Day two - Wednesday October 20

Departed: Saint Privat d'Allier 8:30am
Arrived: Le Sauvage 5:45pm
Total hours: 9 1/4
Total kms: 37.2
Accumulated kms: 61.2
Weather: Cold and raining, then sunny, then alternate all day.

Wow, what a walk today was. It started off really well as I had breakfast with the three pilgrims, one of whom couldn't speak English and two of whom could, but refused to.

Crowded House have the song Four Seasons In One Day - the clouds in France just don't have all day for this, they like to rotate it hourly, and that's just when they're feeling lazy.

For some reason I thought my planned walk was about 34km today, but realised it was nearly 38 in the afternoon. I nearly stopped in Saugue, but once again I arrived when everything was closed. Damn Europeans and their bloody siestas. I missed the post office and the supermarket, which I only discovered after walking 500m down a steep hill (yes, I had to walk back up again).

By the time I arrived in the gite tonight I was nearly delirious. My feet were throbbing and my shoulders had locked up, and I was talking to myself in a less than sane manner. Keep in mind this is just day two. When I arrived, none of the four people in the "office" (a large stone room that was dark and lit/warmed by a fire only) spoke English, and it was very confusing for my exhausted mind to deal with. They didn't seem too impressed with me, but tried to help as much as they could. They even sold me some soup and pasta for dinner and eggs for breakfast as I didn't have any food (thanks to the closed supermarket).

Tonight's the first night I've had to share a room, and it's with Dominique, a lovely French guy who can't speak English. I just had a nice dinner with him and a French girl called Alice who can speak English, has been to Australia and is training to be a yoga teacher, go figure. I told her about Jasper's and she's promised to come visit some day.

Some things I was thinking about today:
1. Is it sacrilege to yell out "goddammit" on a holy pilgrimmage? If so, I blasphemed a few times today.
2. I passed some cows at high altitute and could see steam coming from their ,ouths as they breathed. I estimate that a cow breathes in and out once every two seconds.
3. I thought about how a serial killer could havea field day on the Camino Trail. He could walk it as a pilgrim, which would largely place him above suspicion, then kill lone hikers when they were out in the middle of nowhere. It's not like anyone would likely even notice for weeks or perhaps months. I repeat - this is only day two.
4. I thought how much I'd like to go see Paranormal Activity 2 at the cinema, but unless I see it in French I don't think that's gonna happen.

This is a cool ruins site.

This was taken up near the top of the ruins.

This was taken from inside the ruins.

This is a town called Monistrol-d'Allier (and the ones below too).

This is where people start to get really tired.

Just a weird looking statue.

Day One - Tuesday October 19

Departed: Le Puy-en-Velay 9:45am
Arrived: Saint-Privat d'Allier 2:45pm
Total hours: 5
Total kms: 24
Weather: Very cold and overcast

Not too bad for a first day's effort. I left late, and was walking quite quickly due to stupidly not buying any food or water before I left, then finding out the little towns are practically abandoned during the off season (which seems to start officially on October 15 - the day I left Australia).

Before I left, I went to Catholic Mass in the Cathedral. Partly because the priest invited me, partly because I thought it would be fun to start that way considering the religious overtones of the walk, partly because he assured me it would be short.

It was a bit weird. The Cathedral was beautiful, of course. Up the front was a huge display that looked like it would have been at home in the chamber of a Disneyland ride. A huge circle of hanging ornate urns, golden angels in worshipful poses, and a huge Black Virgin, with the crowned head of Jesus punching out of her stomach like he was auditioning for the lead role in Aliens 4 - Mass Destruction. As I was trying to process this, a bell rang loudly and a squat priest walked out, his countenance so serious I nearly laughed. Fortunately I didn't, that probably would have highly offended the other people there, who all knew when to kneel, stand and sit (there was a lot of that), who all knew what words to say and sing and when to say or sing them, and who generally all looked as serious as the priest.

