August 9: Taking the Long Route

It’s amazing how much the price of camping can vary:  in St. Malo I stumbled hot and weary to a campground that charged me nearly 15 euros for a patch of land and a smelly toilet block.  Tonight I am sleeping in a well-manicured municipal campground in Brioux for 2.85.

Today I was back on my own, back on the GR, and back to feeling good.  Cyprien was headed to Aulnay, and had demonstrated several times with finger on map how he intended to head straight down the highway to reach his destination, because he said, with a wave of his hand, the GR was too convoluted.

We had this same “conversation” many times.  (I use quotes because I’m not sure if we ever fluently conversed.)  I tried to wax poetic about the beauty of the GR (The GR, as I’ve mentioned, is plotted for its walkability and not its directness), France, the villages, the fields of sunflowers, the forests– but I think he is more focused on backaches than flowers.

Cyprien is a destination walker.  I can see in him the hopeful desire to just make it to Santiago, his purpose of making it through to the next village, the next place of rest.  He doesn’t like the GR because it takes long detours into small villages, but that’s why I love it.  A walk through a small French village has the capability to revive—from strangers leaning out of windows to chat (that happened today) to the speckling of ancient chapels and churches and chateaus.  He has his mind set on achieving this goal, rather than experiencing it.  I am extrapolating, I may be wrong—but I hope he isn’t just walking blindly towards Santiago, hopeful that in his accomplishment he will overcome some of his grief, a good Catholic, done of his duty.

So Cyprien went his way to Aulnay, and I went mine, to the blessedly affordable municipal campground in Melle(5.50 euros).  Admittedly it is harder to wake up at 6am without someone expecting you to start an early morning walk with them.

The short section from Melle to Brioux passed through St. Romans-les-Melle, apparently the home of the nicest French I have yet to meet.  While about to poke my head into a handsome church, its neighbor, a woman of maybe 90 years enthusiastically chattered on and on in French to me with her torso leaning out of a blue-shuttered window, eyes lighting up and inexplicably happy with the day—a joyous soul.  I told her I didn’t speak French, and she started talking quicker, so I would hope she hadn’t heard me.  On and on and on she went, like she was just waiting for me to pop around the corner for a long-awaited chat.  Finally she stopped and said, “You’re not French, are you?”  She must have noticed the dumb grin which I plaster on my face whenever I don’t understand a talkative Frenchperson.    But she was so bursting with strangerly affection that I instantly loved her, and waved as I headed off towards the café she said was in town.

In the boulangerie I was regarded by three people with awe over walking the Camino and wished, “beaucoup age”.  Upon exiting the shop, waiting for me was another woman who greeted me out of a