"Bon Courage!"

That´s what you get to hear a lot in France walking the "Chemin de St. Jaques" (Jabkobsweg/ Path of St. James). Courage (Tapferkeit), is that what it needs? Vince - good old friend since the times when we did Goethean Studies in California and shared a house with Eli - and I needed courage to believe we´d meet in France. We had only agreed on a vague meeting point and time, since it depended too much on my later companion Hannes who, being a business man, has the hardest time to specify dates. Anyway, Vince got it through talking with Eli, but neither of us was sure until I arrived via bus in the village of Aumont-Aubrac in the southern "Massif Central" (mountains).

It was so good seeing Vince and heading out to the countryside. Having become so weight conscious I was a bit perplexed that Vince hadn´t bought food for one day, as I had asked him, but for three! That meant that I had to carry far more than the 5.5 kg base weight - and Vince even more since his pack is heavier made, so is some of his gear. He saved on a towel though, figuring that he is only going to wash when it´s hot enough.

Vince

Vince It took us quite a while to set up camp the first night. The golite.com tent (nest and cave) is great, when you´ve learned how to handle it. Luckily, my hopes of having no rain during the first couple nights became true. Well, preparing the sticks - who wants to carry that heavy stuff - I got a really good hit on my knee and feared severe difficulties for the first days....and was lucky there as well....

Our first French coffee in a road side cafe was unforgetable. The ingredients were quite simple: instant coffee and lukewarm water.....the price as usual. We started out slowly, averaging 20 km a day. Takes about 4 hours to walk leisurely and so we had a lot of time at our hands. Life was easy with at least one coffee per day. As a treat and for a restroom. My bowels took it surprisingly well, without even needing a regular time every day. A restroom in a nice bar or hotel - cheap places often don´t have decent ones - also served to wash a bit and shave at times.

Carrying a stove and pot, we cooked every day. It was fairly easy, one potful was sufficient. Vince specialised more on the cooking, I prefered setting up camp. He also served a great Mexican dish as my birthday present - in memory of the old days when that was the cheapest available. We also had a special water bottle that was filled with wine at the last shop for the day. Basically, we were travelling simply, but very beautifully.

second breakfast

Weather was mixed during the first week with clouds, sunshine and rain. Yeah, the rain, there was this surprising thunderstorm one night and we got punished for not putting energy into gathering strong sticks. One collapsed at 3 AM and Vince became my hero by storming naked into the rain and fixing our crashed tent as good as possible. I showed my gratitude by having part one of my towel ´system´ ready for him: half a cotton washcloth. It works amazingly well since you can wring it every so often; not so sure if I gave him the benefit of using part two - half a dish towel - as well, but writing this I definitely hope so. It was agreed that next time would be my turn....but it never came. Meanwhile, the tent-tarp construction was basically down and my umbrella was perfect to provide airspace around our heads. It even stood there on it´s own - as I found out when I got too tired and fell asleep. The rest of the night gave us both the best sleep of the whole trip!

The following day was a bit rainy, but with no wind. Is was so nice to have my (golite) umbrella. It kept me and my pack dry - except for my bare legs and sneekers - and I didn´t have to sweat in my rain gear like Vince and others. But the weather got better every day, much to the delight of Vince, who grew up in sunny Southern California and is studying in cold and rainy Northern England. It got warmer by the day and we worked on our tains and started to sweat quite a bit. Nights got warmer as well - especially since we discovered not to camp at the valley bottoms - and the happy day came when Vince said, sitting in the shade at 4 in the afternoon, that it was too warm to enjoy. My umbrella came in handy much more since I used it when it got too warm or my skin couldn´t take any more sun.

The countryside of the Massif Central is just lovely. I´ve never seen more happy cows, this time even all the calves seemed to be with their mothers. Plenty of cows meant plenty of flies, but there were also good patches of forest, so we found good spots. The deep valleys decreased as we moved further southeast (basically starting at Le Puy en Velay and moving towards the border town of St. Jean Pied de Port) and slowly rolling hills took over. The slighter the roll, the more fields appeared. Farms tended to spread out and it became more difficult to find secrets spots to camp. But we had the huge advantage of hiking during the beautiful and peaceful hours of sunset, sometimes eating prior and just having some wine after setting up camp. That became easier in a way though, since we didn´t have to set up the nest (tarp) without the thread of rain. The mosquito net (cave) works on it´s own and the best nights were those when we didn´t even need that. Looking at the stars before falling asleep is one my most precious memories of this trip.

