Day 17: Lascabanes to Lauzerte
- Simon Pollack
- May 13, 2024
- 5 min read
Updated: Apr 4
The fleeting encounters delight us, for contemporaneously
Are such meetings deep and rewarding, in binding the community
For pilgrims and bards, across the long yards, find much to commonly say
We walk to find words to find meaning in meeting our kind and our kith on The Way
13 May 2024, Monday
Distance hiked 27.1km (16.8m) | Ascent 1,071m |
Over the course of a couple of days I’d been in touch with Deb and Pat by text and learned they were staying in a yurt on the outskirts of Lascabanes. I passed the yurt place a kilometre or so after leaving the village on the way to Lauzerte, and figured (as they were early starters) that they would be well ahead of me. I really enjoyed the morning’s walking, over hills and through woods, with just the right amount of mud: not so much as there was following the utter downpours of a week earlier, but enough to make it interesting and gain a respectable patina to the pristine shoe. The Chemin went past a tiny chapel where I first encountered a young pair of friends Bertile and Hélène. I didn’t speak to them at this stage but got to know them a little later and enjoyed their company.
I also overtook (it was one of those days when I felt turbo-charged) a pair of middle-aged but in-shape walkers who I later learned were called Sybille and Marie-Claude. I’d spend some time later with them. And I caught up with Christine and Catherine who’d left half an hour before me. I chatted engagingly with them, and later had a coffee: unfortunately Catherine’s ankle was swelling (maybe it was the Achilles) and she was struggling. We got on well and agreed to meet up for a drink later in Lauzerte.
At Montcuq, an attractive little town just shy of the day’s half-way point, I bumped into Deb and Pat who were just finishing their coffee. What a lovely re-encounter! It’s almost two weeks since I last saw them and we got on so well. Although they pushed off before I was finished we also agreed to meet for a drink in Lauzerte.
These encounters on the Chemin are fleeting yet profound. I’m not talking about simply comparing the weather opinion and saying “bon Chemin!” – I’m talking about people you spend an hour or more talking to, understanding a bit about their motives, their movements, the experiences they’ve had on the Chemin and perhaps some of the experiences they’d had off it. For example, my several hours of walking with Pat had been very interesting and I’d learned exactly how he had met (and hooked up with) Deb back 40 years ago. And then you part company: one is walking faster than the other, is on a different rhythm for breaks, or is staying in a different location. You may exchange a number or not; you may agree to meet up again or not (but usually not, for who knows when the paths will again cross). But you’ve established a great commonality and you’ve become friends in the way that if you pitched up in the other’s town 3 years from now there would be hugging and screams of delight at the shared memories. But you may simply never see this other person again. Profound, and fleeting, at the same time.
I was also surprised when Christine and Catherine turned up at the same time as me. They’d thrown in the towel and hitched a ride to this point, owing to Catherine’s ankle. An astonishing number of people hitched rides, a practice I consider (as does Cat) fundamentally imprudent and wouldn’t recommend to anyone.
I was not, however, surprised to find Jennifer and David in the town. They’d left a good hour before me, as they had to make it to the shop in time. They looked well laden with provisions. I didn’t speak to them but noted I had 15 minutes before the shop closed, and I didn’t fancy a lunch at the restaurant so I went to buy some food. Given I arrived after Jennifer and David, it was no surprise they’d run out of bread. But I bought a cheese-slathered “fougasse” (pizza bread without the tomato, I guess) and some terrine.
A quick, amusing, aside may be appropriate here, particularly for those with a puerile sense of humour. Pronounced a certain, perhaps casual, way, Montcuq sounds like “my arse” in French. On day 1 we went through a hamlet called “Le Chier” (a homonym of the phrase “the shit”). There’s a river called Baïse (which they pronounce slightly differently, but pronounced crudely as it’s spelled means “fuck”) and it flows through a town called Condom. At Lectoure there’s a hotel called, yes, “Hotel De Bastard”. We could giggle ourselves all the way to St Jean.
And so onwards to Lauzerte. I fleetingly caught up with Deb and Pat for a quick chat but pushed on when they stopped to look at a church. I also went past Jennifer and David and was happy not to see them ever again. I then caught up with Emmanuel from La Réunion and his two walking partners, and established a little bit about where they’re from and why they’re doing the walk (they are faithful, and coming over a week a year to do the Chemin in stages). But I was on fire and just kept pushing forwards: it was a splendid walking day and only drizzled a tiny bit.
The approach to Lauzerte was where my energy dissipated somewhat. This was a long walk with a range of challenges including tarmac, hills, and a bit of mud. The approach to Lauzerte involves an extraordinarily steep descent which is felt in all the joints, and then, at the very last, a very steep (but short) ascent into the town itself (which is a fortress atop a hill). I tired at this stage and the Réunionés caught up with me and I had a lovely chat with Emmanuel for those last few kilometres. La Réunion, while Francophone, was briefly a British possession during the Napoleonic wars and has several cultural and architectural vestiges from that time. Its main product, after tourism, is sugar and its associated alcohol, rum. The things you learn on the Chemin! At one point the girls started singing, and Emmanuel joined them, and it turned out to be “Ultreia” which is a pilgrim’s greeting and exclamation on the Chemin which has an associated song. This was when I realised these guys were part of the faithful, doing this for the original pilgrimage reasons of ages past. At the same time, they were representing their Island and all three sported La Réunion flags on their person!
At Lauzerte I found the Booking.com B&B La Tour de Cadel I’d reserved (nothing “traditional” in the Chemin sense had been available) was in fact a spectacular apartment, though lacking breakfast. I did enjoy staying there but it wasn’t at all the pilgrimage experience so was glad it was just one night.
The drinks were fun with the girls, and a few others (including Benedicte) joined us, but they scattered pretty quickly because their gîtes were serving dinner. Happily Deb and Pat made it out for half an hour and I was able to establish they didn’t have accommodation the following evening in Moissac so I emailed Anne Vittot of La Petite Lumière to see if she could take them. Before the half hour was up, she’d confirmed it so the Aussies could sleep easily tonight knowing where they’d sleep tomorrow night.
I munched my terrine and some of the fougasse in my lonely kitchen, and slept soundly in the huge four-poster bed, unaware of the physical challenges tomorrow would bring…
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