I quit my job in 2015 to travel. My first stop was a friend’s wedding in Switzerland. The second stop: A 650-700 km hike from the south of Lake Geneva to the South of France along the beautiful, rugged GR 51. True to form, I had never hiked such long distances before. I hadn’t thought much about where I would stay along the route. I knew there were cabins called refuges along the way. I had my tent, stove, sleeping bag, and a general faith that I would survive.
Walking along the trail turned out to be one of my most cherished experiences. I ended it having developed the valuable confidence that things have a way of working out when you push yourself.
When thinking of what to write this week, I walked along this lovely trail again in my memories. Here are two moments along the trail.
Incroyable!
Two weeks into the trail, my camping spot for the night was a municipal campground in a small city. I hadn’t showered for at least a week, and was feeling extremely self conscious. I would have to buy food from a supermarket along the way. With brown skin, torn pants, disheveled hair and sweaty everything, what would the civilized French people think?
Just as I emerged from the forest onto the tarmac, I saw a car pulling out of a driveway. I stopped to let him go first. The driver smiled at me, and I waved back. There was a little girl in the backseat.
He reversed and pulled up right next to me.
Note: This was right at the beginning of my travels when I was not yet used to the hospitality of the world, so when this man reversed his car to get closed to me, my first reaction was fear.
“Where are you going?”, he asked me in French.
I told him I was going to the campground. “Get in!” he said.
We spoke as he drove me to the campground. He asked me where I was going to the next day. Either that, or he asked me where I was coming from. I had no idea, but I decided to tell him where I was coming from.
He asked me where I was from, and when I told him I was from India, his eyes lit up immediately. “Incroyable!2”, he said, and then repeated again, shaking his head in disbelief. I started laughing.
He turned to his daughter, and excitedly told her something about me. He asked her a question (the word “incroyable” was thrown in there, though I have no idea what he told her). She didn’t reply, and instead covered her nose because of my stink. I guess she wasn’t as impressed with the stinky guy with a big backpack as her father.
I know this moment doesn’t seem like a big deal, but it gave me a huge boost in confidence. I had started this trip quite apprehensive about being an Indian traveling alone through these foreign lands, and here was a nice man in a remote French village who thought that meeting an Indian was the highlight of his day!
He dropped me to the campsite, and left with a very happy wave.
The Horse
A few days after the incroyable incident, I was camping by a very beautiful refuge. My tent was beside an incredible lake. I had a nice three course (pumpkin soup, main course that I don’t remember now, some dessert with blueberry) and returned to my tent to sleep.
The night was extremely cold, and I was cursing myself for not paying the 30 euros to sleep in the refuge. But when you walk 25 km every day up and down in the Alps, sleep is no longer dependent on the weather.
I woke up at around 7 AM, brushed my teeth, and started walking back toward the refuge for breakfast (almost always bread, butter, an assortment of tasty jams, and coffee). Just as I reached the stone steps leading to the refuge, I exhaled sharply, startled by three horses walking towards me.
Two brown, one white, elegant in their style, these horses were just as startled as me. The two brown guys trotted away from me, probably scared of the stranger in their path. The white horse slowly made its way toward me. I held my breath, not knowing whether staying still was a good idea, or if it was better to run away.
The horse stopped right in front of me. I imagined that I saw curiosity rather than fear in its eyes. I tentatively held out my right hand, and it brought its head forward till its nose touched my hand. We both stood there in the cold morning air for a moment, and then it walked away, completely unruffled and indifferent. I stayed for a few moments in the same spot, feeling that I had seen royalty.
GR stands for Grand Randonee (Great Walk). The GRs are a network of trails crisscrossing Europe. The final 700 km section GR5 along the Alps bordering France and Switzerland was the hike I chose.
Incredible!
*Random coughing with mask on*
Loved your description. Gives me a nice view in what traveling by oneself looks like ...