France: the Epic, Chapter Trois
After breakfast and coffee (drip: not nearly as good as espresso, but not nearly as unpleasant as American, somehow!), we decided to take a good long walk to the nearby Grotte de Gargas, a cave system full of paintings, carvings, stalagtites and 'mites, bones and all that, but particularly famous for the some 500 hands stenciled on the walls, more than in all the other caves of France together, many with fingers missing in various arrangements, and produced over a period of 4 thousand years!
What could that have been about, and to have lasted as a cultural practice for so long, only to be lost to us now. Were the fingers cut off? Were they lost to injury or frostbite? Were they merely bent down? Is it sign language of some kind? No one knows, but apparently the consensus at this point is that the fingers were bent down, and that some kind of symbolic language is the point. Deaf people who use sign language were brought in for a different perspective, and pointed out that there are lots of other variants besides the fingers: height on the walls, sizes of the hands, directions they point, colors (black, red or ochre), relations to other hand prints .... Fascinating.
But, we had to get there first. True to form, we started off, map in hand, in the wrong direction, through the village, and up the hill. Hm. That isn't right. Turned around, discussed, and started back through the village, past the gite, and down a different road. Wildflowers were blooming in profusion, almost all familiar, humble, small flowers. Everything was green green green. We had read that the Great Pyrenees dog, almost extinct there, was enjoying a comeback as a flock protector in response to the return of wolves, lynx, loose dogs and introduced bears. There are brochures everywhere explaining etiquette, and they are all over the tourist stuff: stuffed toys, postcards, placemats, etc.. We had just passed out of the village when we came across a flock being watched over by its resident guardian.
The tiny white dot at the edge of the trees is the dog. You are instructed not to stare at, take pictures of, or in any way interfere with flocks. H found this out on another passage later, when he pointed the camera at the dog much closer. The dog did not like that, and followed us in a "my eyes on YOU!" way for a while!
We passed this broken down wall which we both thought was extra-picturesque, and very handy for photos.
(on with our walk to the cave...)
We kept checking the map, never quite sure where we were, for about an hour and a half, until we came to a sign announcing the village of Avantignan.
Our trail exited this road just to our right. This is a farm, not the village.
Oops. Well, it was much clearer from there, anyway. We missed our trail, but we could walk up the road instead. It was sprinkling just a little, but only enough to keep us pleasantly cool. We had been told we might not be able to get inside the cave, but got there just in time for the guide to take us through before a group reserved at 3pm. We climbed up to the entrance while he locked up the visitor center, where we took this shot.
If you could zoom in, you could see Aventignan in the valley.
He even did the whole thing in very good, if accented, English, just for us. He was clearly excited by the wonder of the caves, their art and history. He kept using words like "passion" and "magic", "sacred" and "spiritual". It was mind-bending to think of the people coming into those caves with just a torch or two, clinging to one side so they wouldn't lose their way in the dark, trackless, wider galleries, finding different features that inspired them to mark them in layers of carvings and paintings over thousands of years. There were earlier paintings of animals that were very simple, geometric, rectangles with stick legs. Later paintings were elegantly stylized, very realistic and colorful. He showed us dots and streaks that were obviously (once pointed out) meaningful, whether as directions, signposts, or some other thing. He said they only excavate for one month of the year, then spend the other 11 researching what they've pulled out, it's so rich in artifacts.
Anyway, we thoroughly enjoyed the whole thing, and thanked our guide as we left with a suggested tip (a sign posted in the last gallery of the cave!) When we got out it seemed that it had been raining the whole time. We decided to try to go back on the trail we had missed on the way out, which meant a lot of slipping and sliding in clay-y mud down a wooded hill. We started looking for someplace to eat our lunch as the trail flattened out. I got distracted by looking at the tracks of what seemed to me to be a lynx, chasing maybe a small deer or pig, with apparent slide-outs, and take-offs. We never did see anything that looked like a catch, though. We did see wild orchids very much like the calypso, but smaller and more purple.
