It’s clear as we walk into Livinhac town proper from our rough little campground that we should have pushed a little more and tried one of the gite in town.
Livinhac is a really pleasant town and Alissa finds a coffee shop run by a full speed Italian bloke and breakfast is a lot of fun. The stamp he gives us in our credential is the best yet. And apparently bit of a state secret he doesn’t do for all. We share this with some new friends Aurelie & Dominique, we’re allsent on our way with an incredible piano performance.
Once exiting it’s a reasonable climb up to Montredon for about 7kms where we find a little pilgrim’s welcome in the form of some cakes and juices in the chapel. It’s always nice to feel welcome. At this point Max is feeling energized and states he will see us in the next town and roars off by himself at great pace. It should be no problem.
We carry on, picking our way across the countryside eating a lot of blackberries growing on the side of the road.
Max has gone ahead on other days but only for 45 minutes to an hour when he gets hungry and parks up waiting for the baggage train to arrive. After 2 hours of not seeing him, questions begin to form, but we haven’t been through a BIG town so maybe he is kicking on….
Another hour and we arrive in St Felix, still no Max. He has clearly taken a wrong turn and got off track somewhere. It’s all quite worrying.
There’s not much for us to do unfortunately but sit and wait for Max to realise he’s off track, back track to the path, solve the correct path to take and then make his way to us. I am slightly concerned about his ability to do all that but I don’t tell Alissa.
After another 45 minutes of waiting in town Max shows I’ve underestimated him and he wanders in to St Felix, hugely relieved to see us. And to eat. Relief for us too. I think lessons have been learnt. Adrenalin levels take a while to recede.
Regrouped we walk the last 5 or 6 km to Figeac. It’s been a long day. As we arrive we learn the pool is only open for another 45 minutes. Our tents have never been put up so fast and our walking buddy Norman comments how well we work as a team. I don’t want to shatter illusions. We are all ready to cool off after another 25km day. Later we will have to go out for dinner as we’ve just caught the campground as school has gone back. The camp store is closed for the season and dinner is a 5 km walk into town. We’re tired but excited as we contemplate the next week or so. We’re deviating from the classic GR65 onto the Cele variant.
Next | Camino day 18 – Figeac to Beduer
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