Day 34 September 29 Aire sur L’Ardour to Miramont-Sensacq

19.9km 307 ascent 128 descent 4:20 hr. 30⁰C

Another lovely breakfast and on the road around 8am.

The food at this hotel was really excellent. The room was okay, but had a few problems. It was carpeted, which is not desirable; the pillows had a sham rather than a pillow case which isn’t what we’re used to, so a bit annoying; there was no sheet – just a way too heavy (aka hot) comforter, which made it hard to sleep because you were engaged in an endless dance of putting on then taking off the comforter; we had a lovely window with excellent air flow, but we were right over the D931 with a lot of truck traffic whizzing by every hour of the day. So you either had air (made more necessary by the carpets etc that smelled) or you had noise; and finally, the shower had a water saver feature, which made it a very slow and tedious operation to get the dye out of my hair.

Life is a series of compromises. Nothing is ever perfect. You always have to make the best with what you’ve got. If life gives you lemons, make lemonade. All things considered, we very much enjoyed our stay here. It was a beautiful town, more or less on par with Niagara on the Lake. It was not a medieval town, except for the churches, rather it was quite modern.

Leaving town we stopped at the Casino for some provisions. There was a young student outside smoking.  We got in the line and there was a woman at the check-out who was obviously out for her social interaction of the day, taking an immense amount of time. I said to the student, who was now behind us in the line, that he could go first. I thought he might be in a hurry to get to school, and he only had a coke. Then I said, you’re not going to take forever, are you. He seemed to understand. Outside, he waited for us to come out, and thanked me for letting him go first. I noticed as he walked away that he probably had gotten polio as a child. He may not have been used to being treated with respect, and really appreciated it.

On the exit from the town, along the Avenue des Pyrenees, we passed the ‘La Halle’. This was the commercial grain market of Aire-de-l’Adour, reminiscent of the ‘La Halle’ of Auvillar where we had our last rest day.

I was very excited to visit the church of Saint Quitterie. 

When we got there, there were a lot of students sitting about around the church. The church was closed. A lot of the students were smoking. I asked one group of young people if the church was open. One of the girls said ‘I can speak English’. The others all laughed at her. She led me up to the church and pointed out a sign with the opening hours. Also, the crypt was presently closed for renovations. It appeared that after Sept 26 you had to make an appointment to visit the church. I was very disappointed. But I thanked the girl profusely for helping me, and her friends all laughed. She too appeared to have had polio as a child, and I wondered if there had been an outbreak in that town a while ago.

Shortly after leaving the city, we walked along a path that circled Lac du Brousseau.

It was a beautiful trail, like a trail through a provincial park in Ontario. A sign said there was cyano bacteria in the lake, so not to swim. That is the blue green algae that will kill you. The lake was home to carp, sunfish, and bass. Not sure you would want to eat anything out of there, what with the bacteria, and all. Anyway, it was a beautiful walk around the part of the lake we traversed. There was lots of incredibly beautiful driftwood. My favorite. During our walk we met a fellow out walking, who proudly showed us a giant mushroom he pulled out from a pouch he had made from his jacket, obviously brimming with quite a few more. Hopefully he knows his mushrooms!

We crossed the A65 via an underpass, then passed sunflower, corn, millet, and soybean fields. We passed another duck farm, lots of chicken farms, and a cow meat processing plant.

We are in the department of Landes now, and they don’t seem to like to post a sign of the village you are passing through, although perhaps some of the places on the Micheline map are not ‘villages’. Anyway, I never really had a fix on where we were with respect to the Micheline map today. At least we were always following Russell’s GPS.

Much like the Camino in Spain, we were in a steady procession of pilgrims all day, and ended up passing everyone we came upon. We passed a lady from France from Limognes, who started at Espalion. We passed a fellow that seemed German. He had just filled up his water bottle and pointed to the l’eau potable, but we had lots of water. We passed an oriental couple that had dinner at our hotel last night, and mentioned how good the food was, and they agreed. He was very tall, and she was very short. We passed three other pilgrims from France, just as they were knocking figs out of a tree on private property and eating them. We’re not the fig police.

Our lodging tonight is 1km off the GR65. It is like a setting from a Sergio Leone movie. You expect Clint Eastwood to walk out into the courtyard. There is even a fountain in the middle of a horse trough.

The grounds are beautiful, there is a pool, and the room is perfect. We arrived at noon, and our bags were here and our room was ready.

Had a shower, did the laundry, went for a lovely swim. 

The water seemed really cold at first, but I think it had more to do with the fact it was 30⁰C. The water was perfect when I finally got in.  I was hoping the chlorine would bleach some of the black out of my hair, but it didn’t seem to work.

I put curlers in my hair and we’re sitting out in the courtyard blogging. At 5pm 4 other pilgrims arrived, looking totally exhausted. I asked where they started from, and they said Barcelonna-de-Gers. That is 2 km from Aire-sur-l’Adour. They must have spent a lot of time sightseeing in Aire-sur-l’Adour.

The owner has several cats and a pet pigeon. It’s rather remarkable to watch the cat sitting with the pigeon, looking at it like a good meal, but not trying to eat it. I mentioned this to the owner, and she said basically that it was pretty dicey.

Dinner was a communal event with 8 pilgrims, 2 from France, 4 from Belgium, and us from Canada. French wasn’t the first language for 6 of the 8 of us, so we had an easier time following the conversation. Some of the Belgians spoke English as well, which made it easier for us, and they did some translating into French. Everyone is shocked and horrified at Trump. No one can understand who on earth would support him. We all think we are witnessing the fall of the mighty American empire.

Dinner consisted of a lot of vegetables from the lady’s garden. A lovely salad with a separate tray of various colored and various varieties of tomatoes, peppers, and red onions; rice, ratatouille, and cubed turkey in mushroom sauce; apple pie. There was loads of food, and all very delicious.

Russell has an upset stomach. We’re not sure from what, perhaps the 3 day old cheese we put in the refrigerator at Aire-sur-l’Adour? I also haven’t mentioned that he has had a problem with his back since day 1. It goes ‘out’ every now and then, and he has to go through some contortions to get it back ‘in’. Leaning over with his backpack on usually always makes it go ‘out’ and I have suggested every time he leans over with his backpack on that perhaps if he has to fish a rock out of his boot, he should first remove his backpack. To no avail. I just hope the day doesn’t come when he can’t get his back ‘in’ if it goes ’out’.