Doing a bit more than 20 k per day was easy, until Vince got some problems with his achilles tendon - probably because he tied his sneekers so tight. The problem was solved by hitching a bit. He was fine with it since he had no chance to reach Santiago. And we met on the road at times, when I came along and he was reading. Yes, reading, a fellow pilgrim - "Mr. Northface" - gave him a thriller by Gerald Seymore and he took it since he couldn´t walk. I caught up reading all day long on a rest day and from then on we started to pass the book back and forth until we read to eachother the final hundred pages. The final hundred pages of the booklet, because we didn´t believe into carrying unnessary weight and therefore trashed what we had read. Yeah, I also saved weight by shortening my tooth brush, what do you think?

our "book"

Picking up the idea on the Internet, we gave some of our fellow pilgrims/hikers names. The "unfriendly girls" were a good example of many who didn´t act very approachable.Tthe "flower bouquet girls" became much friendlier, but then we never saw them again. The "loud sticks" were a couple in their 40s who needed a couple minute to settle in a quiet roadside church and let go of their walking sticks - while Vince tried to meditate. One of our favorite was the "curtious" - he even took all his stuff into the hallway before dressing in the youth hostel. Much to the opposite of the "giant". Smaller than his walking stick and even than my sister, all his clothes were too big and he himself was loud: eating, talking, washing, brushing teeth and most of all snoring - I wook him up and told him to roll onto his side when we went to bed....poor guy was a bit shocked......the girly band" seemed unapproachable at first, but they turned out to be fun company, 3 Parisian girls and a guy from Ireland. I even met some nice Globetrotter costumers from Hamburg, just briefly though, since they were doing 30 to 40 km a day. And there´re the "suitcase and the blond", two Belgian students working a bit to improve their French. They had pity on us when cooking and offered us their two burner kitchen, and later on floor space - one couldn´t help it but had to take her suitcase out of our possible reach...

Vince stayed for a couple extra days since he wanted to end hiking and he enjoyed the sun, hike and company too much. We had a final dinner, first time in a Restaurant and split up with the hope that we are doing more of that in the future - for example the "Via de la Plata", the path from Sevilla to Santiago....and there´re the big 3 hikes in the States, the AT (Applachina Trail), the CDT (Continental Divide Trail) and the PCT (Pacific Crest Trail).

His departure brought some changes to my days. It got even hotter, but I hiked much more. Temperatures in the mid 90s and I did 80 km in 2 days - thanks to the umbrella. It was difficult to be without company all of the sudden and I didn´t like the farm countryside too much. But I also wanted to find out if I was in sufficient shape to hike more - without injury, like 10 years ago. Well, I definitely tested that.

A bit later, after another rest day, I had done a good 30 one day and wanted to do 40 to 50 the next. During the day, 50 seemed just right and I was really looking forward to have a good dinner that evening. During the last few kilometers I talked with a fellow whom I´d seen off and on all day long. He was a 61 year old form Brittany (Bretagne) and had cycled the Spanish part - camino frances - 5 times already and hiked ones. When we came to the hostel, we found out that is was full because of a wedding. Jo couldn´t find a bed in a small hotel and had to hike to the next hostel (gite d´etape), I was still hoping for a good dinner and didn´t want him to be on his own -I could have easily camped out otherwise......so we did another 13 - sounds great when saying a marathon and a half. We shared our food first, which was a small chunk of cheese, a bit of pate, half a chocolate and two breakfast containers of strawberry jam, but no bread. I had had days of hiking with little food before - like when Vince lost the bread we´d just bought - but nothing like this. But hey, we had a really good time and found the hostel unlocked. Jo took a shower and a bed in the hallway, while I prefered to sleep in the kitchen, away from all the plenty snorers.

Jo

I met Jo again 2 days later, on his final day to St. Jean Pied de Port. He´d done a marathon the next day again, so had I, and was about done - he also carried a 10 k baseweight pack, while I had decided against carrying cooking gear on my own and was down to 5 (at the most). We greeted each other happily and didn´t seperate until he´d gotten to the end of his road. I had thought about a rest day, but didn´t like the town that much and couldn´t find a good read, so I hiked a bit more, before sleeping in a barn of a gite.

That was also the beginning of a big change. Most of the people on the "chemin" were French. The camino is different, besides many Spanish and French you find pleny of Germans and Brazilians - cause of one of Coelho´s books - and from other places around the world. I dearly remember the Italians - one with 18 kg, including a video camera, Mariano from Argentina, Ulrich, German, soon going to suffer under the 1:5 soccer humiliation in Scotland, Andre from Brazil or Laura and Annelis from Australia - who both bought a new pack after the first day and sent up to 11 kg ahead to Santiago.

