Hello friends!We are now in Moissac, about to leave for our next place Saint Antoine. We are getting over all the sores and aches of the first 400 kilometers, and are feeling better. This morning rained a bit, which but it didn't start before we left where we 'camped'. We waited the rain out in a bar, drinking coffee and watching 'Days of our Lives' dubbed in French. Pilgrims begin to enjoy the simplest things. We threw our tent away in Cahors, and have spent 3 nights now under the stars. It's quite easy to find spots now, though we look like homeless people more and more... beards growing, clothes looking dirty (although they're cleaned regurlarly in fountains with Marseillais soap). We're trying to find ways to keep ants and mosquitos out of our faces at night, but it's hard... not much we can do. It's worth the few bites and tickles at night, because our back packs now are considerably lighter to carry, our legs can carry us beyond 25 kms without too much pain. We've been loving walking through this new region of France, and we are feeling Spain slowly approaching, or us approaching it. We've entered a new departement 'Tarn et Garonne' where the country side has been offering us free plums, apricots, black berries, etc. We're getting our fix of fruit.
We've also been meeting many people, though we do not see them regularly, our pace has been keeping us from seeing people for more than 2 days. Just a few, such as Fabio, an Italian guy (we are sure he's used to be an olympian speed walker), whom we've been able to see along the way and who is going to Compostella. We've shared food, talks, and rest time together. We never see him walk, but he's always chilling at the place where we arrive at the end of our days. Merlin, an Australian-German, shared our lot of grass in the middle of Lauzerte, a fortified city. We also shared a good bottle of wine from the region together during the evening, as we talked about our impressions of the Camino. We are sure never to see him again, since he's walking back from Santiago... he's been walking for 10 years, so, he had some interesting things to tell us.
In two days we are meeting up with Jared and Phil, two good friends, who will be walking with us a few days... if only the new what awaits them... the first days of walking are hard to forget. They will love walking along Roman paths or 1000 year old paths, from village to village, but we'll see what they think about their feet. This Camino is a good way to get to know every centimeter of a foot.
Walking all day long has become like a job, a very good job, where we can just talk, or think, or dream, pray about everything, and anything. Kilometers go by, scenery changes every 100 meters, and our minds have all the time they need to take in what we pass by, and look forward to what there is to see around each bend of the path.
Our lives have become quite simple, where our troubles never go beyond our feet or our stomachs that we have to feed regularly. But we do think of all of you, hoping everyone is doing well. Being a pilgrim is teaching us that life is quite similar to this sort of journey, where we go from one day to another, one step after another, progressing toward our long terms goals, and where each person we meet is special.
Josh and I have created an album on Facebook, so you can see photos we took during our first two weeks of hiking: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2012248&id=163801575
David
