Week No 8

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From the 8th week there are not many details to be told. We crossed a region called Aubrac. This is one of the most beautiful landscapes that I have seen in my life. It looks a bit like Scotland with very scarce vegetation with normally rather rough weather. Actually, Heidi, which to everybody's relieve, we saw in Le Puy for the last time on our journey, looked very sterne at us back in Bourg Argental and told us with a voice full of looming misfortunes: "You will have SNOW in Aubrac!!" Indeed, people told us that the snow had melted away just a few days before we arrived in the region, and later, other pilgrims told us that 2 days after we had left the region it started to snow again. Howver, when we walked through Aubrac we had the most wonderful weather you can imagine with a lot of warm presummer sunshine and not even a drop of rain.
This isn't true, however, for the day we walked to the small city of Conques. On this day there was noting but rain, in all varieties. Everybody who walked to Conques this day told me the same thing. We all got soaked to the bones, there were no clothes to resist that kind of rain day - and believe me I have spoken with quite a lot of people about this day. It seems that still modern technology can't keep up when Mother Nature decides to test our resilience.
As a matter of fact when I arrived at the front door of the hotel I had reserved in Conques I was so wet that the man at the reception wouldn't let me in but came out, handed me the key for the room and explained me how to get there. After a good shower and a change of clothes the receptionist was more accessible and I had a nice meal with a good glass of wine. To my amusement I listened to 3 pilgrims in the same restaurant how they discussed about decimating the world's overpopulation to about 3 billion by means of a nuclear winter. The problem then would be, of course, that economic growth rates couldn't be held to a sufficent level. Obviously, the rain of that day hadn't only soaked our clothes and bodies but apparently also some brains.
We inserted a break day Conques which turned out to be worth while, the city is really a juwel.

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