Day 5–Tuesday, July 4. Bidarray, France (12 miles)

Happy 4th of July to all our family and friends back home in the states. We are planning on a short day so we can have time to get a good seat for the fireworks here tonight. It’s a rare treat for me to not have to work in a tire plant over the 4th. I usually have to catch the fireworks on December 28th with all the other CTNA employees.

I’d like to give a special shout out to a few people. First off, my Aunt Margaret turned 29 for the 48th time on July 2 (I know she’s saying the 47th time, but the first time counts as well–don’t argue math with an engineer). Happy Birthday, Margaret. I miss you and love you.

Secondly, I know I’ve already missed it, but there’s a tradition at the Settlement in Mt Vernon to have a 4th of July blowout (canon and quiet roosters all night). Dan and Sue have been great friends to me over the years. They played a big part in making our escape from the corporate world possible. They volunteered their time to come down and help me fix up my place to make it market ready. Sue is also celebrating a special birthday this year. I don’t know how women feel about people knowing when they turn 60, so I won’t mention her age. Happy Birthday, Sue.

Housekeeping aside (how gallant to call family and friends housekeeping, but I used to be “organizational inventory” so deal with it), I’ll share a bit about our day. We woke up BEFORE 8 (10 minutes, but it’s before). We got going by our new standard starting time of 9. We seem to e sleeping about an hour and a half later than when we were on the Camino, but then we hike until 8 at night (with lots of rest breaks and foot soakings).

The climb we started yesterday didn’t finish itself through the night so we picked up where we left off. A two mile walk with a steady, steep incline. We came to a charming chapel in a grove of trees with horses hanging all around. This was built to honor Mary of the Hawthorne Bush. The Virgin Mary appeared to a shepherd in a bush on the side of the mountain. No one questioned his sobriety, so a shrine and chapel were built. It really is a beautiful setting on the side of the mountain.

We were watching other people go by and start climbing to the peak. We couldn’t convince ourselves to get going because we were so hot. We just sat and cooled off for about 20 minutes. We could delay no longer so up we went. When we got to the turn everyone else had made to the summit, we noticed everyone coming back down just as we were following them up. They had made a wrong turn. Our long break didn’t cost us any extra effort and we caught up with everyone in front of us. We met Nadja from Namibia in Africa. She speaks German and English fluently.

Today was a lot of ups and downs but in the full sun. There were shady spots along the trail for us to hide from the heat periodically. In another 3 miles, we decided we needed a lunch break. We were in the middle of a descent and saw a great shady grove of trees. We picked our tree to lean back on and watch other hikers pass us while we had our PB&J wraps.

When we got back to hiking, we met a bunch of older French hikers. They seemed very intent on passing information on to us, but none of them spoke English. We signed for a bit while their one English speaker caught up. They were giving us a warning that 4 people had gotten hurt on the descent into Bidarray last Saturday while Pam and I were doing our marriage tent retreat in the rain and that we should take an alternate route. We didn’t quite understand everything they said, but they were very friendly and joking with us. They were day hiking and found out we were going all the way across France just after we had done the Camino. I think they were slightly impressed.

As we continued on in the hopes of finding a restaurant back in the mountains (the French guidebook says it’s there, or it might be the sight of a political massacre–my French needs a lot of work), we ran into another French man that was trying to communicate with us when he found out we were heading to Bidarray. He got very frustrated with himself because he can read English and understand it when spoken, but can’t speak it. We got google translate out but it has it’s problems with an English keyboard. He managed to tell us to take the left trail into Bidarray.

In another mile or two, we did find the restaurant in the middle of nowhere. It was a very nice family farm in a pass that caters to hikers on the side. It looks like they might have a local following as well because they had a very nice dining room. We got ham and cheese sandwiches (I have never eaten so much ham in my life). When we were getting ready to leave, the woman was emphatic that we take the orange trail into Bidarray.

Leaving the restaurant, we saw Nadja and the French man she was hiking with. We stopped them and asked if they had heard anything about the trail being in bad shape. They hadn’t. We told them we had been warned 3 times to not take the trail. When we got to the top of Mehatche Pass, they decided to take the main trail while Pam and I whimped out and took the alternate route.

The alternate was longer, so I don’t feel like we cheated. I was running low on after, so we had to stop and filter a few liters (the whole brown urine thing hasn’t disappeared, but we have traced it to dehydration so I’m trying to drink more–3+ liters today and good progress, so I won’t mention this again). We were going to stop at the first level spot by water we could find to camp for the night. There wasn’t a level spot anywhere in 4 miles of trail so we ended up hiking all the way into town.

While we were trying to decide what to do, a car pulled up next to us. We saw Nadja in the back seat. She told us we had made the right decision to take the alternate. They had gotten a ride to a campground down the road. They told us it was a 30 minute walk–again, no directions or distances. We started heading to the campground. After 15 minutes, the car came back and picked us up to take us to the campground. We would have never found it. It was over 2 miles and a convoluted path. We were concerned when we got to the place because no one was around.

Eventually, a French woman came and let us in the gate. She spoke English and told us she’d get us back to the trail at whatever time we wanted in the morning. She spent 6 years in Australia many years ago is how she learned English. She and her husband bought the land where we are staying in 1977. Sadly, he died 12 years ago and she just keeps building things on the property. She told us the cost was 10 Euros whether we camped or stayed inside with a bed. No tent tonight and unexpected showers that weren’t in the forecast.

We were ready to see the fireworks, but they were cancelled–must be budget problems.