There's a lot of singing in a Catholic Mass. Every five minutes somebody's singing again. It does sound pretty amazing in the cathedral, what with the natural amplification and reverb. Even the priest, whose neck was lost in the folds of his robe, and whose mouth was lost in the folds of his neck, sounded good.

At the end the priest called together myself and two girls, also pilgrims. He asked where we were from (fortunately Alfred the German was with me and told me this - in German), then we all had to sing a song in French and he gave us each a little plastic brooch with a photo of the Virgin Mary statue on it. I havn't seen the girls again; either they stayed longer, walked faster or just went home after they got their plastic brooch.

After this, my French host Guy took me out to show me the path. This was fun because he understood almost nothing I said, and I understood almost nothing he said. We had a good laugh when we taught each other the words for left, right and straight ahead. He did somehow manage to teach me the very important signage of the Road To Santiago - stripes to show the right way and crosses to warn of the wrong. Simple but easy to miss if you're not looking for them.

The first hour or so was all uphill, but it led me out of town quickly which was great. The rest of the day was spent walking along a variety of roads - gravel, grass, stone, mud, tarred, etc, mainly through country and woods but sometimes through small towns. These were almost entirely desolate except for dogs. I got the impression some medieval wizard had put a curse on the townsfolk and converted them all to canines. Dogs sat in yards, walked down the street, hung out in front of closed bars. Most of them ignored me, merely glancing at me then going back about their business, like people do.

I finally arrived in the town where I am now, starving and thirsting, and found all the shops closed until 4pm. And I thought siestas were only in Spain! I know for tomorrow though, and have already bought fruit, water and chocolate for the walk.

I'm in a room that should house six pilgrims, but I'm the only one - I guess there are some perks to walking in the off season. There are three other pilgrims here - an elderly couple and a younger girl, but the manager put them in other rooms (I'm not sure if that was for their sake or mine). I finally did some washing in the sink (yes, I'm even wearing my undies inside out right now) and as I'm on ly own I've draped them all out to dry over the not-very-warm heater. In fact, if they're dry by tomorrow; including my "quick-drying" towel, I'll be surprised.

The view of Le Puy-en-Velay as I left.

That says 1698km to go. This was about an hour or two into the walk.

This little sign means turn right.

That's snow on the grass!

Coming into Saint Privat d'Allier.

Driving on the wrong side of the road - Monday October 18

Today was the day I drove in Europe for the first time. I had requested an automatic but in Europe they're as rare as koalas. It's weird driving with the pedals in the right place, but the gear stick and your entire body in the wrong place.

My first driving lesson was in the middle of a busy city, in peak hour, on a day when all public transport was on strike. Somehow, somehow, I didn't have an accident. In fact, despite my body locking up faster than an all girl school before a visit by The Butterfly Effect, I did pretty well and picked it up quite quickly.

The drive took about eight hours - much longer than it should have, but the first two hours was city gridlock. Throughout the day it was very dark and gloomy, as if every time had taken the day off and left 5pm in charge. At 5pm he threatened 8pm with a knuckle sandwich if she didn't do a shift, and she acquiesed in just as gloomy a mood. I had to drive through some pretty thick fog to get in too - Sydney fog is like having cellophane held in front of your eyes, French fog is like being put in a hessian sack and beaten.

I arrived just before the Hertz office closed (phew!), and went off in search of the Pilgrim Office. This proved quite difficult. It was hidden in the labyrinthine corridors beneath the Notre Dame Cathedral, and those I asked directions of could barely speak enough English to figure out what I was looking for. Man, I really should have learned French before I came here. I'm not finding anyone being rude - they all seem to genuinely want to help but just can't understand me.

I finally found it with the help of a Cathedral priest who spoke English. He dropped me off and thankfully acted as translator between myself and the managers for a bit first.

There we were - four people trying to understand each other. A Frenchman who spoke no English or German, a German who spoke no English or French, an Australian who spoke no French and only a tiny bit of German, and another German who spoke a little French and less English. Unfortunately for her, she found herself translating for everyone. We managed somehow and had a great night. We all cooked dinner together and then played Rummy, two things that required very little understanding of conversation.

