Last night I slept right through. Until now, I have been waking up at three or four in the morning and listening to the mumbles and rumbles and snores of my companions.
What a nightmare it is to get in and out of Montpellier! It took me three hours to get to the outskirts.
I was looking for an avenue which seemed to have disappeared to make way for a new tramway when I saw a fellow on the other side of the road, the only person in sight who could give me directions. I dashed across the road and accosted him. He was amazed to see me. I was the second Canadian he had met in the very same spot at the very same time in less than a week. He kept going on about it. I told him his role in life was obviously to wait in that same spot at the same time each day to direct Canadians to Santiago. He walked with me for a while and pointed me in the right direction. Then I got lost again. Someone would send me in one direction and then someone else would say, No, it's that way. It took me three hours to walk ten kilometres.
A little later I experienced the joy every walker feels when he's off the road, out of the woods, and in a high place, all alone, with the sun shining, the breeze blowing, and the birds singing.
Then I got lost again. And then I took a tumble. At two-thirty, with 20 kms still to go and a bruised knee and a bruised ego, I decided to do the prudent thing and stop half way. But I'm sorry to have dropped behind my two companions.
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