Can Confirm. He Only Speaks To Wilbur

It was a one way conversation.

The Flats

Today was only 24 km but the flatness was painful. Things seem very different all of a sudden. I guess I'm headed towards civilization because things are getting more expensive.

Does anyone remember the "Edge" network?  It was before LTE, 4G and 3G and has been obsolete in most places I've been since 2008. For the past 12 days the only data connection available has been Edge. Now I'm back to a 4G signal.

The weather today is perfect. Literally not a cloud in the sky and 21c (72f) so I spent most of the day in shorts and short sleeves.

I bought pretty much all of my walking clothes at a store called REI. Some of it in West Hartford and the rest in NYC. It just occurred to me that REI clothes are like Garanimals. Garanimals were a clothing line where everything always matched, as long as you wore a shirt and pants with the same animal on it. A duck shirt is always color coordinated with duck pants. REI clothes are the same way. It's embarrassing. The problem boils down to a pair of light beige pants that I used to have, but the zipper broke so I had to replace them. Unfortunately my replacement pants are "REI gray".  They're like the master garanimal animal. Like The Dude's rug, these pants tie every piece of clothing I have together. I want the grunge look. I hate to admit this but I'm going to have to splurge on a pair of off-color hiking pants.

This is the topographic chart of the route and as you can see, I'm getting into the flat section. I hope the next 300 km aren't as flat as it looks. It really is hard on the legs and feet.

Glad I Brought My Laptop

Got my haircut, did my laundry, bought some shoes, argued with AT&T, tried to work out the Skype thing, talked to Mom and Dad and bought a map (albeit the wrong map).  Declaring the off day in Castres a success but looking forward to getting out of here. Very nice town but ... If you know what I mean

But I did have great wifi here so I downloaded three episodes of Better Call Saul and all of season two of Veep, which I'm about to watch on my laptop!

She Said It Couldn't Be Done

Sabrina, the B&B lady from last night was positive. It would be unthinkable for anyone to get lost doing from Bouisset to Castres.

As I pulled into the extremely quaint village of Cassounes I sensed something wasn't right. Where were the red and white way-marks?  I'll dispense with the excuses except to say that the morning was mostly through a logging region and there didn't seem to be many places for a way-mark. But it was all downhill like it was supposed to be and my shadow indicated that I was headed west.

Anyway, I ran into a guy on the street and asked him where the Chemin St. Jacques was. He gesticulated in multiple directions and motioned me to go inside his house. The wife and three kids heard the commotion and gathered in the front room. The man graciously explained that people mistakenly ended up in Cassounes all the time. He drew me a map which showed the mark that I had missed was five km back up the logging road and from there it would be another six km to Boissezon (the town I THOUGHT I was in).  He gave me a look of resignation and seemed to think that was the only option. His son, who seemed to be in his late teens spoke a little English and vetoed Dads conclusion. He insisted that I should take the main road to Boissezon because it was only six km from where we were. Dad concurred and drew me another map showing me exactly what to do when I got to Boissezon to pick up GR653.

The road was a little hairy so I went as fast as I could, and made it in just over an hour. I immediately saw the GR653  sign and headed down. After about 100 meters it became a fairly steep uphill for at least the next km. I say "at least" because that's when I ran into two guys with long distance backpacks and hiking poles coming from the other direction. One of them said "Are you coming from Castres?"  I said no, that I was going TO  Castres. "That's funny" he said, "So are we!".  The GR routes are marked the same way in both directions. I was on GR653 allright, but headed the wrong way. If I hadnt run into them I would have gone back to the turn I missed. The only mark would have been back to Bouisset, where I would have explained to Sabrina that she was wrong about it being impossible to get lost on the way to Castres. 

The two guys are the ones whose footprints I've been following for the last couple of days. I past them yesterday when they stopped earlier than I did. Dominic is the guy I talked to. He's French but lives in England. The other guy is Luigi. I'm guessing Italian. They only went as far as Boissezon today but our paths will probably cross again, so to speak. Even after 9.5 hours and 36+ km, it was a beautiful day to get lost.

I almost forgot that I got my first glimpse at the Pyranees this morning. Spectacular!  These two pictures are of that view (look closely) and of Cassounes - the village I didn't mean to visit.

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!