And these weird things that Karen (our hostess) told us are a kind of crocus.
Notice that they have no visible leaves, just a crowd of these slipper-like blooms.
You can see how wet and clay-y the soil is around the crocus.
We hit the road a lot sooner than we expected, having cut off a really big corner of our original walk. We found a fallen tree along the road to sit on and ate our lunch surrounded by clouds of wildflowers,
then headed back to Generest and our gite.
coming in to the back of the village
We had begun to notice doubled red hash marks or red and white, on trees and sign posts. Trail markers? As it turns out, yes they were, and then we saw them everywhere!
We walked back, past the broken wall, the dog and its sheep, a few cattle and a couple horses, into the village. Our road was blocked by a red hound who barked in a way that we decided to avoid, so we walked through the village past other dogs who also gave us to understand that we had no business there, up, around, through an arch that went right through the church, and back down ... to the barking red hound! His owner tried to call him off, but he'd made us go away once, and wouldn't be dissuaded 'til she came and pulled him off by the collar, apologizing about giving a bad impression (we thought!) We slipped through the gate and were home safe. (We could probably have done that differently, but just didn't feel like pushing it in a strange environment.)
H decided to take a dip in the pool to cool off. Since it's not heated, I thought that might not take long, but I skipped it. When I told Matt and Karen, who were sitting out front, the look on Karen's face was hysterical! Worried, shocked, quickly modified to polite surprise. I felt I needed to reassure her that he was probably out almost before he was in, he's like that, not to worry .... Sure enough, he was on a lounge chair by the time I got back there. Here's how different we are. He's air-drying after a dip in the pool, and this is me:
beret, scarf, fleecy, and hot cuppa!
--
"I shall pass through this world but once. Any good thing therefore that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any [fellow creature], let me do it now." ~Etienne de Grellet [and me]
What could that have been about, and to have lasted as a cultural practice for so long, only to be lost to us now. Were the fingers cut off? Were they lost to injury or frostbite? Were they merely bent down? Is it sign language of some kind? No one knows, but apparently the consensus at this point is that the fingers were bent down, and that some kind of symbolic language is the point. Deaf people who use sign language were brought in for a different perspective, and pointed out that there are lots of other variants besides the fingers: height on the walls, sizes of the hands, directions they point, colors (black, red or ochre), relations to other hand prints .... Fascinating.
We passed this broken down wall which we both thought was extra-picturesque, and very handy for photos.
We kept checking the map, never quite sure where we were, for about an hour and a half, until we came to a sign announcing the village of Avantignan.
Our trail exited this road just to our right. This is a farm, not the village.
If you could zoom in, you could see Aventignan in the valley.
He even did the whole thing in very good, if accented, English, just for us. He was clearly excited by the wonder of the caves, their art and history. He kept using words like "passion" and "magic", "sacred" and "spiritual". It was mind-bending to think of the people coming into those caves with just a torch or two, clinging to one side so they wouldn't lose their way in the dark, trackless, wider galleries, finding different features that inspired them to mark them in layers of carvings and paintings over thousands of years. There were earlier paintings of animals that were very simple, geometric, rectangles with stick legs. Later paintings were elegantly stylized, very realistic and colorful. He showed us dots and streaks that were obviously (once pointed out) meaningful, whether as directions, signposts, or some other thing. He said they only excavate for one month of the year, then spend the other 11 researching what they've pulled out, it's so rich in artifacts.
Anyway, we thoroughly enjoyed the whole thing, and thanked our guide as we left with a suggested tip (a sign posted in the last gallery of the cave!) When we got out it seemed that it had been raining the whole time. We decided to try to go back on the trail we had missed on the way out, which meant a lot of slipping and sliding in clay-y mud down a wooded hill. We started looking for someplace to eat our lunch as the trail flattened out. I got distracted by looking at the tracks of what seemed to me to be a lynx, chasing maybe a small deer or pig, with apparent slide-outs, and take-offs. We never did see anything that looked like a catch, though. We did see wild orchids very much like the calypso, but smaller and more purple.
