Finding treasure on the Camino de Santiago

12 May 2022

“I must have flowers, Always! Always!” Monet

Day 6 – Nasbinals to St Chely d’Aubrac

17.6kms – 25182 steps – Totals to date: 147.5kms and 223 300 steps

Today started a little later. I only woke up at 6am and only got to breakfast by 7h15. In true Princess Stephany style I have acquired a little holiday cold. Cough, nose, sore throat and all the trimmings. Luckily I have Corenzas the magic cure for everything.

Breakfast was good. A fresh croissant, cherry jam, cheese, ham and a chuck of baguette and butter and of course a slice of cake. I ate most of it. Made a lunch roll with the baguette and cheese. All washed down with a really good coffee for a change. Strange to me that it’s hard to find a good coffee.

I set off on my supposedly 16km trip, then saw an official Chemin sign saying it was 13,5km to my destination and did a little dance of joy. Bad bad idea. That messed with me the whole day. Thinking I had an “easy” day , I was not mindful of my Routines and practices with my feet. So I didn’t stop until 15kms when I realized that this was at least another 2kms away. They are sore.

Anyways back to the beautiful walk today which at first was across what I guess can be described as moors. Sweeping views across valleys with vistas beyond. First time I could see Pilgrims in front and behind.

The vistas just take your breath away. I walked for about 5kms alone seeing Pilgrims in front or behind me. I then stumbled into a new country to collect – Australia. Mike and Jane are from Sydney. A retired couple who have been traveling for three months and spontaneously booking little trips like this. I’m meeting many retired couples walking together and very often going all the way to Santiago. I walked across the moors with them for 30mins convincing them to come to South Africa next. Then we bumped into Jennie.

We all walked and chatted for awhile then they stayed at a cafe in a small village called Aubrac and we moved on.

We could smell the finish line so we continued dreaming of a long lazy afternoon doing washing writing blogs and just chilling. No no no sirree! Lots more to come.

At some point we turned into a forest lane that was very rocky and a steady down hill surrounded on both sides by either pastures or trees and of course the ever present walls. This 5kms is probably my best so far. Scary to say as everything is so damn gorgeous but this stretch of lane that went in and on and on was exploding with flowers. In the forest, on the pathway, in the rocks, along the sides. Pure bliss for a tower child like me. I think my camera was groaning at the weight of all those photos. Pinks, blues, yellows, lilacs, cerise, white, orange, purple …….. DELIGHTFUL!

An older couple, John and Jane (also retired from UK in their 70’s), waltzed past us as I was playing “Walking on Sunshine” and he said in French, as they assumed we were French, “A festival of flowers accompanied by a festival of music!” And literally Jack rabbited down the hill. Jennie and I were in stitches. We waltzed and sang along to our music for a little longer.

The pathway down was steep and quite rocky and just exploding with flowers. The hotel was just lovely and the regional meal of Cold Courgette soup, A type of regional cottage pie with cheese and the white cheese mousse was to delicious. All accompanied by delicious red wine. We had to go for a walk after dinner to digest the food a bit.

Camino gifts

– a festival of flowers just for me

– meeting the lovely John and Jane from UK and Mike and Jane from Australia

– the pure joy in my heart

– the ability to walk through the day even though I’m feeling really awful -gratitude

– yet another spectacular place to stay with a delightful meal

– meeting Jennie and getting to walk those last few long kilometers with her