St. Gervais sur Mare

The 13 winds were great!  Most of them seemed to be at my back the whole time!

Carrefour is a French grocery store chain and there are smaller ones called Carrefour Express. They're somewhere between a 7/11 and Whole Foods. They sell the greatest snacks. My new all-time favorite snack is Saupiquet Thon Sauce Mayonaise (tuna in mayo sauce). It's tuna, mayo, dijon mustard and finely chopped peppers. They come in single serving cans and I can't get enough of them. My rule of the road is to only eat them when there's a garbage can nearby and unfortunately there were no garbage cans on today's route.  And my pack still smells faintly of the empty sardine can I stuck in it two years ago.  I should have listened to the wisdom Dave got from the Maharishi about the garbage bags! Anyway, all I had for lunch today was a banana and an orange. I'm off to get pizza soon.

I'm in the municipal gite here and while it's very comfy and I have my own room, there's no wifi. I'd really like to show you some of the pictures from today but data charges are crazy this time around.

I've always been a believer that hills are worth climbing because of the views from the top and today really proved it. It was an 800 meter climb followed by a 700 meter descent but it was worth it. I think this was the last brutal descent for awhile; tomorrow is a thousand meter climb but the route stays on a plateau of the central massif for a couple of days before heading back down to the plains of Gers. 

I don't want to jinx myself but it's incredible how nice and helpful French people are, at least in these small towns. Most of them, even to y ones with populations of less than 500 have tourist offices. The one today called around trying to find me a Chambre d'Hote and when none were open, a random lady walked me to the town hall to hook me up with my municipal digs.

I have a quiz for you. I may have mentioned this in my now lost Le Puy blog a couple of years ago but I had forgotten this until I re-learned it today. Here goes:  in the Occitan language, if Lanquedeoui was northern France and Languedesi was Spain, what was their word for "yes" in southern France?

First correct answer posted in comments gets a can of Saupiquet Thon Sauce Mayonaisse!

The tourist office has wifi and although it's closed now, the lady gave me the password and told me I should be able to sit on the ledge outside and it will work. We'll see. Off I go.