I had a great adrenaline scare in the night. I had to get up to pee (no, that’s not the scare, that’s the norm). When I stepped out of the tent, I heard a “snarl, grr, snarl, bark” and it was heading for me. I yelled and reached back in the tent for my headlamp (no, I don’t step far away in the middle of the night). I turned it on and aimed it in the direction of the approaching demon. When I shined the light on it, like all demons of the night, it stopped charging and started to wilt away. What was a 300# creature of the night quickly reduced itself to a 10# brown quivering rodent. I just caught a short glance of its red burning eyes as it finished its transformation back to a badger.
Other than our “hounds of hell” scare, we didn’t sleep well because the tent was at too much of an angle and it was cold. Pam had the downhill side which should have been great for her–I kept rolling on top of her to keep her warm. If she wasn’t such a wild thrasher in the night, I would have slept well, but it’s obvious the honeymoon is over after just 7 months and 4 days.
Since we were in a bowl, the sun didn’t come down into the base until almost 9. Pam has never been one to venture out from under the covers in search of a clock. At 8:45, I had to make my third exit from the tent and noticed the bright blue sky. Are you ready, Pete? Brace yourself–we got on the trail at 10:30. We were not planning on a long day today; only 5.5 miles according to the dead guy. Plus, the stiff said an easy hike all downhill.
It was a beautiful hike and a gorgeous day. The temperature was ideal and we were walking through a mixed conifer/beech forest. The only problem was it was on various sized boulders and rocks. We had to pay attention to every step and if we wanted to look around, we had to stop or risk falling or twisting an ankle. It was like this for 5.5 miles of the 6.5 we actually hiked (I guess he doesn’t include easy stretches in his mileage calculations). This is what I imagine Pennsylvania to be like on the Appalachian Trail.
After we made it to where we had planned to stay last night (but didn’t), people started to appear. Lot’s of people. At first 10s and then groups of 10. All in all, we passed well over 100 people, and it wasn’t much past noon on a Monday. We stopped to soak our feet/ankles in a stream while we ate lunch and people watched. The book said this was a popular spot, but we couldn’t tell why. Some were heading on to the lake we stayed at last night, but everyone seemed to just want to play in the stream where we were eating.
Relatively full with frozen ankles and feet, we packed back up to head into Aulus. A sign on the trail said only 1 hour 30 minutes. This was great news, we’d be in town early enough to get all of our town chores done and still get a good night’s sleep. We started creeping down this huge boulder field which alternated with a stream. In rainy times this must be a miserable walk. But the people kept coming. After we had been climbing down about 20 minutes, we finally understood the draw. We rounded a bend in the trail and saw a 300’+ water fall. It was an amazing sight and it was the stream we had been soaking our feet in less than half an hour ago.
We continued climbing down for about another 20 minutes, and when we got to the bottom of the rock scramble, we saw another sign–Aulus 1 hour 30 minutes. I know the French hikers are fast, but the only way you get from the previous sign to this one that fast is a direct path i.e. Falling off the cliff and then I’m sure a rescue is still going to take more than 1 hour and 30 minutes. We knew now that we had no idea where we were and how long it would take to get to Aulus. We’d just keep walking and hope we make it before everything closes.
After another hour of walking, there was a bridge crossing the river (yes, we’ve upgraded the stream to river with all the other waterfalls feeding into it along this gorge). To the upriver side of the bride, there were a huge number of cairns that people had built while stopping for a break on their “1.5 hour walk.” We decided to soak our feet/ankles once again to ease the pain of all the downhill walking. While we were soaking away, Bonnie leaned over and said “let’s knock them all down.” Pam wrestled control back from her alter ego and decided to build another cairn as penance for her original inclination.
Getting back on the trail on the other side of the bridge, we saw another sign for Aulus. Not the 1 hour 30 minutes we expected, but only 30 minutes this time. After 2 hours and 20 minutes of walking, we’re finally making progress. We walked another 15 minutes until we saw the GR10 turn to the right to follow the river and saw another sign–“Aulus 45 minutes”. Did we pass the town up? Fortunately, like I said, we were enjoying the beauty of the trail so we just marked it up to the trail maintenance crew channeling bad dead man information.
Finally, at 4, we made it to the edge of Aulus. This is our last major village as we head into a minimum 6 day wilderness. We will really need to carry almost 8 days worth of food and supplies (we know how well we compare to the guidebook estimates). As we walked through town, I got a sinking feeling. No signs of life, no shop, no pharmacy, no restaurant, no gite, no visitor information center. How can we make it to Merens without supplies.
After walking all the way through town, we finally started to see signs of life. A bar appeared like an oasis in the desert. Across the street was a shop, next to the tourist info center. We were saved. We went into the tourist info and asked the woman where the pharmacy was, we needed ibuprofen stat. She told us the nearest pharmacy was in Seix and there was no place to get ibuprofen in France other that at a pharmacy.
Not to be deterred, Pam started quizzing her. Can you get Ibuprofen at the shop? No. How about the tabac? No. Any place in town? No. There’s no pharmacy in town? No. The closest pharmacy is in Seix. What do people in town do if they need ibuprofen? They go to the pharmacy in Seix. It soon became apparent to the woman working the information desk that my wife was highly addicted to ibuprofen and that she was very relieved that it was a controlled substance in France similar to Rolaids and Imodium so riff raff don’t OD on the stuff. But the softer side of her saw the fear in Pam’s eyes. 6 days without vitamin I! She offered to close the office and go get what ibuprofen she had at home so Pam could get her fix.
Once Pam accepted that we weren’t getting any ibuprofen, the rest of the day went pretty smooth. We bought what we could at the shop skipping heavier fruits and cheeses like we normally like to carry and got a bunch of processed food completely devoid of nutrients, but high in calories–we’re eating American style for the next week. We went to the bar/restaurant to repackage our food and grab a meal. Like all restaurants in France, they weren’t serving any food. After a little pleading, we managed to get a ham AND cheese baguette (multiple items on a sandwich appears to be taboo here).
All we had left to do was find a place to stay for the night. There was a campground on the far end of town. We headed there, but when we arrived it was already past 7–they close at 7. We managed to get the attendant to assign us a spot even though we were late and didn’t have reservations. We showered, did laundry, and went to bed hungry. I think this is going to be the norm for the next week–going to bed hungry, not the showering and laundry.