From left to right this is Alfred (German), Guy (French) and Rita (German).

The trip to Le Puy - Sunday October 17

The plan was to catch a train to Le Puy-en-Velay to begin the walk.

That was the plan.

I got the train to Gare de Lyon without any problems, but then found out that the only long distance train going to Le Puy was full. I was told to come back tomorrow and, dejected, I went and found a cheap(ish) motel. After a while of moping about I felt a strong urge to go back and ask someone else. I did this and found out that, due to the massive strikes in Paris at the moment, no more trains wpuld be going to Le Puy until at least the end of the week. I decided to hire a car instead.

Europcar was first, they were out of cars. Hertz was next (and I think last), and here I was very lucky. The girl at the counter said that she couldn't help me, so she called Head Office and got me to speak to them. Because my French is non-existent and her English was not very good, she thought I wanted to pick up a car in Le Puy, instead of driving it to Le Puy. If she had have known that she would have told me they had no more cars. Instead, I straightened this out with Head Office, who didn't seem to know about the lack of cars, and they booked one in for me for the following morning.

As I hung up, I heard another girl explaining (in English) to someone that all cars were booked out. I waited until she was finished and asked about my car. She checked the computer, then said, "Wow, you're lucky. We don't have any cars left - but since Head Office have booked you in, we'll just have to find one."

I spent the rest of the afternoon in the hotel feeling miserable. I had come here to escape the stress and lack of alone time, and instead was in a very crowded city that I couldn't seem to get out of, and where any kind of communication bordered on impossible. The last two days have really highlighted just how much importance I place on needing to be understood, and just how much I take it for granted.

Gay Paris

It's strange but even though I've spent somewhere in the vicinity of 26 hours on planes and in airports since yesterday morning, and despite the fact that I spent the rest of the time until this point surrounded by people whose language I can't understand for the life of me, I still don't think the whole concept of what I'm doing has actually sunk in yet.

The flights were pretty non-eventful. The jar of Vegemite I had in my bag as a requested present for my Parisian hosts was confiscated first thing by a Qantas girl. She seemed incredulous that somebody would dare, or simply dream, to bring something like that on board with them. I had nothing else confiscated then, or in the second Qantas check, or in the check in Singapore, but then in London on the final plane switch, they took my expensive bed bug repellent because there was an extra 25ml than allowed in the bottle: It was probably for the best - spending the other flights knowing I had gotten away with this gross breach of international security had got me thinking, and if it hadn't been confiscated, I would have come up with a plan so heinous and infernal those 45 minutes between London and Paris would have gone down in the history books.

But I have enjoyed my day in Paris. My host, Patrick, handed me a helmet, leather jacket and pair of gloves when we got home from the airport, and offered to take me on his infamous motorcycle tour of Paris.

We alternated between short tourist stops where I sometimes remembered that I had a camera with me, and crazed, high-speed races mere inches between buses, cars and other motorcycles. I couldn't help recalling the now broken promise to my travel insurer that I would not be on a motorcycle, and I managed to break that one in less than 24 hours of my trip.

It did give me a chance to observe the rules of Parisian traffic, however. Rule One is that you drive in your lane on the right-hand side of the road. Rule Two states that if it's too hard to stay in your lane, don't worry about it and drive in whatever lane (or number of lanes at any one time) that you feel like. Rule three is that if you can't easily stay on your side of the road due to slow cars, too many cars, or not enough lanes for your liking, don't worry about it and feel free to drive on the wrong side of the road so long as there's nothing coming. (This was clearly amended some time in the late 1990s to add, "and if you really think it will be fun to zip between a bus, two cars and two motorcycles [none of whom are staying in any kind of lane at all, pursuant to Rule Two] when they're on the wrong side of the road, nearly upon you, and everyone's doing fifty over the speed limit in a pedestrian zone where traffic technically shouldn't even be anyway, then we're behind you all the way.") I was pretending I was in some movie, probably as someone like Matt Damon in the Bourne series, getting chased by cops. The real cops don't seem to do anything much actually; it's as if they acknowledge the traffic is much larger, stronger and way crazier than they are, and their solution to it is to close their eyes and pretend they can't see it and that, using the same logic as Douglas Adams's Ravenous Bugblatter Beast, simply deny there even is any traffic.

