Le Veurdre –Ainay le Château – Saint Amand Montrond – Bouzais – Lourouer Saint Laurent – Le petit Chenil
A long day with lots of sun and problems lay before me when I left Le Veurdre, but by then I luckily had no idea. Until Ainay there were just a few minor hills to master and as I remembered the path of Saint James was very nice from there to Saint Amand. I was so f***ing wrong. When the path turned after the last farm of Saint Ainay it turned into a hell of gravel and holes without shadow and mercy.
After Saint Pierre les Étieux I took the sunny national road: lots of cars but neither gravel nor holes.
Saint Amand was very pleasant for a town of that size but I think it was because of Sunday, that the streets weren’t packed with cars.
Bouzais, a small village five kilometers south, had a nice hostel for pilgrims, but I arrived too early. So I just took some cold water of a friendly neighbor and continued my odyssey. I should have taken also his advice to go right at the cemetery. Would have spared me a very steep trip. Would have, should have, could have, F*** it. When I was back on the path I stuck to it for a few kilometers and switched at Arcomps onto the road to Loye sur Arnon. I knew that there would be plenty of hills but my memory seems to minimize the hardest parts of my first trip to Santiago. I reached Le Châtelet very exhausted, cursing on every downhill track knowing that the opposite was waiting for me right after the small valley ahead.
Torturing myself onto Thevet Saint Julien the only thing kept me going was the nice refuge of guy in Le petit Chenil. Lucky me, I took a little sight-seeing trip after Thevet before I reached the Indre. From here it was just a few kilometers without great differences in height but for they stretched them self eternally.
I can’t describe my feelings when I arrived around half past eight at Guy’s house and my French was as limited as my power. We talked just a little bit before I shoved Rosinante in the garden of the hostel. It’s a riddle to me how I managed to take a shower, I prepared everything for the night like I was in trance.
The next day I woke up very late. My legs burned like hell. Especially the left one was still medium rare. Luckily I had asked Guy yesterday already for the possibility to stay another day. In the morning I watched some movies: “The Way” and “The lost City of Z”. Watching other people suffering decreases my own pain somehow. When I started to write some postcards for the blog in the afternoon another pilgrim arrived just after the first article. So my plan of using my waisted body as an excuse to write instead of riding wasn’t that successful.
Day two showed no improvements in my condition. The left leg was still burning and the rest of me was not much less in pain. So I stayed another day hoping to make some progress on my journal. I started nearly the same as yesterday and managed to write at least three entries for the blog. In the evening I tried to change my twenty Euro banknote to donate some for Guy’s hospitality. After a few fruitless attempts I met his neighbors, which had enough smaller money, a lot of interest in my journey and a few bottles of beer too much.
I woke with a slight headache hovering over my still powerless burned body. “One last day!” I thought, “Maybe you’ll catch up with the blog to the current date.”
But very soon after noon Michâell arrived. He looked very much like I felt and so I tried to help him as much as I could to cool and calm down. We spend a nice afternoon talking about what lay behind and what lies ahead and went to bed very early. Me because I wanted to start as soon as possible to avoid much sun, Michael due to exhaustion.
