Some of the things I'll miss about Spain: 1. cheap Internet 2. cheap food and drink 3. the Supermercats stores that always made me think of those little animals that poke out of the ground and look around, but with capes on.
We're in the Dordogne region of France now, travelling around in our Renault Twingo. Thieu always waves to the other Twingo drivers but they look at him with mistrust and confusion.
And suddenly, it's hot. So hot that I've been forced to wear my ugly shorts that I put in as a last minute act of desperation. It's bizarre that only 2 weeks ago we had to turn back on our trek through the Pyrennes because there was q blizzard obscuring the path. I hope it stays like this for a while at least.
We had lunch by the Dordogne river today and I attempted to feed baguette to some very nervous ducks. "What's wrong with these ducks?" I asked Thieu. "Well look around!" he said and he's right - there were ads for duck pate everywhere.
This weekend we're going to Montpelier and then I think we're making a mad dash for Berlin, perhaps via the Swiss Alps.
So I wrote a long detailed post about our experiences in Spain and somehow it got lost in the system. I don't know what happened - one moment it was there and then it vanished. And now Im using a French keyboard which keeps, cruelly, turning my 'M's into ','s and my 'A's into 'q's. C'est difficile. Tres.
The post which I lost was about walking part of the old pilgrim's track from St Jean Pied de Port to Santiago. We only walked for three days, and we walked them in the opposite direction, much to the confusion of everyone we passed going the correct way. I felt that we were becoming increasingly unenlightened the further we went, less close to God, less in touch with nature... Well, not really. Its q beautiful walk and one day Id love to walk the entire 900 kilometres but for now 75kms will have to do.
I have thought a lot about some of the people we met in the refugios each night and on the trail - the retired English teacher who was walking barefoot, the girl with one leg and crutches and the exhausted, overweight Canadian woman we met on the first day who was carrying way too much gear (most of it medicine) who was already thinking about giving up. She had spent the night sleeping in a barn, unable to make it to the first refugio.