Anyway, here are some really boring touristy photos. Some are blurry because I took them wearing motorcycle gloves and a full face helmet from the back of a running and impatient motorcycle. Others are that way because I'm really not a very good photographer.

This is a photo of Paris from the highest point. Apparently the building in the background on the far right was the first - and only - really tall office building to have been allowed to be built so high.

This is a photo of the Montmarte Cathedral from the outside. You should have seen the inside. Even with a couple of hundred thousand tourists trying to meander their way through the cathedral, there were those who were just there to pray. I saw one woman throw herself at the velvet rope cordening off a shining, polished metal statue of the Virgin Mary and start weeping.

This is where Opera happens. Note bus, motorcycle and herd of cars just waiting for their moment to leap onto the wrong side of the road and make the pedestrians run for the their lives.

Um, this is one of the gates, can't recall which one. They all kinda look the same to me anyway.

And no Parisian photo journal would be complete without a photo of the Eiffel Tower. It looks smaller in real life.

Okay that's it for me, I've already (quite literally, might I say) fallen asleep about five times while typing this up. Tomorrow - I try to get a train or bus or convince Patrick's cats to saddle up for Le Puy because I am aching to get started on the walk.

The long walk

I'm slack on the blog writing, aren't I? Well, I'm going to give it another go, this time to document a walk I'm taking from Le Puy in France to Finisterre in Spain. It's known as the Camino Trail, or the Road to Santiago, or the Way of St James, or an insane bloody thing to be doing, depending on who you talk to.

My walk is starting in Le Puy, which is around 4 hours train south east of Paris. Right at the moment there are public transport strikes all over the place, so I'm either going to be starting a little later than expected, or walking a little earlier than expected, or hitch hiking for the first time in my life. From Le Puy I walk roughly south west for around 800km until I reach a town called St Jean Pied de Port, which is the most common starting point for this long pilgrimage, then a more westerly direction for just under 800km more to get to Santiago de Compostela, the official finishing point. I'll then, providing my legs are still holding me up, walk the extra three or four days to Finisterre on the coast, which was once considered to be the edge of the world. I can't go all that way and not go to the edge of the world, right?

After that it'll be a hopscotch across to Barcelona to see a friend and fly out, and a quick detour through Frankfurt so I can spend my layover hours seeing just how much German I've learnt. I find it funny that I've been learning German for a little while, then decide to go to France and Spain - two languages I can barely even say hello in. Fortunately I have phrase books with me and a good sense of humour that may see me through.

I'm hoping to keep this blog fairly regularly, partly because it will be a good way to keep track of what I'm doing, partly because my friend Kate McAwesome is going to Thailand and some other places and promised to keep one if I did. I like her blogs, so this will be the only way for me to read what she's up to as well.

I haven't ever posted a photo in here, nor have I ever used my sister-in-law's camera, so here's an experiment to see if it works. I present to you, Dear Reader, the only bag I'm taking on this three month journey overseas:

Well, that seemed to work okay. Good, this means I should be able to post photos on my travels then, available computers and internet connections pending.

I head to the airport in a couple of hours, and just need to figure out how to fit one extra little bag of kindle/iPod/journal goodness into this very tight pack. Hmm, it seems that it doesn't fit very nicely. Can you believe that the bag (sans little bag with kindle et al) only weighs just under 7kg? This means that unless I get a jerk at the check in, I'll only have carry on luggage - whoo hoo!

Okay, time to finish off the chocolate Matt & Tab gave me for the flight, then I'm ready to go. Wish me Buen Camino!