Month: September 2024

12 September

Place we stayed at was a dump. Dinner consisted of a puke worthy vegetarian slop. And it wasn’t just me. The other Pilgrims felt the same. Then again the host was just  following the Pilgrim guidebook in that Pilgrims have to suffer and they cannot enjoy food. The walk to the next town was uneventful. Almost boring. Rained a little and remained overcast but when we arrived at Condom it poured. We just missed it.

Another conversation with Honorio.

Gee Honor. I woke up this morning with a mal d’etait. Too many beer and wine.

NO, NO DAT IS NOT POSSIBLE. YOU DO NOT.

Well how do you know that? What is going on in my head.

I KNOW, I KNOW. I USED TO BE A DOCTOR.

What? You told me you were a Librarian.

YES, YES . I KNOW. BUT I READ MANY BOOKS. I KNOW. YOU DID NOT. NO HEADACHE FROM ALCOHOL.

Oh, ok. If you say so Honorario.

I DO, I DO.

On the walk to Eauze, which is a very old and historic town. Henry 4h lived here for a few years, I fell in the mud and wrenched my right knee. I thought my Camino was over but this morning it felt better. I broke one of my rules not to walk in the woods and trail after a major rainfall. I broke that rule and paid the price.

Got to Eauze but had to wait 2 hours to get into the gite. Honoario went ballistic or postal. The book said it opened at 2pm but it didnt open until 4pm. With Honoario there is no compromise. He was upset but when he tried to brush his teeth in the WC the bartender said he could not. Well, that really upset Honorario (the mad Spaniard).

NO, NO WE LEAVE.

But, I haven’t finished my beer.

NO, NO. WE LEAVE…NOW. WE GO. I DON’T LIKE THIS PLACE. WE GO.

Ok Honor. We left. He was mad. And all over toothpaste.

We covered 35 kilometers.

13 September.

Walked to Nogros today. 21 kilometers. The next few stages are all over 30 kilometers. I may split that because 30 plus is a hard slog. It will be my last day with Honorario because he wants to go fast and I don’t. There is also a very nice Polish woman here who speaks very good English. She also walks very fast. She does about 6 kilometers per hour. Why so fast I ask. They want to reach the day’s destination as quickly as possible. No time to stop and smell the roses. I don’t like that. Honorario is like that as well. Not me.

Happy birthday to my three favorite people. Twins Sadie and Katie and their brother.

 

 

 

 

Unbelievable place of worship

I said it before but whether you are a believer or not Christianity has given the world unbelievable architecture, profound liturgy, inspirational art and memorable and beautiful music.

When you stand back and look up and toward the choir in this cathedral you cannot help being taken aback by the sheer majesty, the perfect symmetry and precise and clean lines of this gothic masterpiece. The magnitude and scope of the work that went into the design , architecture and construction of this place of worship is beyond description. They just don’t build them like this anymore. I am not sure they could.

But what grabbed my attention here was the artwork that captured the essence and the depiction of the passion of Christ through what Catholics refer to as the Stations of the Cross. It was very emotional for me. At each station we see what Christ sees. His perception. During his trial we see his outstretched lacerated arms flayed outward toward the Jewish crowd as if pleading for his life. In his encounter with the three women       (pictured above) all that is depicted in the painting is what Jesus sees. Three women looking at him in despair with sadness and love in their eyes. Buy what really got to me was seeing his mother looking passionately at her son knowing that there is nothing that she can do to save his life. That scene brought tears to my eyes. It was very powerful. In all of these paintings we never see the face or entire body of Christ. Only the scenes which he would have seen. I  wish I could have taken the picture of Jesus looking at his mother but there was too much glare.

Amazing. Seeing those pictures alone is worth the challenges of this walk.

John out. Have a nice day.

??. Today’s mystery village is? Ta….da

CONDOM

I kid you not. I have it on good authority that Condom is twinned with the French village of Mont-Coq that I mentioned a few days back. I kind of knew something was strange when I came across a factory in Condom, which was named “Trojan.” A little further down the main street was another establishment called “Ecstasy.” And a little further down the block was another factory called ” In Your Dreams.” They even had a Chinese restaurant here called “Ho-Hees-Hung .” Wow. What a  place. I love it.

But not a drug store anywhere.

Alexander Dumas lived here. He of Monty Python fame, erm I mean The Three Muskateers  and Artagnan.

The cathedral here is massive. More on that later.

