That Time We Got Lost in France

After a quick coffee and pastry in our French rental home in Les Assions, we were on our way.   We planned on doing a little hiking in the Cévennes while the sun was out but what was meant to be a quickie 7km hike before lunch turned out to be more like the S.S. Minnow’s 3 hour tour.  ( If you’re too young to catch the reference,  Gilligan’s Island, was a TV series in the 60’s. )

Because we hadn’t brought a backpack I decided to leave the water bottle in the car (big mistake).  We started walking down the rocky path being careful not to twist an ankle.  We weren’t more than 200 metres away when we noticed a bunch of beehives to the left side.  I took off like a shot towards them, Tim stayed back, he’s not too comfortable around insects with a stinger; even though I’ve explained to him numerous times that honeybees won’t sting unless they feel threatened.

Honeybee observation done, we got back on the path.  A few more metres and we came to a crossroads.  Not recognizing any of the trail signs, we made an executive decision and went right.  Believing we had made the correct choice, we started to explore, following the markers that we had chosen.  We discovered several shepherds’ refuges made of dry stones piled on top of each other to create small shelters to protect sheep and shepherd from the elements.

Continuing on our way, I started to get hungry and was happy to find what looked like blueberry bushes.  I ate a few of the deep blue berries and almost immediately, my tongue and the inside of my mouth went numb and I started to freak out.  I spat and spat until I was satisfied that I had gotten all the “poison” out.  It took a while but I was back to normal and thanking the powers that be that I had only eaten a few.

A little while later we came upon a construction site, full of happy looking people, it turned out to be an experiment in community living (a commune).  At this point we were well passed what should have been the half way mark of our hike, but we kept going, looking for the next sign which were few and far between.

Finally we arrived in a small village, we saw no people and no shops so we continued on our way.  We were cranky, thirsty and hungry, we couldn’t open our mouths without sounding angry and when we looked up at the sky, a storm was almost overhead.

We were lost and had no idea where we were.  There were no signs to indicate the name of the village so I suggested we keep walking until we see a sign that would help us orient ourselves in relation to where we left the car.  When we got to the other side of the village we spotted a truck with two workers trying to fix a phone line next to a bus stop.  I approached them and asked what the name of the village was and whether they could tell us how to get back to Les Assions.  They didn’t know.  They were from Lyon and weren’t familiar with the area but they had a map.  We retraced our steps on the map and realized we were pretty far from home.

We had three choices, #1 wait for the bus; but we had no idea where it was going or when it would show up. #2 walk towards the next town on the paved road and #3 retrace our steps the way we came. We decided on #3 and grumpily went on our way.

We dragged our feet, Tim tried to convince me that a different marker may be a shortcut but I thought we better play it safe and take the route we knew would lead back to the car, and more importantly, to water!

We had no idea what time it was, we started the hike at 10:00 am and the dark skies made it feel much later than it was.

Finally we saw the beehives and we knew we were close.  Tim looked straight across from the hives and saw the marker we had missed.  We had taken a wrong turn from the start!

Back at the car we drank all the water and felt a bit better but it would take another day, another hike, cassoulet and a good bottle of French wine before we were almost laughing about it all.  Almost.