Via Tolosana/Voie d’Arles Day 15. 5 May Sarrance to Etsaut.

Day 15. Via Tolosana Voie d’Arles.

Sarrance to Etsaut

Day 15.  Sarrance to Etsaut. 5 Mai. Chickens greet us in the morning as we begin a very beautiful, very long, day of walking on sometimes treacherous paths.  We walked from 8:15 am until 5:30 pm.  Predicted rain never came, and we actually had a bit of sun.  

Gite La Garbure reportedly had over 50 places in several rooms, so we did not book ahead.  I sent an email about 3 pm and also tried to call.  No answer but a machine, so I left message and phone number saying we were not far away.

Never a reply.  As we walked into Etsaut, which was downhill and across the highway from Borce, a woman directed us to La Garbure.  We arrived through a pretty courtyard, but all was locked up tight.  No response to calls to two different numbers.  Where was Urs, I wondered, whom I thought had booked at this place?

No point in both of us running about the town carrying our packs, so I, as the one more proficient in French, went looking.  A lovely gite was just down the hill. A pair of hiking boots lay inside the door.  I knocked.  No answer.  I tried the door, opened it and hallooed.  Walked in and hallooed some more. Nothing.  Back out, shutting the door.  I came to another gite.  Full of family—“Le Weekend!” They explained.  Anywhere else?  No.  I saw 2 hotels, both shuttered.  Around the corner, there was the welcome sight of Urs at a bar with a glass of beer.  Yes, he was staying  at La Garbure.  Someone had been there when he arrived.

Temporarily leaving his beer, he accompanied me back and let us in through a door we hadn’t previously discovered.  Shedding our muddy boots we headed upstairs in search of a room.  Almost every door was locked.  I was not sure if I felt like more like Goldilocks or Bluebeard’s wife.  Finally two floors up, a door opened into an attic room with a double bed and an attached huge bathroom with shower and sink, but the toilet with no seat was across the hall. The bed was unmade, quilts in a heap beside it.  We claimed the room for ourselves, unrolled our sleeping bags, and used my silk liner sheet for a pillow case on the long pillow.

Then back to the bar, joining Urs drinking delicious Belgian beer, before returning to the gite to clean up before dinner. When we returned to the gite, the owner had arrived.  We showed her the room we’d staked out, paid the bill, got our pilgrim stamp, and all was well.  

We enjoyed a pleasant dinner with Urs at the bar.

We should reach Col du Somport tomorrow— our big climb.  Report is that part of the trail has washed out by avalanche and we need to take a bus a short distance to keep us off busy highway between Etsaut and Urdos.