Day 20 - Family (Espis à Espalais 27 km)

Under cover of darkness, the group started early to make it to mass in Moissac. I left a few minutes behind them and walked the 5 km alone relishing in the pre-dawn beauty. Despite the darkness, there was no need for my headlamp as the route was along the road and the twilight was adequate for navigation.

I met up with Dan, Ankemaria, Pierre and Rachel in town and besides visiting the church and Cloister, we accomplished some errands and stocked up on market food. While in town we visited the pilgrim welcome centre where we were told that the number of pilgrims who checked in from countries other that from the EU was very low. Only a handful of tabs were on the North America map.

I travelled alone for the next couple of hours until the quick-paced Rachel caught up with me during one of my breaks. We walked the next couple of hours together along the shaded canal with comfortable temperatures. Once we left the canal, the heat climbed in the brillant sun and when we finally reached our gite, we were glad the travel was done for the day. The remaining three showed up a short while later with music for motivation.

Shower and laundry was followed by relaxation and chatting with the other guests until aperitif time.

A first on this journey, our host had us all sit in the garden, introduce ourselves and tell the group what one word described their day. The responses from the dozen or so guests were wonderful with numerous anecdotes and stories providing support to the one word. I thoroughly enjoyed this special event. My word - family. It is what I found on my first Camino and what continues to develop on this one. We hold our relationships to be very special and we will do pretty much anything to help each other out.

Dinner and hosting were excellent and I continue to be very impressed by the gites along this path. I enjoyed a short star-gazing session under clear skies before calling it a night.

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Day 21 - Tournesols/Sunflowers (Espalais à Castet-Arrouy 25 km)

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Day 19 - Sights, Smells, Sounds…. and Silence (Lauzerte à Espis 23 km)