Saturday morning we went produce shopping at the market. We loaded up on supplies for the hike that day, just me and one other girl, Bridget. I don’t do much produce shopping, because my host mom does all the cooking, so Bridget sent me to fetch things at the stalls she new had the best product and prices.
After that, we went to the flower market and grabbed some lady’s purse that was on sale, and then dropped that off at Bridget’s apartment. Then it was finally time to figure out how to get to our hiking place: Saint Victoire, a massive limestone mountain that juts out of the flat land, half an hour from Aix.
The bus man was very rude and almost didn’t let us on board, which is basically a sign of good luck here. He told us to get off after driving for maybe 35 minutes at a place that did not have a bus stop, on the side of an empty road in the middle of nowhere. As he drove off, we picked a direction at random and started walking.
Eventually we came to a metal barrier and a sign that said No Entry. So we went around it and found ourselves on a little forest trail, and after a couple minutes we spotted the lake. Or what we thought was the lake. When we reached the edge, we realized that the entire thing, all three hundred feet of depth of the thing, was drained. And this is not a little lake. So of course we went down to the bottom of it and followed a little trickle of water.
We pretty quickly ended up in a precarious canyon. Copses of dead trees leaned over us, and the ground was cracked from the sun. It looked like the end of the world, or Purgatory.
We found a place where the trickle of water became a stream and a small waterfall, and slipped off our shoes. We cooled our feet in a crystal-clear pool and ate our lunch: fresh-baked baguette, two tangerines each, a water bottle each, a small wheel of brie, and a handful of fresh strawberries. We sat and talked for a while, not paying much attention to the water, until I spotted movement in my periphery. Up until now, we hadn’t even seen insects. No bird chirps, no rabbit scuffles, nothing. Dead silence, devoid of life.
But now I saw two frogs, one huge one and another latched onto its back, in the same pool we were using. We watched the pair attempt to scale the little waterfall several times. It didn’t take long for the frog population to multiply. By the time we packed up and left, there were close to ten frogs, each with a smaller one riding sidecar.
We kept walking a found a cave about ten feet up off the stream. We scrambled and climbed into it, keeping our shirts to our noses in case of bats. Guano can kill you, you know. There weren’t any bats, just a perfect little place to raise a prehistoric hominid family-enclave. It was cool, clean, devoid of animal waste, and had a small hole at the top which would be perfect for letting out smoke from a camp fire. Bridget and I both agreed that this would be Home Base for us in the apocalypse.
It was difficult getting out. We had to jump and slide and twist a whole bunch to avoid breaking any bones or causing a rock slide. But we managed. And we found hoof prints.
After two hours like this, we came to The Great Basin, The deepest and widest part of the lake. Completely empty of water, of course, strewn with human emphemera, like a massive metal structure and giant tires. We could see the dam at the other end, perhaps half an hour walk across this asteroid pit. So we walked it.
We quickly realized that the sides of the basin were far too steep to climb, so we had no other choice for escaping the bottom of the lake than walking through a deserted construction site that led up the side of the canyon. We hypothesized that they were building a pipe system or something. There were a lot of signs that said “INTERDIT,” but it was the weekend so nobody was around to stop us.
Bridget found a trowel and hit it against a dead tree a couple of times. I found an oyster shell.
We finally emerged from the brush of the forest next to the tourist area, likely spooking a couple people. We were pretty tired of the lake and the dam, so we just refilled our water bottles and started walking home. We didn’t know where a bus stop would be, or which buses would come, or on what schedule, so we just followed the road in the general direction of Aix. At one point, an older couple in a mini coup pulled over to ask if we wanted a ride, but we politely declined.
After maybe 25 minutes of this, a city bus zoomed past us, going in our direction, so we figured that there was a bus stop nearby. Sure enough. We walked for another ten minutes and then laid eyes on that very same bus, which had noticed us and stayed at the stop to wait for us to catch up. Bridget didn’t trust it, but I figured that the driver would get written up almost immediately if he stole a bus and kidnapped some Americans.
We made it back to the center of town and had some really good gelato. Being on the Mediterranean pretty much assures good gelato. We made plans to meet up again later in the evening for the St. Patrick’s Day festivities and parted ways.
And that was Saturday.
Cordialement,
Allison
P.S.: At the market, before we started for St. Victoire, I realized that my shirt was inside out, and the only places in France that are both public and discreet are the cathedrals, so I ducked into the nearest one and fixed it in a confessional booth. The place was empty, but I still don’t know if there was a priest or anyone in the booth with me.
Flan in France 