Ed had a radio show last night at 2am to 3 am which was 5 pm Phoenix time. He set his alarm to wake up for the radio show. He was afraid he might fall asleep during the show so he turned on all the lights. I woke up with him. All I heard was “hello every body. It’s Dr Kondrot and I am currently in France …” And next thing I heard was “goodbye everybody. Until next week, to your good health and clear vision. It’s dr Kondrot from France.” Something like that. I have slept through his whole hour of radio talk show. All lights on. I was definitely a good sleeper. The bull scare took all the energy out of me. Nothing left. I needed my sleep.

We woke up early this morning and we were the first ones to get to the boots shelves. We got our boots fine. Big relief.

The sky is dark grey. Not a very good sign. It might rain today. I read on the weather channel it is going to be cloudy and rain will come at 4 pm. We should be in by then. So I told Ed not to worry. We should be fine. An average day, pretty much flat and dry day.

We left and started to walk out of the small very cute village of st chely d’aubrac. We started to climb. The climb became steeper and steeper. Actually, we had many ascend and descend. The trail kind if undulated the whole day. Ed looked at me and said “you told me it’s flat today”! I have no idea where I read that gave me the impression that we were going to have a flat day. There had never been a flat day since the start.

The trail at part was very rocky. Ed kept saying “this is a fall waiting to happen. Be careful”. Then to our dismay, it started raining. We entered a dark shaded trail through the forest. It rained and poured on us! The rocky trail became vet slippery. The moved forward at a much slower pace than usual. We got to l’estrade, a shelter with a table in a communal oven. All the pilgrims stopped there for a break of hot coffee.

We met a few pilgrims today. Walter from Zurich is walking all the way to Santiago, it’s his fourth pilgrimage so he is definitely a veteran of the way. A group of 3 older French men had the best sense of humor. Two of the men had all white haired while the third one was completely bald, they must be in their eighties. They love talking to Ed in French as Ed can only speak a few words, it really does not matter what they said, Ed kept answering back “ca va bien” (it’s all good), or merci or tres bien (very good). Somehow the conversation carried on and everybody joked around and laughed and got along really well albeit the miserable weather and slippery dangerous walk. About 11 am, the men decided to take a break while we decided to walk on so we must part and say goodby. Before leaving the men asked Ed to take a picture of the 3 of them and us for them to keep as a souvenir for when they “get old”! We walked on and laughed for a while about their last comment. What great spirit! A souvenir for when they “get old”!

About three miles to our destination for tonight, we were greeted with miles of wild blackberries. Sweet tree ripened naturally happy wild blackberries. We ate so much of them. They are the best!

The rain had stopped. The sun was coming out. We walked into the beautiful village of Saint-Come d’Olt.

The village is recognized as one of the ‘most beautiful villages in France’ and is also on the popular pilgrimage route that leads from Le Puy-en-Velay to Santiage de Compostella in Spain.

The historic centre of Saint-Come d’Olt is very compact and has lots of attractive medieval buildings squeezed in to the small space, centred around the church and the surrounding streets.

The church of St-Come-d’Olt in the centre of the village was constructed in the early 16th century in the gothic style. A very unusual aspect of the church is the spire, which is twisted from top to bottom – and no one even knows if the design is intentional or accidental.

We checked into our gite today and the sane routine. Walking sticks in a holder, boots must be on communal shelves. Let’s pray we still have our boots and walking sticks for tomorrow’s walk. We do plan to leave early tomorrow so we will see.

As it is Monday all shops are closed so our supply for lunch is very meager tomorrow. We usually bring an apple or a peach, some bread and cheese but we won’t have anything because everything is closed on Monday. Also I don’t know if we mentioned it before but lunch is served strictly between 12 and 2:30 pm. If we missed that window then no food. It will be an interesting day tomorrow for our snacks during the day. We shall see …