painter and gardener - brings it to our private apartment upstairs and then takes our clothes for an actual spin in a washing machine!


Our drying system becomes a work of art.

For breakfast Annie makes us homemade spice bread and French press coffee. Each homemade jam is labeled for what type of person would most enjoy it - an adventurer, a poet, a magician and lover.


We journey to St. Guilhem le Desert, known as the most picturesque village in all of France. We concur.





The village has many water spouts for pilgrims. I give one a go at a moss covered spout. And man is it delicious. Cold and crisp.


Apparently, the church frowns upon popsicles.









Making friends.


The view from our patio at Chez Charlotte in St. Jean de la Blaquiere. Workers harvesting grapes.


Today's walk to Lodeve begins. A short 10-miler.


Headstones of pilgrims who died on the trail from disease and dehydration. Really put a spring in our step!


Lodeve! We stop at a pizza stand at the bottom of the hill, and I eat a whole one to myself - crispy thin crust, red peppers, mushrooms, eggplant - washing it down with a cold beer. We see the pilgrim couple who shared our apartment the night before and give them each a slice. Mom holds her own in a French conversation with them. She's so proud. As am I! The pizza guy even compliments her.


Outside the painter's Mecca where we will spend the night. The couple are British. We make friends with their dogs Ella and Gigi.


The patio and sunshine calls... Where I write to you now.

Tomorrow 15 miles. They say rain. Oy.

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Location:France