Thursday, August 12…
Today I walked 28 km from Fineyrols to St Chely-d Aubrac. I spent most of the day traversing the Aubrac plateau. It’s a landscape of high wide open scenic grassland with a few granite boulders scattered here and there. The morning air was made fresh by last night’s rain and light cool breeze made me feel live and alert. The morning sky displayed a nice contrast of rich color as light bounced off clouds slowly clearing. It was very peaceful and it's times like this that remind why I enjoy long distance walking so much.
By early afternoon I arrived at the small and very scenic village of Aubrac. I stopped in at hotel restaurant/bar and ordered a ham and cheese sandwich for lunch. Also, known as a Sandwich Jambon Formagge. A sandwich in the French countryside is nothing like you get at home in the USA. The bread is cut thick and the cheese is some variety locally produced from non pasteurized milk. The ham is usually age cured. The cheese and ham are simply put between two slices of thick sliced bread with butter and nothing more. The cheese is usually amazingly good. And the bread and ham are not like anything you’re going to find outside of France. Despite a common thought that French servings are generally small that’s usually not the case with the kind of sandwich I’ve described here.
As the day progressed into the afternoon my backpack made it very clear that it does not like me. I don’t know what it is but it’s turning out to be the most uncomfortable pack I’ve ever used. Well, at least it was this afternoon. As I wrestled with it I began to get all philosophical about it. Since I’m on an ancient pilgrimage route I decided it's not really all that bad considering the burdens Jesus took with him to the cross. Ok, I’m not trying to get religious here but I’m just saying things could always be worse. After all, as I walked across the Aubrac plateau this morning it didn’t seem to be much of a problem. On a more positive not I’ve decided it’s just going to make me stronger and I’m still adjusting to it. However, I’ll now affectionately refer to my pack as “The BEAST”.
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