Lourdes et moins lourd . . .

. . . a brief conversation over morning coffee changed my idea of walking the cycle route to St Gaudens . . . longer, lots of hills . . . good for cycling . . . some research on the Camino said the stage from St Jean Pied de Port is bloody . . . 7 or 8 hours up to the border and steeply down to Roncesvalles . . . mind focused walking the old route nationale, now by-passed by the motorway . . . the spare pullover, socks, pants, t shirt can go . . . one change is enough . . . and the survival bag . . . if I can trust the universe enough to travel without a tent, then what's the point?
The first hour climbing out of St Martory, sun coming up behind me, misty over the river, mountains calling alongside . . . good for training with the pack and the sheer joy of it . . . second hour on long, straight roads, an exercise in endurance . . . then a roundabout . . . time for a ride . . . ten minutes and a bloke in an old car pulls up . . . St Gaudens? . . . Lannemazen . . . 20 km past . . . a self-unemployed builder, returning from a quest for work in Toulouse . . . smoke? . . . no thanks I stopped a few years ago . . . he doesn't light up . . . people are very kind around here . . . hitch-hiking is very easy . . . I am not kind, he says, regretfully . . . well you are today, I say . . . and so to Lannemazen on market day . . . now that's what I call a market . . . a coffee . . . spot a bank . . . do you change pounds into euros . . . er, no, this is the town hall, the bank's opposite . . . a fruit stall . . . pick up a banana . . . how much for one? he looks at me briefly, a smile, it's free, don't tell everyone . . . a good loaf of bread . . . spread with honey . . . several passers by say bon appetit . . . lunch break over and it's hot . . . to a roundabout on the edge of town . . . ten minutes and Richard stops . . . Tarbes? nearby . . . philosophy ensues . . . and after Tarbes? maybe to Pau, up to St Jean . . . why not Lourdes, worth a visit . . . I can drop you on the road . . . he yearns to travel . . . most of all to go to Canada to work . . . his wife resists . . . the social security is not so good there . . . the suffocating embrace of the cave . . . he leaves me just 10 km from Lourdes . . . ten minutes and Jerome comes along . . . 21 years old and just completed his lorry driver training . . . a little more philosophy and information on where to drop the excess baggage . . . and so, to Lourdes . . . in the low season . . . a simple hotel, old and friendly couple . . . take the excess load to the centre de secours populaire . . . repack . . . much better . . . a tour of Lourdes, the huge plaza in front of the church, thronging in high season, mostly empty today . . . souvenir shops full of tat . . . surprised the Pope hasn't put a stop to that . . . a huge tourist enterprise built around St Bernadette's visions of the Virgin Mary and associated healing . . . decide not to mention the teeth . . . save that for the Camino . . . a local map from the tourist information folks . . . a route across to St Jean . . . tomorrow's goal . . . three days walking . . . four or five hours hitching maybe . . .