Via Podiensis: Decision Point

11 September 2023 Thom Pilgrim Reports, Via Podiensis

Jacopo and I spoke last night about today’s route. It was planned to be a long one, more than 33 km, but the possibility exists of breaking it in half. Doing so would be the first major change I had in my planned schedule, but especially given the heat, I have been thinking about it for some days.

The truth is, splitting this stage had been on the table even when I initially planned out this trip many months ago.

When I woke up this morning, later than I wanted to, I had still not reached a decision about today. My plan, essentially, was to see how I felt when I hit the midway point, and what the time and temperature was when I did so.

I was not off to an auspicious start; it was almost 6:30 by the time I had breakfast and left the gîte. I soon made my way back to the Cathedral, took one last selfie with the musketeers, and picked up the Camino Route. The markers through town were little brass plaques in the middle of the street. During the daytime, they were quite shiny, but under the street lamps, they were a little harder to pick out.

The route took me on a bridge over the River Baise before returning to follow the river for a bit. This is where the street lights ended, and I had to get out my flashlight. I walked on grass beside the riverbank. The sound of traffic faded behind me and it was a peaceful, comfortable walk. The year was cool but humid.

Note to self: when you need to scratch your nose, don’t use the hand that has the flashlight attached to it.

Eventually, I climbed steps up to an embankment and crossed the Avenue des Mousquetaires before striking off through forest and parkland. Markings were not very good, and once again I was relying on my app. Fortunately, I soon picked up the trail markers again.

The Camino took me through a residential neighborhood before taking a hard right into another wooded area. After walking a while, I realized I hadn’t seen a marker in a bit, so I checked the app. I was apparently off route, on an unmarked road that was however paralleling the route. Since I was going in more or less the correct direction, I made a decision to keep going rather than turned back.

This, as it turns out, was a tragic error. I was completely lost, and Google maps was no help, since the road I was on apparently didn’t exist.

I swear, anybody could write these blog posts. They all look something like this: Thom gets up in the dark and misses the trail markers and gets completely lost. Then there’s a lot of walking. Then it gets really hot. There were some pretty churches and things. Done!

It’s so strange. Before I arrived in Rocamadour, I was never lost for more than a moment. Very nearly every day since, I have gotten lost along the Way at least once.

I continued to walk down the road that didn’t exist, but which I suspected would get me back on the Camino a little further on, in perhaps an hour. Hopefully.

Meanwhile, there was a black and white cat following me.

Eventually, I clambered up a steep embankment (and lost the cat) to get to a road that I was pretty sure would take me back to the Camino. I was rewarded with a gorgeous sunrise behind me. I was once again in farm country, though this time much of the land directly adjacent to the road on either side was vineyards.

I passed through the tiny village of Couchet, maybe a dozen houses, but the first actually reliable landmark I had seen since I lost the Way. It was only now that I was confident of regaining the Camino without backtracking. I mean, I had to cut through somebody’s yard and then walk through a vineyard, and it wasn’t technically a road at this point, but there was definitely a long line of trees indicating where the road used to be.

Eventually, I passed a cairn with a pair of hiking shoes and came to a gravel road. I would only walk down the road perhaps a hundred meters before I came to my first Camino trail marker. I checked my app to confirm, and I was definitely once again on the correct path. It was about 7:50 AM. It’s hard to say whether I took a shortcut or the long way around.

I was soon walking a comfortable forest trail with occasional clearings, where I could see the rolling farmland stretching away.

At about 8:10 AM, the Camino left the forest and I passed two interesting things. The first was a marker that indicated that Santiago de Compostela was exactly 1000 km away. I think that’s kind of dubious but points for effort. The second thing I passed, or rather passed over, was a ninth century bridge, much restored over the centuries, most recently in 1998.

At this point, I also knew for certain where I was on the guidebook map, and it wasn’t good. I was approximately 6.3 km down the Camino from Condom, but I had already walked 8.4 km.

After this, the Camino was back to its default mode for the past few days, dirt/stone/gravel road with vast open fields surrounding it, with some roadwalking and occasional tree cover or vineyards, just to spice things up a bit.

Out of an abundance of caution, I put up the umbrella at about 8:40 AM. Shortly after this, I spotted my first Pilgrims of the day. They were a long way ahead of me. I passed them about 9 o’clock.

