Day 4: Lajo to Aumont-Aubrac

I want to make you wet, my boy, I want to make you wet

I’ll drench you so you cannot tell what’s rain or tears or sweat

But you’ll never drown my spirit, I said, as inspiring company

Showed itself for the balm it is: abundant, present and free!

30 April 2024, Tuesday

Distance hiked 26.0km (16.1m)

Ascent 540m

This was a people day. Although Peter left this morning, I met two pairs yesterday with whom I enjoyed some time today. One, Sophie and Dolorès (a feed-firm manager and a nurse) were a pair of friends doing a five day march to Nasbinals. The other, Pat(rick) and Deb(ra) from Australia, are a married couple who are grandparents to 12. Pat is 68 and looks like an athlete; Deb, who's a cancer survivor, looks much younger, but according to Pat she's only a little younger. Pat trains for marathons, does 5km sea swims, and rarely exceeds his resting heat rate even as I (with my surplus stones and years of boozing and smoking) rise to 140bpm. And Deb pushes on beyond him at walking pace (both carrying heavier rucksacks than mine). So in this context the guy 16 years older than me, and carrying at least double the weight, is my perfectly-paced walking partner, as we observe Deb always a few hundred meters ahead. Also, he’s a thinker, educator and scientist, with a training in maths. We broke the ice with Bayes’ Theorem, and got on very well. The conversation flowing between us simply ate the miles and the pain.

Each morning I took a selfie to monitor my beard growth, but this is the longest it got due to itchiness

And so on to Aumont-Aubrac, and the Logis hotel Chez Camillou. Logis de France is a franchise brand in France that those in the know, know. Often associated with good food, it’s a sign of quality of the perfect type. Clean, functional and comfortable, without flimflammery like a seventh pillow or shag pile carpets. I’m booking some hotels on this trip because I need time to myself and because I need some privacy from time to time too. And this is one such. It rained bucketloads today as well.  It seemed to start nice, for about 2 hours. But then the rain came, and it relented not.

So I got to this lovely place and just dripped into the room. A shave (that’s right: I wanted to grow a 5 week beard but I just can’t stand the itchiness), a bath to soak the muscles, some clothes hand-washing, and I was feeling human again.

But I’ve got that blister on my left foot, up near the toe-line where I’ve never had one before. I think the wet disguises this: it’s getting damp into places I’ve never experienced before.

After a lone early dinner, on the way back to my room, I met the four women from two nights ago in the bar. They were drinking champagne. It turns out in addition to the singer Angéline there’s a deputy mayor Charlotte (local mayoralty is something big in France), a very senior manager at Accenture, Sabine, and the PA to a wealthy property developer (the one with the 4-year tenant battle), Hélène. They are educated, middle class, culturally savvy, interesting people, and doing the walk for similar reasons to me though only for a week. They invited me for a drink and so I said yes. And as they meandered on to their table afterwards and I made the move to my room I bumped into Dolorès and Sophie who were also imbibing in the bar. Poor Dolorès: I thought I was suffering but she, with an ankle she’s been nursing (she’s the nurse, recall) for a couple of days, has finally succumbed and it’s swollen to twice the size. They were only going to Nasbinals but have decided to call it quits now, one day early.

These were perfectly charming encounters, showing the difference between the gîte experience and that of hotels. We’d all sought a bit of luxury at the Camillou, and I had had a lonely meal expecting a lonely evening in my room; but I was pleasantly waylaid by these meetings originating from the less luxurious but more convivial gîte environment.

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