Crossing the Pyrenees was the most beautiful day. I didn´t go for the expensive breakfast and headed out before anybody else - most people being on the first day of their trip - and didn´t see anybody except for Mariano on his mountain bike. Hiking uphill for 20 km wasn´t nearly as difficult as it may sound and the colors of the sunrise, the mountains, the birds of prey and many more.....oh happy day.....Mariano and I had set a meeting point on the other side and I missed it because my French map was not correct in Spain, but instead of turning around for the 3 k, I rather dicided to do another 20. He caught up with me anyway and I met Andre and the Australians, so it all worked out. And, without planing it, I had covered 210 km in 5 days.

GoLite - pic from my last bike trip

A fellow pilgrim from France who had seen me that day looking, told me a week later that he had observed me and decided that I am somebody just taking a day hike in the vicinity: "Your pack was rather small and light, you seemed so tranquil..."....yup, that´s it, travel light. All the discomfort of not having every luxury when calling it a day - and I had all I needed - is nothing compared to the discomfort of carrying a heavy load, first of all a heavy pack. Blisters must be painful, but I can´t tell out of my experience. I don´t want to get into it too much right now, since the real rain test has yet to come, but all the thoughts and money put into my gear have paid off easily already. A fellow German who introduced me to another with the words "he is travelling hich-tech" was right in a way, since I got stuff from outdoor companies and golite is late technology, for everybody else make his gear sturdier and heavier. But the same guy had paid 800 Marks (close to 400 Bucks) for his rain jacket alone - more than I paid for my umbrella, knife, backpack, rain pants and rain jacket....talking about regular store price, not my Globetrotter discount..

Spain

Spain itself brought another major change due to the Spanish lifestyle. Everything happens later here, including a huge break for siesta. People love to talk and to eat. I lost a kilogramm or two due to the lack of sufficient food while hiking so much and Spain is a wonderful country to take care of that. A little bit of money is necessary, but take the meal of the day, which includes entree, main dish, desert or coffee, bread and wine, and pay no more than 950 to 1200 ptas ($ 6 or DM 13) - if you know where to look. It gets even better, the ´good´ restaurants place a bottle of wine on the table when wanted as beverage, no matter if you are alone or not. So it´s up to you how much you drink. Or I, which reminds me of one day when I found a perfect restauran with locals only, including blue collar workers. It was a kinda hot day and I had covered some 20+, feeling like doing another marathon. The food was very good and plentiful, the local paper on the counter, the wine quite tasty and my break lasted an hour and a half - or 3 quarters of a bottle. Hiking on I had a wonderful time - maybe partly due to the big grin on my face - and for the next 4 hours I didn´t see another hiker, just a Venezualian group on mountain bikes.

I felt good the next day and wanted to do, guess what, another marathon when I heard that 10 k prior to my goal a fiesta was taking place. People would run with the bulls, a bit like the San Fermin Festival in Pamplona. The pilgrim hostel, called "refugio" was full, but I told them how much I had walked in the last 2 days, that I couldn´t possibly go on and that floorspace with my own mattress and for the regular price (just 500 ptas) was just fine. Running with the bulls sounded very tempting at first - not running, but letting them pass - but then I had never seen it even on TV and therefore didn´t know how the bulls react and furthermore foreigners are usually the ones that get hit hard when somebody gets hit, so I put it out of my mind and decided to watch. The following morning at 8, half an hour before the run, I heard that the bulls aren´t as big as in Pamplona and that everybody is allowed to participate. I couldn´t resist and jumped the fence. It was very exciting, even though I always let the bulls pass and just slapped the hind of the last one a couple times. One guy who seemed too drunk to walk turned out to be brave and skilled....and I was glad that I had read Nicholas Luards "The field of the Star" prior to my trip, because he also talks about running with the bulls and bull fights and opened my pinion.

The next day, I reached Logrono, the capital of La Rioja, the most famous state for good wine. It was also the meeting point with Hannes. Well, I got there a week early and took a bus to Madrid, where he lives and works. This week has almost passed since, we are eager to head back to Logrono tomorrow morning. It´s been very nice to rest, email, read good books, eat good food, make phone calls to friends and family - I´ve become an uncle meanwhile! - and spent time with Hannes (old hometown friend)

P. S. I am sorry for not posting more pictures, but I accidently broke my camera, bought a new one and forwarded the broken one with the film and a bit of extra gear to Hannes in Madrid. Somewhere on the way somebody did a great job taping the box - after taking my camera.....