Day 5. June 10, 2014. Beziers to Capestang. 27 kms

O le canard tout petit,

Je pense bien que oui,

Qu'ici, c'est le paradis.

Tu nages sans sourcis

Pendant le jour et la nuit,

Ici, sur le Canal du Midi.  (Anon)

As long as you keep out of the way of the boats, of course!

After the horrors of my hotel room, and the bustle of the early morning city, I was relieved to reach the tranquility of the Canal du Midi. I had noticed signs to Neuf Ecluses, and had assumed that it was a road that led to nine different locks, but I arrived to find that it was a series of contiguous locks, each one raising eastbound boats to a higher level. A long line of vessels were waiting to enter the locks. I asked a lady with a lazy look in her eyes whether she minded the wait. "It's all part of the rhythm of the day," she said. "So relaxing."

As I walked along the towpath the boats chugged by in both directions. It was always the men steering the boat, often shirtless with huge guts hanging over their belts. (They weren't following a Mediterranean diet, these fellows. I'm noticing a lot of obesity in France, this time.) Women were sitting at the stern, reading a book. Kids were sunbathing on top of the cabin. Occasionally, a large tourist boat would pass by, 50 people sitting in lines on the top deck without a patch of shade.

At Colombiers, I stopped for coffee at a bar overlooking the canal and a little sunken performance area. A group of young school kids arrived to practise for an end-of-year presentation. They jumped up and down, raised their fists, lay on the ground, huddled in small groups, and dragged each other around like wheel barrows. I couldn't imagine what they were representing, but they took it very seriously, and their teacher seemed pleased.

Then I walked on. Shortly after leaving the village, I noticed a couple of Muslim ladies coming towards me along the towpath, one black, one white. They asked me how far it was to Columbiers. Glad I was to be able to give directions. Recognizing that I was not from these parts, one of them asked where I was from, and when I said I was from Canada, she launched with great enthusiasm into British English. She was from London, and had a sister in Toronto and was soon going to visit her. They asked me whether I was walking the Camino, and told me that they too were preparing to walk to Santiago. We had an animated conversation, and I was left with much food for thought. I remembered the priest in Triacastella, who said as he conducted a mass in his little stone church, "It doesn't matter whether you are Catholic, Protestant, or non-believer. You are all welcome here." That is the spirit of the Camino!

Then I remembered reading recently of a Bishop in Paris who was issuing pilgrim passports only to practising Catholics. The Muslim ladies had better not try to get their credential from him. (But I'm sure the Pope would give them one.)

La plus ca change... On one hand, we have the essence of the Christianity of Jesus in the Gospels; on the other, the appropriation of Christianity by the Church. The one, open and inclusive; the other, narrow and exclusive. And of course, the same strands appear in Islam, and I had encountered one of them today.

I learnt something else from the Muslim ladies, something very practical that I might otherwise have missed. Le Canal du Midi continues to Carcassonne, four days from here. Why should I follow M. Lepere into the heat of the countryside, when I can stroll along the canal in the shade with a cool breeze in my face.

I popped into the little village of Poilhes for lunch, and I sat outside under a huge plain tree at the restaurant of Les Platanes. I heard the proprietor speaking English with an elderly couple.

"Are you English?" I asked him.

"New Zealander," he replied.

"Ah," I said, "I'm Australian."

"Good day, mate," he responded, and then, "What are you going to it (sic)?" Anything to drnk (sic)."

I decided to have just an entree, Poivre facon Colioure, and a bottle of tap water, but the food was so good that I thought I would have a main, Boles de Picolat (boulettes de boeuf et porc, sauce tomates, champignons, olives, haricots blancs, and with that, of course, I had to have un quart de rouge. It was one of those joyful moments that come out of the blue. There's something very special about sitting in the shade of a plain tree in a cooling breeze. And the wine was not your usual quart-de-rouge plonk, either, but a superb vin de pays from a local winery.

I told his wife about the excellent New Zealand wine I had drunk on the island of Waiheke. She was familiar with the wineries and rattled off all the possibilities. She was from Auckland, and missed it very much, but she hadn't been back in eight years. "Why not," I asked her. "My cats," she said.

She was a cat person. Now I'm a dog person myself, but I warmed to her story of how she would love to go back to Auckland, but couldn't leave her cats. She had brought one with her and had acquired others. They simply appeared and stayed. One was sitting on a chair at a neighbouring table.

I had broken my rule never to have a big meal or a wine or beer before my destination, but it wasn't far to Capestang, and there my good luck continued. The Office de Tourisme offered me a local wine, and found me a nice billet in a local chateau. Things are looking up!