That's really quite enough. Another hot and sweaty night on the top bunk in a low ceilinged room with four other hikers, and it's Tuesday, and at this point the hike has become about 20% intereting and about 80% endurance.
We're still not set to leave for four more weeks, and it's not that I can't do all the hiking--it's more about could I be doing something, anything more interesting? Besides the substandard accomodation last night, there was also the dinner: a thin green vegetable soup, lentil stew with sausages thrown in it. Not really appetizing, but the apple tort at the end was pretty good. And then there's the "leave your boots and luggage in this one room and put little things in a shoebox" procedure to take to your room. Not a big deal after having done that a dozen times, but still, I'm getting too much use from one particular pair of undies.
The hiking, such as it is, has become rather dull as well. The gites and auberges are down in
the valleys, and they're pretty, but generally mostly all the same and interchangable. Even
if we were to go back to hiking in a couple of weeks, it'll be "go up past pasture, go down by
pasture", and it does not look like there really isn't much interesting high elevation country
east of
here on the GR10 to the
Mediterranean. Maybe I might see a euphorbia or wild lavender plant? That's really not waiting
a couple of weeks to see.
We both were kind of expecting other 'touristy' things nearby and there have been generally... none. These are remote valleys without so much as a castle or church or some tiny weird private museum. I can't see padding out four weeks into "let's march up this hill and down the other side" just for completenesses sake.
So I told Chris when we woke up "Time to pull the plug on this adventure. I've had enough.
Let's go home early" and he
said "yep, I agree" we looked to
adjust our flight
back
home, and easily rebooked for Wed 19 August and discussed the replan over breakfast. Do we want
to do
more day hikes? Sure, for today there's a moderate one today of 11km, sure let's do that
and talk more. Keep the rest of the lodging through the weekend. We talked about
where to go next. Are there things to see
sights in
northern Catalonia and that area of France from Barcelona up to Narbonne?"
So in the afternoon after the hike we looked at the maps and found quite a few interesting places--a leathercrafting museum, an old Roman city on the coast, the old Roman colonial city of Narbonne, even the Airbus final assembly factory tour--so yep, we can do this.
Now can we make lodging work? Hm, we paid a bit for an Accor status upgrade for a vacation next year, and there are plenty of Ibis around in France (particularly the ones away from the coast, it's August after all), so we can make France work. As for Spain, Chris has stayed enough at Paradores to earn a free night, and there are a number scattered around Catalonia as well. Lastly, we bumped out the car reservation four days to just drive it to the Toulouse airport the day before our flight (at €24 a day for the four days that's a bargain.)
So by dinner time, it was all replanned and we were thinking "wow, that was a good replan" and we're both relieved. It helped that the place we're staying it is pretty nice--a small private two bed room, decent beer on tap, five or six picnic tables with covers next to the river.
The hike today, by the way, was mildly interesting: about 11km up through a shady beech forest to a 18th century chapel for lunch. Good enough for a workout, but again, we've walked through beech forests next to a stream before, this could be almost anywhere. The chapel itself was in pastureland, and it was a literal minefield of cowshit to get to the little cow-exclusion zone where we sat on the wall and ate lunch, and it made me think of all the hot days and days of hiking through ferns and flies with no shade and wondering if we'll run out of water.
Coming back from the hike (no weird hip pain like I had yesteray), I felt fine, but the bottom of Chris's feet started getting pretty painful again the last couple of km. I think our hiking days on this trip really are over.
The accommodation tonight at La Maison Du Valier, by the way, is superb, our own clean private room with sheets. Dinner was great, zucchini soup and a potato-cheese-ham-onion casserole thing. And dessert was a blueberry torte. Room is nice and quiet and cool. Going to be a good night of sleep.