Day 69–Wednesday, September 6. Mantet (7 miles)

Why is it I always get snorers next to me when we stay in a refuge? Why is it that the snorer is always the first one up after keeping me awake all night? Why is it that they pack everything in grocery bags which make a hell of a lot of noise stuffing them into a pack? Why is it my wife sleeps quietly when there is someone else snoring? Why does my wife snore like a chainsaw if there’s just us in a room to ourselves? What is the point of this international conspiracy to keep me from sleeping? Who is John Gault anyway? (Just checking if anyone reading this has knowledge of literature–I guarantee none of the Pams reading this will get it.)

Breakfast by candlelight in the mountains of France–what a way to start the day. The refuge was fogged in. It even looked like a good chance for rain, but we’re thru-hikers so a little rain doesn’t scare us (says the couple who stays in refuges when rain is threatening). But a little lightening scares the bejesus out of one of us.

I got an ego boost as we were packing up to leave. A French couple who are out for 4 days of day hiking picked up my pack before I had it fully loaded. She dropped it and said “No way!” He picked it up and asked if we were Americans. I gave the spiel of what hikes we’ve already done this year, what more we are going to do, and our 12-14 year hiking plan. They were amazed, envious, and thankful to be heading home tomorrow.

The itinerary was another easy one today, only 2000′ up, 3000′ down, and just a little over 6 miles. If this is true, I will no longer belittle dead men. We may even go an extra 3 miles to see if we can get food in Py if the stars align and Pam is not complaining about (choose a body part here).

Actually, the hike wasn’t bad at all–may the author finally Rest In Peace. I did have to do something today that I truly hate to do. I tried using Pam’s visualization of a Wal-Mart parking lot but that just didn’t work for me. I went to go dig a hole but didn’t have to. I found a nice hollow between two rocks which allowed me to sit and relax–until it occurred to me that this would be an ideal spot if I were a little burrowing animal. Now I was afraid of a little burrowing animal getting pissed because I was defiling his front entrance and having him come up out of the hole and biting me on the ass. Of course, I had to keep an eye focused down below which made me gag. When I got done, I realized I had just done the equivalent of leave a flaming bag of poop on a marmots doorstep and rung the doorbell as I ran away.

The guilt was killing me as we climbed on up to the pass. Some poor single parent marmot was out making a living trying to support her three fatherless children because the deadbeat dad had run off with some young tart of a marmot from another nearby mountain. Meanwhile, some thoughtless human too lazy to dig a hole chose her doorstep for comfort. The guilt was killing me, until we got distracted by a truly heartbreaking situation.

Ahead of us in the trail, we saw a baby lamb staring at us. Of course, we both thought it was cute and stopped to take its picture. As I moved closer to it, I noticed what I had missed from seeing the lamb. It’s mother lay dead in the middle of the trail. There were no other sheep around that we could hear, so the flock must have moved up and over the mountain leaving the baby behind with its dead mother. It kept running up to its mother and nuzzling her head. She tried to protect her from us so we gave them a wide berth. Pam tried to approach the baby but it was too afraid of her and kept running only to return to its mother every time. Sadly, we know this little lamb will die.

If we were in the USA, I know we would now be a walking party of a dog (Lassie from the beginning of the trail), a pony (from the mother who died in birth at Lac d’Ilheou) and now an orphaned lamb. Pam is a sucker for helpless babies and I do wish there was something we could have done for the lamb. Unfortunately, I know the shepherds count on x% loss while grazing and that a little sheep is not worth the effort to go find.

Luckily, the trail got steeper which took Pam’s mind off of the baby lamb (until we picked out pictures for the day which started her up again). The day was pleasant enough even with the cloudy skies that we did something we haven’t done for a while; we soaked our feet in a cold stream while we ate our last lunch (food uncertainty).

We got into Mantet at a reasonable 3 in the afternoon and started looking for a gite to spend the night at. We stopped at the Mairie and they recommended a gite behind another gite. We went in search of it but missed the turn (or couldn’t understand the hand gestures well enough). We eventually ended up at a place above town that looked interesting because it had a yurt. When we went inside, we couldn’t find anyone and noticed the place was very dirty, but they did have a fridge full of cold beer. We thought we could chill a bit since it was so early.

I looked around the gite, yurt, and hotel and decided it was too dirty to stay at. Let’s put this in perspective. Someone who lived in the country with two Great Pyrenees dogs sharing the house and bed with him, who doesn’t like to sweep, and doesn’t mind tumbleweed hair balls blowing through the house is saying that the place is too dirty for him. I was getting a serial killer vibe from the place. We were finishing up our beers when the woman who owns the place came out. We were only about 2 minutes from leaving.

She said we would have to wait about 20 minutes before we could move our stuff inside because she hadn’t cleaned yet. For what time period it hasn’t been cleaned I was unsure, but we decided to go ahead and stay rather than moving on to Py. What difference will it make if we find out if there is food in Py today or tomorrow morning. Pam enjoys it when I latch onto a point and beat it to death day after day–that’s why she married me.

It turned out to be a nice setup for us. We have our own “apartment” for only 16 Euros each (plus a fridge full of beer at 2 Euros each. Beer helps to make up calorie deficits in a big way. We both showered before cooking our next to last supper. We will have our last breakfast in the morning. My pack will be the lightest it’s been the entire trip.

While Pam was showering, I “looked” around a bit and found a washing machine. It was obvious that the woman wasn’t going to use it tonight since she had stuffed the dirty sheets from our bed into the freezer (no lie). Bonnie convinced me, to once again, be drawn into her world of crime and steal a load of laundry. We made supper while the washer was doing it’s magic. We kept looking out to see if she was coming back. We even stopped drinking beer while the crime was in progress.

After supper, we hung our clothes out to dry around the dining area and resumed beer drinking. As we started playing cards, the owner gathered all the laundry she had hanging outside on the lines and brought it in to the gite–we had barely dodged a bullet. It’s the closest I’ve ever come to being caught in the act of a crime. I’ve never felt so alive. I wonder what else we can take from here.