We are now on our own!

Yesterday was our first day without our new friends Marie-Jo and Edmond. It was quite comforting to walk with them not feeling alone. Edmond walked the Camino 4 years ago so he was enormous help. He reserved all gîtes for us each night. Marie-Jo was always eager to listen to us and talk. It took us all a while to get used to each other's accents! We have truly made new friends that we will surely meet again. They went home after Conques.

Today is a rest day for us. It is good to stop and rest our feet and legs. We found a small hotel in Decazeville, a former mining town and actually slept in real bed sheets last night and again tonight; a luxury! My faithful sleeping bag is warm but sleeping in nylon is not for me luxury!

Some of you might be curious to know what a day on the trail is! Here is a description.

We usually get up at 6:30 am, better to have easy access to the toilet and washroom. Breakfast is normally at 7:00 am, a piece of bread, baguette usually, butter and jam, sometimes homemade, coffee, tea, or hot chocolate. The French do not vary the morning meal much. Sometimes we are lucky and there is orange juice.

We re-pack our backpacks (haven't found the ideal way yet!) and we are off around 8:00 am. The first order of business is to find the "alimentation", grocery store, to buy our provisions for the day, snack and lunch. Then we are off. Most french villages are in the valley so we often begin with a climb out of the valley. What a way to start without warmed up muscles! Every evening we swear we will do warming exercises before leaving in the morning but the urge to get onto the path is very strong. So far we have found that we are usually about a dozen leaving at the same time in the morning.

We normally walk until about 10:30 am. If the weather is good, no rain, we will find a spot to sit and eat a snack, fruit if we have been lucky to find some, a banana, an orange. Then before continuing it is peepee time; no port-a-potties on this trail ladies! It is amazing how quickly your inhibitions and shyness disappear. Are there any pilgrims coming down the path? Drop the pants and that's it! Every once in a while we will come to a village that has public toilets. But since almost all are turkish type toilets, (a hole in the floor) you still have to stoop trying not to hit your boots!

We often stop for lunch a little after noon, a piece of baguette, some dried saucisson or a can of tuna, sardines, maybe a little cheese and , luxury, some wonderful dark chocolate with almonds! It is amazing how little gives you pleasure!

The afternoon is similar. Since we have been walking around 18-20 km a day, we normally arrive at our destination between 3:00 and 4:00 pm. We find our gite, choose our bed and run to get to the shower (or showers if we are lucky enough that there is more than one). We wash our clothes, take care of our feet, write our journal and it is time for supper.

Supper is a wonderful time. The food is almost always good and plentiful, almost always a homemade soup a main course, cheese and dessert. It is a time to chat with other pilgrims, learn something of their story or get some suggestions from those who are not on their first trek.

In some gites, you help with the dishes, in others just cleaning up the table. By 9:30 pm we are almost always in bed.

Along the way we often meet other pilgrims, some that we have met on previous days, some new people. Sometimes we will walk with them a way and share stories, other times we exchange salutations and continue. We have met along the way, cousins of a previous colleague, a young
woman who knows the daughter of a close friend and many others that leave us messages in the sand or at a gite that we met and bonded with in previous days. It is truly a magical experience!



Michèle