Damned Mud

Mud is slippery, wet, heavy when it sticks to your shoes and usually appears after a big downhill and before a big uphill. Mud was everywhere today.

But it was a beautiful day for walking for the most part. I'm at a B&B, exhausted from trying to speak French. The lady and her mother are, as usual very nice. Dinner is in an hour.

I'm really out in the sticks right now. Dk the name of the town but it starts with a B. Actually I don't think it's a town, more of a crossroad with a big industrial shed. The B&B is fine although they put me through the anti-bedbug protocol of leaving my backpack downstairs in a garbage bag and only taking what I need up to the room. Most B&Bs seem to do that. I think this might be the last day in Haute Languedoc. The terrain today was great. Lots of rolling hills and nice paths for the most part. I expect it will be warmer starting tomorrow since I'll be out of the mountains. Very sketchy wifi here so I dk if I'll be able to check.

I'm probably over excited to get to Castres tomorrow. Even ordered breakfast at 7:30. It usually takes me almost an hour to get my act together after breakfast but I'm going to try & hit the road by 8:30.

Getting into Castres feels like I'm getting off Gilligan's Island. Here's my to do list so far.

- Get something to put on my feet besides hiking boots!
- Laundy
- Haircut
- Maps
- Call AT&T to whine about how expensive data is
- Add money to Skype account
- Call Mom & Dad

If I get wifi I may blog some pictures. Either way, happy Easter!

Yay Mud

 Mud means flat. Mud means no rocks. Mud means cool. Mud is so nice and soft and such a welcome sight I felt like flopping down and rolling around in it.

I don't have a problem with staying in B & Bs except when I'm the only guest there - which is every time so far. People are extremely nice but it's a lot of work for me. Just remembering everybody's name is hard enough. Last night it was Isabelle & Jean-Luc, the dog Nino, their friend whose name started with an M, and the awesome little 10 month old grandson whose name I never did catch.

I knew from my guidebook that there was an actual hotel in the town I'm in now so when Jean-Luc told me he'd call a good B & B for me I practically swatted the phone out of his hand. I told him I need the anonymity of a hotel every now and then and he understood.

It's 56km to a small city called Castres, which is the most populated place between Montpellier and Toulouse. Obviously I can't make it there by tomorrow. From what I've read most people take three days to get there from here but I've decided to make a dash for it. I called a B&B 28km from here and the lady can take me tomorrow for €35.  I'll do the same the next day and be in Castres Monday night. I just booked a room at a nice place there for two nights. Now I'll put together my "to do" list for while I'm there. 

Yesterday: Not As Expected

I knew this was going to be a big day. It's the second biggest climb of the whole 1000 mile route, and the last of the difficult terrain for awhile.  I left this morning at nine and was feeling great. After an hour and a half of a consistent but easy uphill climb, my inner dialog was going something like this.

Me:  "This is supposed to be a hard day but this uphill is a piece of cake."
Me:  "Yeah, right?  I'm almost a quarter through this. Damn I'm good at hills."
Me: "After this camino you ought to climb Mont Blanc."
Me: "Or Kilimanjaro. "
Me: "Yeah, Kilimanjaro. Hey Steve! Look at that rock. It looks like that red marble we were reading about in that tourist office pamphlet. "
Me: "You have a good eye for rocks my man. Let's keep our head down and look for more cool rocks. We'll find a couple of great ones and bring them home. "

I make it a point to find a place to sit down, drink some water and have a snack every hour and a half no matter how good I feel. Sensing it was about that time, I started looking for a good tree stump or something to sit down on. I found a good stump 10 minutes later but realized that I hadn't seen a red & white balise  (way mark) since looking up from rock hunting.

Figuring I couldn't possibly have missed a way mark, I kept going for another 15 minutes before reaching a downhill switchback it had signs and marks for several different trails. But none of them were for mine (the GR653). 

Me: "FUUUUUUCK!"
Me: "YOU ASSHOLE WITH YOUR FUCKING ROCKS!"

Still, how far could it have been?  1.5 km?  After backtracking for 45 minutes I finally found my missed mark.  What a disaster. One and a half of the first two hours had been spent getting lost and backtracking.  It took me three hours to get 4.5km from St. Gervais.

So it occurred to me that all 20of the challenhing km were still in front of me. I did what I could to recover by eating g an avocado, chocolate and an orange but never came back. I went another 8km or so and reached a spot with a huge rough uphill or huge rough downhill but I couldn't see a way mark on either of them. So I went back. If there was anyplace open to stay I would have because I'm not in a hurry. Every place was closed until Murat.

I ran into a forest ranger and somehow got her to understand my predicament. She called me a cab and I had a very enjoyable ride, arriving in Murat around 3:30. It was a beautiful day for a cab ride!

Oc

The word I was looking for was "oc", as in Languedoc. I didn't make this up. The Occitan language named countries after their word for "yes". 

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.

Pass of the 13 Winds

I think the wind has died down a bit today. But today's track takes me over the pass of the 13 Winds. Off I go!

All Well

Limited internet.  More later.