Camino Dagboek: First day on GR65

Hi, Shingy I must apologize for not writing to you during the last couple of days. The walking takes time, the daily washing must be done, mostly there is no wifi and then Punda is too tired to do the typing.'

'Let me tell you about our experience since we left Lisbon. We had an easy flight with Easyjet from Lisbon to Lyon in France and then took the train to Le Puy-en-Velay. The whole flight was above clouds and it rained all the way from Lyon to Le Puy. Nice and cool, not a hiker's dream weather I must say.

We stayed at the Grand Seminaire-Accueli Saint George. Only about three of the twenty pilgrims at dinner could speak English and we were listening to a flood of French. After dinner, we had an interesting time sharing stories with two young pilgrims. When we asked why they are walking one said it is because he was healed of cancer. It was good for Punda to talk to him.'

'The next day we attended the 07h00 mass in the cathedral. There were a lot of pilgrims present, most were French. We were the only South Africans. After mass, we visited some interesting places in Le Puy.'

'Check the half-ginger relative of yours whom we met in a chapel that was built around the year 950! It is really old. This place's history makes my head spin trying to keep track of all the dates.'

'We also visited the Statue de Notre-dame de France. It was made from 150 000 kilograms of bronze that came from cannons that the French took from the Russians after the Battle of Sebastopol in 1850.'

We left Le Puy around noon and walked nine kilometers to Tallode. It did not rain but we were all wrapped in our windbreakers/raincoats because of an ice-cold wind.

The area is stunningly beautiful, every few steps there is a photo moment. I do hope the memory cards in the cameras are big enough. It's always a crisis when we run out of memory.

In Tallode we stayed in a gîte which is a guesthouse for travelers. If the locals say gîte is sound like jeet, French are strange sounds to our ears.

Dinner was again a memorable affair with amazing French dishes of lentils and veal and lots of incomprehensible discussion around the table. This area is known for its black lentils.

Today we walked 17 kilometers to another hamlet called Combriaux. Only yesterday there was still some snow on the route! Punda and Mpanzi were again blown away by the beauty of the environment. What impressed us is how clean the environment is, with no litter laying around!

Tonight we are staying at gîte Escoule. The innkeeper is a very interesting antique dealer from Wales. He and his cat helped us to reserve gîtes for the next two days.

We are now sitting in front of the fire drinking red wine and talking to the other pilgrims.