Camino Dagboek: 30 April 2019 Msafiri's letter.

Hi Shingy, last night, we had a memorable dinner and lots of joking with our Welsh host.

The other pilgrim in the gíte was a French retiree and agnostic. When we asked him why he was walking, he said he was looking for meaning in his life. Eish, I think it may be better to ask that question sooner than later in life. Later in the day, Punda and Mpanzi were discussing this. Punda said Solomon said something like this:

"Enjoy your food and wine while you can and your life while you are young, but remember your Maker in that time. Also, don't forget to enjoy the love of your life, and you must walk while you can."

But I don't know if that is what Solomon said. Let me stop before Mpanzi raps me on the knuckles. I'd rather tell you about the day's walk.

Today was another walk-in-the-park day, not in the sense of being easy but in the sense of beauty. This countryside is truly like a beautiful garden, squeakingly clean about 99% of the way!

After an excellent breakfast of coffee in bowls (they don't use cups for coffee here) and fresh bread, we departed in a cool mist.

We descended 300 meters with much ooh and aah down to Monistrol-d'Allier on the river Allier. There is no shortage of water in this country!

The next stage was a next level 422 meter steep uphill, like Platteklip gorge but with a 10-kilogram backpack added. Punda and Mpanzi just about collapsed at the top for their midday picnic.

Then it was a "vasbyt" stretch to Rognac, where they found an old French madame who sells coffee and eats from her kitchen. No English is spoken by her or any of the other hikers, but with some Afrikaans and a few words of Spanish, we did get two big cups of coffee. As the French are okay with eating your own food with your coffee, we took out the rest of the picnic. Refreshed, we could do the last few kilos into Saugues. The French pronounce it as saw; strange are the French.

We really experience some of them as very blunt. One of them had just taken our washing out of the machine before it was done!! Haha, he did get an earful of Afrikaans.

We stay in a sports centre tonight in our own room with an ensuite bathroom, the very upper-class in Camino terms.

Since a picture is worth a thousand words, let me post some photos and stop this blah blah.