Walking to the End of the World - Beth Jusino

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I grew up, a fort three hundred years younger than this would be designated a national monument, with school tours and park rangers. Here, though, there weren’t even fences or warning signs to keep us away. Eric and I shed our packs and set out to explore. While he climbed to the keep, I ducked under the low doorway to the chapel. It was cramped and dark inside, with a few wooden benches and a rough floor, broken through in places by the granite bedrock below.

      A children’s song from Sunday school played in my head: The wise man built his house upon the rock . . .

      Back outside, I climbed to the keep and looked out over the valley below. I could see a train winding along the river, and in the distance I could make out Monistrol d’Allier. It seemed impossibly far away to be only our halfway point for the day, but at least it was downhill. I tried not to look at the rows of mountains behind it. Those would come later. This was now.

      In the opening paragraphs of her memoir Tracks, Robyn Davidson says, “There are some moments in life that are pivots around which your existence turns—small intuitive flashes, when you know you have done something correct for a change, when you think you are on the right track. . . . [This] was one of them. It was a moment of pure, uncomplicated confidence—and lasted about ten seconds.” That was me. I was on top of a mountain, beside a French castle, on a spring morning. I was past my lists, my maps, my plans.

      I was entirely present.

      I let the moment linger as long as I could, but the valley was waiting. We slung our packs back on and for the next two hours picked our way downhill along treacherous paths full of loose rocks. We passed through the valley town of Monistrol without stopping, though I saw several familiar faces in the bars along the way, enjoying a second café au lait.

      I looked longingly at the cafe tables, but it was hard to slow Eric down long enough for me to find the town’s public bathroom; a midmorning snack was out of the question. He was focused on our destination, Saugues, still twelve kilometers away.

      This difference in our paces was something I hadn’t considered before we left. Eric was like an Energizer Bunny; he kept going and going. He stopped when I insisted I needed to rest, but if he wasn’t tired, I wondered, why should we rest? I pushed on. I didn’t want to give the impression that I was slower or weaker than he was.

      This, of course, was problematic for a lot of reasons, but let’s start with the obvious one: I was a lot slower and weaker than him, and we both knew it.

      At home in Seattle, Eric managed a gym and taught classes in parkour—the sport of jumping, climbing, balancing, and running to overcome obstacles. My husband literally scaled walls for a living. I, on the other hand, worked mostly from my couch. My sport of choice was yoga, slow and controlled and close to the ground.

      When I talk about the Camino, people sometimes say, “Oh, I could never do something like that. I’m not into extreme sports.” Trust me, neither am I. But walking wasn’t extreme, right?

      As we tackled the steep slope that rose behind Monistrol, I started to wonder. The guidebook warned that there would be a steady incline for thirty-one kilometers, and the first ten would be especially difficult. Eric bounced up the exposed dirt trail and out of sight like a mountain goat. I plodded like a turtle—a footsore, out-of-shape, angry turtle.

      To distract myself from my labored breath, and to concentrate on something other than jealousy of my husband—and Jean Claude and Virginie, who both strode easily past me on that hill—I tried to practice my French.

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       The Chapelle Saint-Jacques-de-Rochegude

       Un, deux, trois, quatre, six, sept, neuf, dix . . .

      Wait, I was missing something. I started to count on my fingers, out loud, with each step.

       Un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq, six, sept, huit, neuf, dix!

      I didn’t hear the Brothers Grim approaching, but they obviously heard me. As they passed—because everyone passed me on that hill, eventually—their solemn faces were twitching. “C’est bon?” one asked, deadpan.

      I might have blushed, but I was already so red no one would notice. I gave them a dramatic shrug and almost got them to laugh as they, too, disappeared up the hill.

      I eventually made it to the top of the mini-mountain and found Eric waiting with the bread and apples and cheese we’d wisely purchased the day before in Saint Privat. After we ate, we walked together for the last few kilometers into Saugues.

      Once again, we arrived without a plan for where to stay. Once again, the red-and-white stripes led us straight to a gîte de pèlerin.

      Two men stood outside, and one of them was speaking English with what sounded like an Australian accent. My relief at hearing my native tongue almost drowned out what he said.

      “No beds?” The Australian’s voice was loud, and he carefully enunciated his words the way humans everywhere do when we talk to someone who doesn’t understand us and we’ve run out of other ideas for communication.

      The Frenchman beside him shook his head. “Non, non. C’est complet.”

      Eric and I joined the conversation as the Frenchman held out a guidebook and pointed to the name of another gîte. There was a street address but no map. The man waved toward something farther down the road, maybe around a corner, and dramatically shrugged. They might have space. Maybe not.

      The Australian, Eugene, looked more crestfallen than I felt. He dressed like a colonial tourist of the British Empire, with khaki shorts and pulled-up knee socks, a canvas fishing cap full of pins, and a plastic-covered packet of maps hanging around his neck. He also sagged under the weight of a pack that looked twice as big as mine.

      As Eric tried to draw clearer directions from the French pilgrim, I shifted my weight from one foot to the other. Standing still felt like I was putting all my weight onto tender, fresh bruises.

      The three of us decided we would go on together and find this new place. Eric, ever helpful, set off at a jog (a jog!). Eugene and I followed as fast as aching muscles allowed, but we didn’t get far before Eric came back to report there was nothing resembling a gîte down that road.

      We were still standing there, trying to decide what to do next, when someone behind us called out. “Pardon? Excuse me?” The Frenchman from the “complet” gîte was chasing after us, waving his phone and speaking in Frenglish. He’d called a gîte somewhere and confirmed they had space, and he’d reserved for deux Americans and an Australian. Well, huh. The Camino does provide.

      I turned and forced my tired feet to keep up with our guide as he led us toward our reservations. When Eugene asked where the gîte was, I told him I had no idea.

      The Frenchman turned in surprise. “You understand him?” He gestured to Eugene.

      Well, oui.

      “I did not know Americans and Australians understand one another.” He was going out of his way to help us, and I didn’t know how to politely point out that Americans and Australians speak the same language, so I said nothing.

      Our new Camino angel took us to a modern-looking building surrounded by children. Like most towns and villages along the Camino, Saugues provided a gîte communal, municipally run and usually a few euros cheaper than a private one. But Saugues was unique in that they combined their gîte with their public school. While kids shrieked and played outside, an efficient, humorless city employee collected our euros, stamped our credentials, and informed us that dinner would be at 7:00. He directed Eric and me to our room, which was bare but private, with two twin beds and a private bathroom.

      I looked at the bed longingly, ready to put my feet up for a while, but we still needed food for the next day. So Eric and I took care of showers and laundry (hung properly this time on a clothesline

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