Today we hiked 15.2 miles (24 kms) in a little over 6 hours from Lascabanes to Lauzerte, France. My Apple watch says I took 38,285 steps, climbed 74 flights of stairs, and burned 2,528 calories. What it doesn’t tell you, is that during the day, I polished off a liter of iced tea (800 calories) and a smash burger with bacon and cheese for dinner. So, it’s probably a wash.
The day started off on the wrong foot. We decided that since our accommodations would not be able to serve us breakfast until 9am, we would go into town at 8am and fine a little coffee shop. Good plan, but we failed to understand that the shops didn’t open until 10am! So we had to start our hike without coffee or croissant. (Sacred blur!!!) This put Stephen in a bad mood and made JP walk even faster.
Two hours later, at about mile 6 or 7, we found ourselves in a little town called “Montcuq”. There was a great little cafe there, where we got some coffee and croissants, and met up with our friends from Idaho, Lacey and Ryan. The funny thing about this town is that if you pronounce it without the “ending q” sound it means “my butt” in French. The town has taken advantage of this grammatical anomaly and sells postcards with the name of the town and a butt. (I love creative marketing!)
Since the rolling hills and dirt-filled fields of the “long middle” offer little to surprise the eye, I started to notice geometric shapes in the landscape.
That last image was from inside my Yurt. Yes, that’s right. Stephen’s Tours has reached a new low. We are sleeping at a campground in a yurt. Usually reserved for nomadic tribes in Turkestan, Stephen thought this would be ideal for is. He told us the good news is that we each have our own yurt.
Inside the yurt one finds a bed, a bunk bed, a table and chairs, microwave, and refrigerator. What’s missing you ask? Any running water! Toilets, showers, and sinks can be found at the community water hut around the corner. (Let me be clear, this is not glamping.)
By the way, the campground sells disposable sheets and pillowcases for an extra 5 euros. (Yes,yes, yes) They also gave me a brown towel with the purchase of sheets. Kinda like a Buy One Get One Free offer. I was a little skeptical of the brown towel because an old Gain Detergent ad suggested that “you never know if a brown towel is clean”. They were so right, but I had no choice.
So I took a shower, made the bed, locked the door twice, turned off the light, and hoped I would be alive in the morning.
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