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December 16 Friday Bicycle touring France from Cerbere France to Draguignan France AT 5 AM I am tired of huddling. I trip when I try to get up -- both of my legs are severely cramped. Besides, I couldn't find a washroom before and my bladder is about to burst. That garbage can over there is starting to look pretty good. I go back upstairs to the station. Someone is polishing the floors with a noisy machine. A guy I asked last night if he knew where the toilettes were is asleep on top of his baggage. We train travelers are a sorry lot. I study a train schedule posted behind glass and see that bikes are allowed free on certain trains called regionals. But, bicycles are not allowed on all regionals at certain times and never on faster trains except as baggage freight and for an addition enormous sum and arriving two to four days later. The next train that allows bikes is to arrive at 6:30 AM. I go back down to inform Sleeping Beauty. She says she has to go to the washroom. Hmm. There's a garbage can over there. No? She goes off in search of one, even though I told her I had made an extensive search and it is fruitless to check further. She returns shortly and tells me she found one. Right by the waiting room where the smart people are sleeping comfortably across the benches. Well, almost comfortably, I guess. Why do I always find these things too late? Just a little salt for the wound? We have no problem getting our fully loaded touring bicycles on the train. It gets crowded as school students and commuters going to work get on, but everyone patiently -- and kindly -- slips around our behemoth bikes. We have removed our pannier covers and the panniers look clean and bright. The French are very much into appearance. We figure out that the train last night was an International to Italy and an express to boot, so we had two strikes against us for getting on. It may not have even stopped in Cannes! And then we got a power trip conductor -- strike three. We travel as far as we can on this regional. At the next station, Sharon goes to the info office and the woman there tells her that we can't get to Cannes from here on a regional. We will have to send our bikes as freight. We find out it is $40 each again and three days at least to get our bikes back. After Sharon tells me this, I go to the info place. I take a number and wait half an hour. The info woman tells me no regional goes to Cannes. "How far does a regional go towards Cannes?" I ask. She names me a town. I leave. We look at our map. Can it be possible that there are no more regionals after this place? I don't think so. Sharon goes back to the info office and tries to explain that we have bikes, but we always want to take them with us on the train. This new information woman clues in to what we want to do. Soon, a schedule is given to us that has us hopping from one regional train to another. As Sharon leaves the office the woman calls out to her: "Beacoup courage!" Yes, we need a lot of courage to attempt this insanity. Too bad we paid for a ticket all the way to Cannes from Spain. The list has five transfers. We make it into Les Arcs in the mountains that night. The train station is filled with students and army personnel going home for the Christmas holidays. I leave Sharon with our fully loaded touring bicycles and head off to try and locate the hotel in a phone book where we are to meet Roger and Suzanne. After finding a number, I then go off to phone from a bar. After waiting in line half an hour to use a phone I reach it and discover it only takes phone cards. Sharon has met a woman on the train platform. She lives in Draguignan. She saw the Canadian flag on my bike and was wondering why people from Canada would be shivering. Because it's close to zero degrees, and we don't have warm enough clothes? She is going away until the 28th. She offers us her house key. Foolishly, we refuse it. She says to phone her later. She has a friend in Corsica -- where we are planning to go. She says we can stay with her and she will drive us around to see the sights. The only problem is: she speaks French only. I help her load her luggage onto a train. Most of the station has cleared out. Once Madelaine's train leaves the station, I go outside and scout out a possible camp spot. We push our bikes across a field and at the edge of the field, we set up our tiny bicycle touring tent. Oh, man. It feels great to lie down.... |
