GR653 Via Tolosana, last part: Day 6 L'Isle-Noé - Saint-Christaud

L'extraordinaire se trouve sur le chemin des gens ordinaires.
- Paulo Coehlo

People say you meet some extraordinary people on the Camino. And it's true! But I think the world is full of extraordinary people, they're all around us, living in perfectly ordinary houses, or in houses that look rather extraordinary and make you wonder what sort of people live in them, as you pass by - but you never get an opportunity to meet them and find out. What the Camino does is offer you a key, an extraordinary opportunity to meet some of these perfectly ordinary people.

People like Edna, who left a familiar home, job and country behind to start a new life a big old house in a tiny French village, without knowing a word of French.

People like Martine and her husband, who fixed up an old barn and filled it with their art and handicrafts, moulding clay fireplaces and benches with their own hands.

And people like Johanna, who came here from Switzerland, saved a 14th century house from falling into disrepair and planted eleven hectares of land with fruit trees, vegetables, and hay for her animals, set up a windmill and solar panels, and made her spare rooms available to visitors willing to give her a hand working the land and to passing pilgrims in return for a donation toward expenses. 

Today's walk was gentle, quiet, pretty. Very green, and always soft underfoot, unlike yesterday's route which was almost entirely on the pavement. We passed through the village of Montesquiou, where we stopped for a brief pause and bought picnic supplies for lunch.

We ate our picnic by the church in Pouyloubon before walking for one more hour through the woods to La Barraque in the hamlet of Saint Christaud.

Edna had told us that Johanna would be out working on her land but we could just go in and make ourselves at home, so that's what we did. Then Johanna came along and asked if we would like dinner, and we all ate the produce of her garden together, a meal consisting primarily of leaves and flowers, featuring the tastiest asparagus I have ever eaten and ending with a dessert of elderberry flowers dredged in crêpe batter and cooked in a frying pan - an unusual-looking but deliciously aromatic dessert! After dinner we sat around the woodstove with built-in bench - heated from below - which Johanna built herself over the past winter out of clay or adobe, conversing in Italian, German and French - as one does in a Swiss household! 

Solar cooking pot

Woodstove with built-in oven and heated bench