Awoke this morning with sore feet from a strange dream about going toward the light.
Packed the old “rucksack” , as the French call it, and said good bye–and I do mean “good bye”, not au revoir,–to the jovial manager of the airBNB where I slept in Chamonix. A fella named Ashley.
Ashley must be 55, thin wiry gent, has a gray/white beard about a foot long, and is one of those guys who “winds up” as if he were pitching sidewinder when he shakes hands. A big hearty roundhouse leading to a shake. . He hails from Kenya, but speaks with a British accent and laughs more than I do. He told me has lived in Chamonix for 30 years, apart from the “misguided” two years, “the missus and I thought the schools might be better elsewhere, but that nonsense didn’t last long, ”
Said our good-byes and I walked to the train station.
I arrived by train back in Annecy to find the town packed. Apparently, a marathon. Sheeez. Because of the packed streets, the next mode of transportation I had planned, a taxi, was not to be found. The kind man on the téléphone told me “‘c’est impossible aujourd’hui.”
Great!!!! These feet are already dying; don’t think they’ll make 14 km to Taloires schlepping this portemanteau. How am I going to get to the other side of this lake.
Hmmm, there’s something I’m missing here. There’s got to be a better way.
"Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost" 