If ever there was an easier day on a 'camino' this would come close. We had petit dejeuner at 7am and were packed up and looking for our way out of town by 8:15am. Wisely we trusted Dayton's research and instincts and found the right path. We soon stopped to put on rain gear but it was more of a spritzing of rain so not a problem. The trail was level but rocky. We were in Cahors by 2:30pm. We followed a steep paved road into town and over a bridge and came across a pilgrims' information centre. What a godsend! The pilgrims' centre was manned by a very helpful gracious lady who served us cookies and cold drinks and who called ahead to reserve us a space at the gite Jeunes de Quercy. This was our first truly shared gite experience so far. We shared a very cramped room with Julia and Fleme, a Belgium fellow we had met in Vaylats. It was Sunday and it was afternoon - ergo - everything was closed up tight. Julia, Dayton and I ended up going to a restaurant around 6pm and had to drink tea and wine for an hour to kill time until food could be served. It was another pizza night and it was great. At the gite, I was surprised to meet up with Jocelyne again. Jocelyne and Valentine were the two ladies from New Caledonia whom we met our first night in St. Privat. When we had met them, it was around 5pm and I was in my 'day is done and it's time for wine' mode and these ladies were just taking a quiche break before heading out for another 10 kms or so. They hefted their humongous packs onto their packs and set out. I thought they would have been many days ahead of us by the time we got to Cahors but they had taken a variant route to go an extra two days north to Rocomadour and then two days back to the main G65 route. Their guide books had been off quite a bit on the mileage and facilities available. What was listed as 27kms turned out to be more like 37km sand the 29kms the second day was 40kms. Jocelyne had finally called 'foul' and took a taxi into Cahors. Valentine was still walking. (She eventually threw in the towel after 11 hours walking and she too called a taxi to finish up the day.) In my mind, there's nothing worse than expecting to walk 25 kms and finding out it's 27 or 30 or more. I think the writers of these guide books have a moral responsibility to be accurate or at least over estimate so that we can have the joyful relief of finding out that we're done earlier than expected. All of our 'camino pod' was at this gite; Ann Marie, Brigitte, Jocelyne and Valentine but it soon became clear that the pod was breaking up. Ann Marie and Fleme had declared the next day a 'rest day' and were going to spend the day in Cahors at the cafes and going to the cinema. Brigitte was going to get a train to Toulouse. Brigitte had heard about the potential train strike and wanted to ensure that she was in Toulouse in time to get her plane back to Montreal. We were warned about the impending storms heading our way and wondered what our plan should be. What to do? Walk.
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