Marcher de Pays

September 12, 2024

Saint-Alban s/ Limagnole -> Aumont-Aubrac

The devotional aspects of this journey – there are frequent crosses and shrines – must be seeping in, since the resonant word for today’s walk is ‘pastoral’.

This was surely helped by the fact that our sleep and musculoskeletal issues are improving: even the pilgrim banging around in the communal toilet at 0430 raised more sympathy (they’ll need 5 layers! a headlamp!) than pique.

This was also the first day where we got stalled in the queue behind a bolus of hikers.

To be charitable, these stages do all start with an arduous climb, given our sanctuaries are deep in valleys. We had broad sandy gutters to contend with, sometimes requiring Sumo-style side-hopping.

It should be routine by now, but, man what a rewarding view:

More bucolic times followed. The crowd thinned, we leap-frogged a few youthful solo women, one of whom kindly took some ‘action pics’, the headliner above and:

There was one minor oddity.

We cruised for a while, thinking the by-passed pilgrims were slower / more distracted / getting a taxi later… and then we happened upon the ‘natural mid-point lunch stop’ (NMPLS ™)… at 1100 😭

We pushed on, and our spirits were lifted by a sign that another NMPLS was ‘à 2 minutes’. 10 minutes later: “maybe they meant by car?” 20 minutes after that, an identical sign… hmm. A third was tacked to a tree on the edge of our destination town, Aumont-Aubrac:

So our public service for this part of the chemin is to expose this sly ruse, surely the work of some infernal power. Of course, if that’s the worst of the day, la vie est belle.