At about a quarter to ten, while winding my way through some scattered houses, I spotted a group of four pilgrims ahead of me. As I got closer, I realized there quite a few ahead of me, gathered around the sign announcing the town of Montréal.

The town of Montréal-du-Gers was my make or break decision point. I was more or less on schedule, but the question was, did I think after taking a short break here I would have enough time and energy to make it to Éauze, still some 16 km away (and possibly closer to 18 km) before the end of the day?

It was 10 AM and 73°. In the approximately four hours it would take me to walk Éauze, it would be 87°, give or take. The terrain looked relatively flat.

God help me, I decided to go for it.

I refilled my water bottles and bought two Snickers bars just in case. I hadn’t seen those for sale in more than a week.

The local church was closed for repairs, so I prayed outside the doors and headed back out onto the woods.

It was somewhere around 11:15 before the Camino revealed anything but a green forest tunnel. It was still under the shade of trees, but I could see farmland now to the left. Inevitably, we soon left the woods entirely for the open countryside, which in this case was vineyards hung heavy with grapes as far as the eye could see.

The Camino turned down a broad asphalt walking trail through the woods, eerily similar to the one I mistakenly took this morning. It didn’t last long, though. Soon, I was on a dirt trail which was much more comfortable to walk on.

I arrived at the little hilltop village of Lamothé at just before 12:30, which meant I was running about 30 minutes behind where I’d hoped to be. Nonetheless, I stopped at the local snack bar for an Orangina and a sandwich to get me through that last 8 km.

So now, I was running an hour behind. But I was feeling fantastic. The little café I stopped at, named after a card game of my youth, even filled my water bottles up with cold water.

Unfortunately, the cute little chapel I saw as I left the little village was locked up tight.

I had already done 29.9 km today according to my tracker, and there were 8 km left according to the guide books. One way or another, I was going to break my record again. I felt much better than I had at this point the other day. It was 84° and back to the asphalt through the woods.

While I did not answer the age-old question “just how many rosaries can a person pray in one day?” I did go a long way in perfecting my system for praying the rosary while using hiking poles.

As I approached the town, all pretense of tree cover vanished, and it was some pretty hot asphalt radiating up at me. I could feel it through my shoes.

I entered the town on the sidewalk next to the main road. The temperature dropped every time I stepped into the shadow of a tree. There weren’t nearly enough of them.

As I approached the old town, of course, there were more buildings and closer together, so it was possible to walk in shadow pretty consistently at that point. Finally, I took the umbrella down. I was sitting in front of the Cathedral by 2:45 PM, having walked 37.2 km today. The temperature was 86°. And I didn’t actually feel too bad.

The last 2 km were tough, no doubt about it, but I was going pretty strong right up until about then.

Checked into the gîte communál, so no wifi. Showered, then returned to the Cathedral for a visit.

I’m not sure what I was expecting, although the outside promised Gothic goodness. The inside is… odd. The interior plaster work, if it ever existed, has been removed from every surface leaving the interior rough stone and brick work throughout. In the middle of this rustic surface are delicate Gothic stone works and artwork and statuary from many different periods and styles.

The place where this is most successful is the sanctuary itself. Mosaics and stained glass windows reach up to the vaulting and provide much-needed color and movement. The furnishings are a rich wood with Gothic details that nicely mirror the arches of the windows. The main altar and two different processional crucifixes seem to be a much later style, perhaps 17th or 18th century, which you wouldn’t think would work in the setting, but somehow it does.

Some of the chapels try for the same effect, but are definitely more hit and miss, and often way too busy. Two of the vaults in the side chapels are supported by timber framing, and it looks like there is repair work in progress. Several more have been converted for other uses.

One seems to be a gallery of children’s art and information about the restoration of the building.

Weirdly, one of the side chapels appears to have been turned into a lounge of some kind. I actually found this both jarring and disturbing.

Two of the side chapels are only accessible by walking through the sanctuary and appear to be used for storage.

And then there’s the one labeled Chapelle Saint Jacques (Santiago), but other than an extremely primitive painting of the Saint, he has no presence here. Instead, the chapel seems dedicated to Saint Thérèse of Lisieux.

As I say, odd.

I prayed Vespers there, and then Jacopo and I went to the grocery store and then made a little celebratory picnic by the cathedral with Orangina and ice cream.

And then I crashed, hard. I took a two hour nap before heading out to see if I could find some dinner.