Leaving the "House in the Wilderness" on the morning of the 20th was surreal -- but would you expect it to be any other way? It was below freezing when Daniel and I left the guesthouse. The skies were gray and foreboding. The wind was howling and blowing the frost off the grass and trees into our faces. This was seemingly scripted in Hollywood. Did the Ingalls Family on "Little House on the Prairie" ever have an episode like this?
We had decided to try and make it to Aumont-Aubrac, some 16.8 miles away. No other gîtes were open to take us before that town. At first we made good time, as the paths were well laid-out and there weren't too many ascents or descents. The farther we got from "The Wilderness", the more the sun came out.
Daniel is a quicker walker, so he went on ahead. I am slower, and lagged behind. St.-Alban sur Limagnole was the halfway point, so I stopped for a sandwich (only the bigger towns have any type of stores, restaurants, hotels, etc). I had to stop at a boulangerie (bread shop) for the bread and a boucherie (butcher shop) for the ham.
Leaving St.-Alban was difficult, as the Camino route markers were poorly displayed. I got lost once or twice. Then came the ascents and descents. Some of them seemed to last forever. The descents are often worse than the ascents, because the path is often a dry bed of rocks. It would be so easy to sprain an ankle or break a leg.
The day wore on and I was going from field to farm to forest, all the while running out of energy. About 3 miles from Aumomt-Aubrac I ran into a dirt-bike rally that just happened to be using the Camino as their raceway. So every three or four minutes I was sprayed with dirt.
I finally arrived at the gîte (named "Flowered Paths"), and saw Daniel. He had arrived two hours previously. I was lucky to be upright.
Dinner by the hosts was in the gîte's dining room. We started with some delicious aperitifs from the Aubrac region, continued with a carrot and mushroom soup, then were topped off w/ cheese mash potatoes, a meat stew, and salad. Yum!
While I could barely move my feet, at least my mouth was working properly!
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