Camping Bourbon

I wake to the howling of dogs. The campsite looks beautiful in the morning light, filtered through willow trees. Most campers are still sleeping, but a couple of Italians have pulled table and chairs out of their van and are drinking coffee, looking out over the mountains.

No public transport here (except July and August - except by “reservation”), so I’m hitching:
- a very Gallic chef, heading to work at the bottom of the mountain. A group of motorcyclists cut a blind corner - he stops, but they’re lucky not to get wiped out.
- the forest overseer for Palud-sur-Verdon, heading to cut some wood for winter, trailer in tow. He gives me a short lift to a nearby bridge where cars have to slow down.
- the owner of local cabinet medicale on her way to visit a friend in Aix. As she picks me up, she asks comedically “tu ne vas pas me tuer?” She and I have a long conversation about all sorts of things in my halting French. She was born in Switzerland, educated in Germany, is married to a psychologist, has a 35 year old daughter almost at term with her second grandchild, and a financier son living in Montpelier. And then we get onto philosophy and the environment. I suspect she speaks perfect English. She drops me at the motorway péage.
- a skater from Marseille, with two young children in the back, who lives up the mountain, but works in the job centre in Aix. He’s bitter about his ex in a predictable way (“les femmes sont tous ....”), and takes me into Aix to a hitching slip road favoured by students
- the finance director of Solidworks, heading to visit his son in Salon. He asks most of the questions - and recommends the GR20 in Corse. I’m sure that his English is perfect too.

At Salon the traffic is slow. The clouds are gathering and a few warm drops of rain begin to splatter around me. The internet tells me I can get a train from here to Montelimar later in the afternoon, so that’s just what I do.

Salon is famous for soap, apparently. The heat is up in the thirties. I sit in the square and drink a beer, get some lunch at Carrefour, and head to the station.

The train is delayed 50 minutes. I’m going to miss my connection in Avignon, but there are plenty more. No one checks my tickets, but on the Avignon train a posse of four, stab-jacketed transport cops march conspicuously down the carriages.

I’m Montelimar I check into an Apart-Hotel. The campsite is too far away and will probably have closed for the night anyway. (I booked a cheap room elsewhere in the heat of the day, only to find that I’d booked it for October! and that hotel was full tonight anyway).

Unpacking, it appears that I’ve lost my charger and cables somewhere en route. It’s hot, I’m tired, but still it’s astonishing how much it affects me. My phone is my map, my book, my camera. The feeling is short lived - it might be nighttime, but the tabac on the main street supplies me with replacements.

I dine in salad and chips outside a kebab shop. The bar next door is running a very public karaoke, which I try to ignore - and fail. And then sleep.