And these weird things that Karen (our hostess) told us are a kind of crocus.
Notice that they have no visible leaves, just a crowd of these slipper-like blooms.
We hit the road a lot sooner than we expected, having cut off a really big corner of our original walk. We found a fallen tree along the road to sit on and ate our lunch surrounded by clouds of wildflowers,
then headed back to Generest and our gite.
coming in to the back of the village
We had begun to notice doubled red hash marks or red and white, on trees and sign posts. Trail markers? As it turns out, yes they were, and then we saw them everywhere!
We walked back, past the broken wall, the dog and its sheep, a few cattle and a couple horses, into the village. Our road was blocked by a red hound who barked in a way that we decided to avoid, so we walked through the village past other dogs who also gave us to understand that we had no business there, up, around, through an arch that went right through the church, and back down ... to the barking red hound! His owner tried to call him off, but he'd made us go away once, and wouldn't be dissuaded 'til she came and pulled him off by the collar, apologizing about giving a bad impression (we thought!) We slipped through the gate and were home safe. (We could probably have done that differently, but just didn't feel like pushing it in a strange environment.)
H decided to take a dip in the pool to cool off. Since it's not heated, I thought that might not take long, but I skipped it. When I told Matt and Karen, who were sitting out front, the look on Karen's face was hysterical! Worried, shocked, quickly modified to polite surprise. I felt I needed to reassure her that he was probably out almost before he was in, he's like that, not to worry .... Sure enough, he was on a lounge chair by the time I got back there. Here's how different we are. He's air-drying after a dip in the pool, and this is me:
beret, scarf, fleecy, and hot cuppa!
We sat outside for a bit 'til it got suddenly cooler, then retreated to heat up the gite, some leftover coffee, and be domestic. H washed out some clothes to dry on a rack, I cleaned up the kitchen, then sat down to work on the trip journal.
Random stuff.
Magpies are everywhere, and so pretty!
not my photo
Goldfinch-type bird, a little bigger and less brightly colored, checking us out in the outdoor dining areas. Another strikingly marked sparrow-size bird, black and white, also bold. In Toulouse, they would come nearly to your feet looking for crumbs. Doves just slightly different than ones I'm used to, that make a funny honking sort of sound when they land. Large raptors, many with forked tails. Some are eagles, I've learned.
There's a little bird nesting in a rose vine on the front of the gite, and another in a hole in the wall above our back door. Little anole-like lizards scoot around on the rock walls. The weather is very changeable! The Spanish almonds we got taste so almond-y!
My turn to make dinner. I made more pasta, 'cause that's what we had, and added a carrot salad with these neat onions we got (bigger than scallions, with more of a bulb, but kind of garlicky - I used the greens as well as the bulb, though the vendor offered to cut them off for me as waste), some of our "special omelette herbs", toasted almonds, and avocado. Yum! We pulled the couch up to the heater, closer to the little tv, and watched a video before going to bed.
~~~End of Chapter 3, part 2
Random stuff.
Magpies are everywhere, and so pretty!
not my photo
There's a little bird nesting in a rose vine on the front of the gite, and another in a hole in the wall above our back door. Little anole-like lizards scoot around on the rock walls. The weather is very changeable! The Spanish almonds we got taste so almond-y!
My turn to make dinner. I made more pasta, 'cause that's what we had, and added a carrot salad with these neat onions we got (bigger than scallions, with more of a bulb, but kind of garlicky - I used the greens as well as the bulb, though the vendor offered to cut them off for me as waste), some of our "special omelette herbs", toasted almonds, and avocado. Yum! We pulled the couch up to the heater, closer to the little tv, and watched a video before going to bed.
~~~End of Chapter 3, part 2
--
"I shall pass through this world but once. Any good thing therefore that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any [fellow creature], let me do it now." ~Etienne de Grellet [and me]
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