Arrived: Arzacq-Arraziguet 4:30pm
Total hours: 8.25
Total kms: 32.2
Accumulated kms: 614.5
Weather: Sunny and raining in cycles
There was an ocean theme rolling on today. Early in the day, just outside of Aire-sur-l'Adour, the path came down through a forest to a huge lake, and as I came down through the trees and the water came into view, I had such a ridiculous longing to see the ocean. Even though the lake was substantially (and understandably) smaller, it was nice to stand there a while and take it all in.
Then the weather rolled through like breakers at the beach. At 5am, the rain thundered down outside. When I left however, clear blue as far as the eye could see. An hour later and heavy, grey clouds tumbled in and spent themselves, giving way to more sun. This happened all day long, I don't think I've ever seen anything like it. When the sun came out, the clouds almost completely vanished for a time then, off in the distance across the wide, flat plains I was mainly walking through, you could see a huge hand of darkness come reaching out over the countryside. As I neared my accommodation the meanest one yet gathered strength, bellowing loudly. I arrived at the gite and walked into the office literally seconds before the immense downpour began. Twenty minutes later - sunshine outside!
I met two lovely Swiss people today, Lillian and Thomas. They were also at the gite last night. They've walked from their house in Switzerland, which so far has taken about two months. They live about 3km from the Camino Trail (this leg begins in Germany and winds down into Switzerland, through Geneva and eventually into France and Le Puy, where I began), so they just packed, locked their doors and set out. They were really nice, unfortunately I don't think I'll be seeing them again as they stopped about 10km back and I'm walking a little faster than they are. I must admit to a slight pang of jealousy that I'm no longer the person walking the farthest of everyone I've met, but that will pass.
So, I'm in this gite on my own tonight, my clothes are drying in front of the heater and I'm hoping for sunshine all day tomorrow. Oh, and I passed two signs today - one told me I was 953km from Santiago de Compostella, less than an hour later another told me I was 924km away. Either way, I'm well under the 1000km to go sign I've been looking for. Yay!
These clouds looked much more intimidating in real life.
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