Walked 24 kilometers from Lectour. Left at 6am and broke one of my own cardinal sins by walking in the dark with Honorario from Spain. This guy is a hiker on steroids. I could hardly keep up so when it got lighter out he went his own way and I met up with him later in CONDOM. It was overcast the whole way but with a perfect temp for walking. Honorario is very gruff. I don’t think he has a subtle bone in his body. I think he likes my company but you would never know it.

that is him in the background

Typical conversation with him would go like this:

WHY DO YOU TRY TO SPEAK FRENCH WITH ME?

Well I am just trying to be nice Honorario.

WELL STOP BECAUSE YOUR FRENCH IS TERRIBLE.

Oh ok.

SPEAK ENGLISH ONLY.

Yeah but you are deaf and your English is indecipherable.

WHAT!

WHAT YOU SAY? WHAT? NO, I GO NOW BECAUSE YOU ARE TOO SLOW FOR ME. SO LONG, GOODBYE.

And away he goes at warp speed.

Or at lunch today.

WHY YOU NOT HAVE WINE WITH ME?

Cause I am having a burger so I want to have a beer.

NO BEER. YOU HAVE WINE.

But I don’t want wine. I want a beer.

NO. NO BEER. WINE.

And like the soup Nazi from Seinfeld.

YOU NOT HAVE BEER. YOU HAVE RED WINE – LIKE A GOOD FRENCHMAN OR A SPANISH MAN.

But…but.

YOU HAVE WINE.

And that is about it. And then the exceptional asshole from North Dakota shows up. Thanks Lord.

There is more but not now.

Happy birthday to my sister.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

400 meter hill to climb into Auvular. Every small town in France is at the top of a large hill. It is manageable but a real problem at the end of a long day. Finally the rain has stopped. Supposed to be sunny tomorrow but I will stay away from the hills as it will be muddy and slippery which is bad for someone my age.

Auvular is a very old village situated on a hill on the Garonne River. There is a very old church here and a clock tower that go back to the 1400s. Amazing. And the countryside is stunning. But nothing open. Dead quiet. But the scenery is magnifique but one cannot live on magnifique.

People I have met are generally friendly with a few exceptions. The guy I have been walking with’ – Honario is from Spain and is amazing. David, a Asian who lives in North Dakota is an exceptional asshole. All my girlfriends have gone home. How I miss them. As I said earlier the older french people are super unfriendly and will not try to communicate with you while the younger french are fantastic. I wonder why that is? Perhaps the younger ones haven’t enough years or experience yet to become a grumpy old man like me. KILLING IT. Some friends back home would know. Well only one actually.

Cathedral in Lectoure, where I am at now.

I took a rest day today. I walked 10 kilometers then took a bus the rest of the way. You have to do that once in awhile. Some of the more serious pilgrims would shame me but I say to them: you do your Camino and I will do mine.

Completed 500 kilometers. Loving it in spite of the various challenges I have had and some erroneous comments from the reading public and the crappy weather.

My street tonight.

 

It is Tuesday so it must be Sunday in rural France.

 

A beautiful 19 kilometer walk along the Garonne canal. It was a walk between the Garonne River and the Canal. It would have been a wonderful picturesque scene except for the pouring rain. Today is the 7th straight day of rain. 3 days of solid hard core rain and 4 days of mist and light rain. Everything is wet or damp. You don’t want to stop as you get cold so you keep on going.

This is where I stayed last night. It was built in 1800 but doesn’t look a day over 400 years. At least the decor hasn’t changed. Purple, pink, mauve, red and orange pastel colours. Rather gay on steroids. But there is nothing wrong with that. The proprietor was great. He told me that all his girlfriends call him the laughing buda. You can’t see his gut but his bald head tells half the story.

He is the guy on the right. The other guy is Honario from Spain. He is an amazing guy. He has been my walking companion for a few days now. He is 66 but walks very fast. He has done 20 Caminos. I asked him why and he said well it’s a great way to lose weight bai. Yeeesss. Eh Jerry? Yes a true Caminoman. I laughed. I have  made many friends. All my girlfriends left me in Conque. I have made many others. I wonder how Paul is doing. St Paul I refer to him as.

Only picture that I took of today’s walk because it poured all morning. Covered off 19 kilometers in 4 hours Pretty good timing.

You can tell that the landscape is spectacular in spite of the weather.

The Garonne River. France had some beautiful Rivers: the Lot, Loire, Allier and the Garonne. I have gone swimming in two of them: the Allier and the Loire. France has some beautiful countryside. You have to get out of Paris to see the real beauty here. It is magnifique, as they say here.

The video will give you a good idea of the walk today. Beautiful.

An appropriate song for today: