September 12 - 17

Learning to Walk, Days 16-17 | September 12-13

Wifi is getting harder and harder to come by. There is free, unsecure wifi where I am today, but I don’t know if it will be enough to post anything.

Yesterday was hard. Super hot. According to my phone it got up to 96 and felt like 110. I was done walking by a little past one, and was able to sit under a tree with two other women staying at the same gite until they opened at 3. Even under a tree it was hot, hot, hot. But when you stay in a room that is on the ground level of a 17th or 18th century home with 2-3 foot thick stone walls, it’s like being in a cool cave. After showering and laundry (which dried in about an hour in that heat!), I spent the rest of the afternoon in that wonderfully cool cave.

Yesterday’s walk was through pleasant countryside but largely on pavement which is not my favorite, as I’ve said before. That made the hot day more difficult. Frankly, if relief from this heat was not in sight over the next few days, I would abandon ship and go find somewhere by the ocean to stay for while. But the temps are gradually going down over the next few days. There were supposed to be thunderstorms starting about now, but the sun is out. The rain that is forecasted almost never materializes, and this part of France is so, so dry. You will hear people refer to it as “exceptional” and “unprecedented”, but then they express the fear that this may be the new normal with the climate crisis.

Today started with several kilometers on a dirt road with corn fields on either side. Corn is a huge crop in this area—one of the villages I walked through today is even named “Corn”. I don’t know if the corn grown here is for human consumption or livestock. We certainly are not served corn. But then, the corn is completely dried and withered and brown, so we couldn’t be served corn anyway. I wonder if the cows can eat dry corn? It is so sad to be walking past this useless looking crop. The only green corn I’ve seen is the rare field that has giant sprinklers running. But there are not many of those, and they probably can’t afford to use water that way in this drought.

Another thing that made yesterday challenging was that I didn’t have anything in my bag for lunch except an apple. The guide book I am using said there were a couple of cafes along the way, but nothing was open. One of the lovely French women I met under the tree at the gite, and shared a room with, gave me one of her boiled eggs, and that was it until dinner. The hosts were running behind schedule and dinner was not ready until after 8. I was starving! It was, as usual, delicious. Starting with cantaloupe and whatever the equivalent of prosciutto is here, homemade liquors—I chose the red one—either cherry or raspberry—that they mixed with white wine. Very sweet! Then they served us roast turkey for dinner. No wonder it was late. They were waiting for the turkey to cook. And yummy veggies—though they threw cucumber slices in with the roasted potatoes, eggplant and zucchini, and I can’t say I’m a fan of roasted cucumber. Then of course, local cheeses, and the most delicious fresh fruit salad—mostly from their garden and fruit trees—for dessert. They were concerned about me eating the cheese because it is not pasteurized here the way it is in the U.S. I assured them I had been eating local French cheeses for more than two weeks with no problem!

Back to today. This is my first day on the Cele Valley variant. One of several variants you can take on this path—Rocamadour is another, but I knew I wouldn’t have time to walk both, so chose the bus to Rocamadour. The Cele Valley is a stunningly beautiful place with cliffs you walk on top of or beside for much of this variant. If you happen to be looking at a map of the Via Podiensis/Chemin Le Puy, I have been following the GR65 route, and for this variant I am following the GR651. The gite where I am staying is a priory that originally dates back to the early 12th century. It was destroyed by the English later that century, rebuilt as a convent this time, survived until the revolution, and now is run as a gite. I love staying in these ancient places. Especially when they have those wonderful thick stone walls that keep the room cool!

I can’t tell just how old the church is. If I read correctly, part of it dates back to the 13th cent. It was largely destroyed during one war or another, then rebuilt in the 15th century. It looked like we weren’t going to be able to get in, but a man showed up with the key and let us take a quick look around. Bishop Aymeric from the 13th century is buried there. Here he is to the left:

I am sitting in the cafe area of the priory, now gite, enjoying my afternoon beer, after first enjoying local limonade and their own sorbet. I tried lemon and dark chocolate. They were both delicious, but the chocolate was heavenly.

I’ll see how many photos I can show you from the last two days. They are uploading very slowly, so I’m afraid there may not be many.

Learning to Walk, Day 18 | September 15

Just a note so friends, family, and church folk don’t worry. I’m fine. I’ve had two spectacular days, and no wifi. I hope to catch you up soon! For tonight I am in St Cirq Lapopie. Designated “the most beautiful village in France.” Will not try to upload photos now. It’s too late to try and do that with no wifi!

Learning to Walk, Days 18-20 | September 14-16

It’s been three days since I had wifi. I don’t imagine I will really be able to catch up but I’ll do my best. I should probably start with today and work back. So it’s September 16, and I’m pretty sure it’s Friday. It is very hard to keep track of days at this point.

Last night I stayed in St. Cirq Lapopie which has the official (by some government office or another) designation of “most beautiful village in France.” As such it is chock full of tourists. It is indeed beautiful. I said either in an earlier post or on Facebook that so many of these villages I have walked through make me think of Belle’s village in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast—well, this one probably takes the cake in that regard. It was nice to get up this morning and walk around before the village wakes up and have the streets virtually to myself—apart from the street cleaner and delivery folks and other workers getting ready for the day.

Back to yesterday for a moment—I had a very hard time planning my route on this Cele Valley variant—even looking at a guide book I could not really figure it out. So I have ended up backtracking and doing things out of order. Two nights ago I stayed in Marcilhac-sur-Cele, and realized before I got there that I had planned a 30 km day between Marcilhac and St. Cirq Lapopie, with lots of ups and downs, and there was no way I could do that. So I called La Malle Postal, which is a godsend, and they said they could pick me up when they got the luggage for the day at 8 am, and drop me off in Cabrerets (where I am staying tonight), and then I could walk the remaining 10-11 km to St. Cirq. Unfortunately, in the van I realized I had left my hiking poles behind. The driver told me she would pick them up later that afternoon and drop them off at the gite where I am staying this evening. It doesn’t open for another hour, and I really hope they are there! (Note—she just dropped my bag off, and waved my poles at me!!) I made it okay the last two days without them, but I will be glad to have them back to help with balance on all those rocky descents.

Yesterday started with the usual steep, rocky climb up to Pech Merle. Pech Merle is one of the cave sites where Neolithic drawings were found. I booked a tour in English months ago, which is tomorrow morning, which is the reason I am back in Cabrerets for the night instead of moving on. I am very excited about seeing the caves and drawings. I heard someone say they are the only cave drawings in France the public can still visit, but I don’t know if that’s true. I’m not going to take time to look that up now!

After passing Pech Merle it was primarily a lovely walk along a dirt road and paths, sometimes in the open, and sometimes through lovely woods. There was another long descent, but it was not as steep a grade as usual. The really tough part was the section before you get to the village of Bouzies where you have to walk along the road. Honestly, that was the scariest, most dangerous part of this walk so far. There are vehicles of all sizes speeding by, even though the sign says “watch out for walkers!!” And no shoulder to walk on. Sometimes there is a tiny bit of space between you and traffic, but most of the time there is a cliff on one side and a low wall between you and the drop into the river on the other. I hugged the cliff for much of the time. Finally you get to turn off the road, cross the river (on a one-lane bridge!), and then stumble into the church just past the river to give thanks that you survived the road-walking.

There is an alternative, which is not part of the official route. And should be. It is also a short cut. It involves scrambling up a steep embankment and crossing the river on a retired Eiffel railroad bridge, then scrambling down the steep embankment on the other side. Even without poles, those scrambles were not nearly as risky as walking on that road was. The guide book I’m depending on said that because of the scrambling up and down this short cut might not be for everyone, so I took that to mean me. But everyone I talked to at dinner last night, and on the FB group for this route said, “take the bridge!! You can absolutely do it. It is a fun experience and so much safer.” So that’s what I did this morning since I had to backtrack to Cabrerets. (Today I did yesterday’s walk in reverse.) And even with my fear of heights, it was a cool experience. Here are a couple of photos:

A highlight of yesterday and today, apart from St. Cirq Lapopie, was walking along the Chemin de halage, a tow path along the river (the Lot), carved out of the cliff. Ever since I first saw the photos of this I have been looking forward to this portion of the walk. Here are photos from yesterday and today:

Learning to Walk, Days 18-20 Continued

Since this is part 2 of Days 18-20, if you haven’t seen that post I did a little while ago, you might want to go back one. I have a little over an hour and relatively good wifi so am going to try and catch up.

First some more photos from Saint Cirq Lapopie:

Quick aside. Or maybe not so quick since I tend to be verbose. I am sitting outside on a large deck of this cafe, with my afternoon beer, and there is the most delightful breeze blowing. It finally feels like fall may be in the air here. Oh, please, let it be so. I am so looking forward to walking in cooler weather. More on appreciating the small things later. Now back to regularly scheduled programming.

More photos from St. Cirq Lapopie, taken this morning before the village really woke up.

Okay. Now to back up a couple of days. I don’t think I have had time to write about or share pictures from Marcilhac-sur-Cele or the incredible walk there. If I ever forget where I am and tell you something I’ve already shared, just skip over it! It’s a hassle to go back and forth between posts and figure out just what I have and haven’t talked about.

I remember writing about arriving in Espagnac, and getting a quick peek in the church. Here are a few photos from the next morning, September 14:

The four photos above are coming down into St. Sulpice, built right into the cliff. If you look closely you can see how some of the structures are built with the cliff as the back wall. And perhaps caves behind that are part of the house?

Okay. I’m done. I think I’m as caught up as I’m going to be, and it is almost dinner time. One more photo from this afternoon’s walk, back on the theme of appreciating the little things. I walked by this gorgeous bush. No idea what it is. I’ve really started to notice the colors changing in the last couple of days. Thanks for reading if you’ve gotten this far! See you next time I have wifi.

Learning to Walk, Days 21-23 | September 17-19

Yesterday’s walk from Pasturat to Cahors did me in. I think it was about 20km. While there was a good climb at the beginning of the day, the afternoon was along the Lot River and pretty much flat. Which, in theory, was very welcome, but I found it a challenge. I think I was simply exhausted and badly needed a rest day, which I am taking today. More on that later. Let’s go back to the day before yesterday. Pech Merle. Oh my. Pech Merle is a series of caves/caverns with at least 30,000 year old drawings. I mentioned it earlier. However, the person I heard say that it was the only cave with drawings open to the public was wrong—or I misheard them. I don’t remember the exact figures, but I think our guide said there are 18 caves with drawings you can still visit, and maybe 180 you can’t. I don’t think that figure is correct, but I hope it is in the right ballpark! Seeing these drawings is one of those lifetime highlight events—like going to the top of Monte Bianco (Mont Blanc) was three years ago, or our hike in the Dolomites several years before that.

Here’s some of what I learned from the guide. The drawings were made with ochre and something that begins with “m” (the black color) that I can’t remember. It is not possible to date either of these substances. However, there is one part of the painting, a horse’s mane, that was done in charcoal, which can be dated, and that part is 30,000 years old. So they think the dates of all the paintings are a few thousand years either side of that. The frieze done in black, which is of several animals, they believe was done in one sitting by the same artist. They call him (her?) “The black frieze artist” and have recognized their work in other parts of the cave. There are mammoths, bison, horses, one head of a bear, some female figures and a couple drawings they call “the wounded man”. Oh—before I go further, you need to google “Pech Merle” so you can see the paintings, because I have no photos to show you. Photography is strictly forbidden in the caves, to protect the paintings from light. The fine for taking even one photo is 15,000 Euros, and the guide was VERY strict. She insisted people put their phones away because she had had a lot of trouble with a group earlier in the week. You would think people would comply with this, but she had to keep telling one woman repeatedly, “please, I do not want to even see your phone.”

Back to the caves: the drawings were done during an ice age by Cromagnon people, who looked just like us except they were considerably taller than most humans today. I did not know that. They had dark skin and light eyes. I don’t know how they know that, but I trust the scientists have a way to figure that out. And, contrary to our popular myths, they were not “cavemen/women.” They may have sheltered in shallow recessions in the cliffs, and they also probably built shelters, but they did not live deep in the caves where the paintings are. That would have been far too dangerous, and they would not have survived trying to live there. Since it was an ice age, the caves would have been far too cold, and they could not light a fire without asphyxiating themselves. Plus, animals like bears lived in the caves. The guide said it was very dangerous for them even to enter the caves. They would have only had handheld animal fat lamps, in stones they had carved a hollow in to, with a bit of plant matter for a wick. It was so risky for them to go so far into the caves that the historians think the only reason they would take the risk to go in and paint is for spiritual reasons.

The paintings have been there 30,000 years and were only discovered about a century ago by three teens—a sixteen year old boy, his 13 year old sister and another boy, who wasn’t really keen to go, but went along with them. The ringleader had learned about the caves from the priest, who was a spelunker and a pre-historian. He had shown the boy the caves they knew about, closer to the surface, and when he realized how fascinated the teen was with them, the priest strictly forbade him from going into them any further. The teen was convinced there was far more to discover and that something significant was there. So he and the other two stole candles from the church, told no one but their grandmother where they were going, found a hole down into the larger cave network and discovered the paintings. They were gone for ten hours. They forgot to mark their way and realized that in their exploring and excitement over what they had found they had no idea how to get out. But then they realized they could follow the wax drippings from the candles. When they finally resurfaced, it was midnight. The grandmother was there on the mountainside praying, and they got into a heap of trouble.

The paintings are amazing. And it is just mind-blowing to look at them and realize human beings were there, painting them more than 30,000 years ago. I loved the spotted horses, and the head of the bear, and the hands. They are “negative” hands, one in ochre, and the others in the black pigment. They are done by a very precise “spitting” method of spray painting. They placed their hand on the rock, put the mixture of paint in their mouths, and spit the paint around their hand. The guide said it is not an easy technique to master. There are also footprints—not painted ones, real ones. They don’t know just how old they are, but they can tell from the layer of calcite over them that they are at least 12,000 years old, and are probably those of a 10-12-year-old. The cave entrance the painters would have used was blocked by a landslide,—that’s why they went undiscovered until the teens found another way in, so they know the footprints predate the landslide. Some of the places where the paintings are would only have been accessible by crawling through a tunnel on your stomach. Of course, we did not have to do that! They have excavated the tunnel so you can walk through, but you can see the level of the original tunnel because the rock from the excavation is piled on top of what would have been the original height. I could NEVER have done that with my claustrophobia.

After I left Pech Merle I had 19-20 km to walk. I’m sure that’s part of why I was so exhausted yesterday. I had to move quickly to walk that far after the tour in the morning. But since there were only three guests at the gite where I stayed in Pasturat that night, one other couple and me, I had a room to myself again!

I did not catch this! I walked by this spot along the river where some couples had set up for a day of fishing and picnicking. They must have just landed this fish right before I walked by. I exclaimed over it and asked if I could take a photo of it. They said, in excited French, “no, no! Give me your iPhone, we’ll take a photo of you with the fish. So one of them grabbed my phone, and the one here, who I think is the one who caught it, tried to hand me the fish!!! I got my hand under the tail, but I had my poles in my other hand so when he let go of the front part of the fish it flopped to the ground. And flopped around. Poor thing was still alive. He picked it up and we took the photo together, then he quickly ended its misery. That is one huge fish from the Lot river. I have no idea what kind it is. I assume it will provide a large meal for many people.

I need to tell you about the most amazing “it’s a small world experience” with one of the gite owners last night. But that will have to wait. I have taken a rest day today. I’ve walked around Cahors. Enjoyed coffee, lunch, taken care of some overdue business stuff, and now I am going back to the gite where the woman I will tell you more about later is going to give me a ride to my next destination. And stop at a sporting goods store that is en route in the hopes that I can find a better day pack. My LL Bean lightweight pack, that I didn’t know I would end up carrying every day (I thought I’d be able to carry my pack), is killing my shoulder. It wasn’t designed to be a pack you carried for long treks every single day. I hope there will be enough internet or even wifi tonight to tell you about Cahors. If not, I’ll get to it another time!