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34 French Frogs In the morning it was raining lightly and the sky was still without one clear patch, but at least it was faintly brighter where the sun was. Sharon suggested we leave the tent set up and take a run into town to buy food. That way we could wait to see what the day was going to do. Having a slight case of tent fever, I boldly predicted it would clear by the afternoon. After all, how long could it stay like that? Were we caught in some gray zone? Thirty kilometers up the road were the skies smiling? We broke camp in the wet grass and recrossed the pedestrian bridge back over the clear tributary, stopping to deposit our accumulated three days of trash into a roadside dumpster. In only four blocks we were in the village. With our peaceful wilderness setting, I hadn't realized we were so close. Mon Viviers was a medieval village in a picturesque setting. A statue of Christ the Redeemer peered solemnly from atop a cliff while a man peed on the church wall. Sharon said, "It must be a different kind of wailing wall." Sharon was starving. At the bottom of the steep hill to the Cathedral we leaned our bikes against an ancient plate tree and locked them to the trunk. A sign placed the year at 796, if my Roman numerals were correct. We went around the outside of the huge structure ducking through an arched passageway leading into the courtyard. At the front of the church an elderly couple peered at a brochure. "Bonjour!" I said heartily. "Bonjour," she replied in a British accent. The elderly matron said, "There's a patch of blue." I peered up and indeed there was a tiny swatch of blue--a Kodachrome sky rather than Tri-X. One huge wooden door on the church was slightly ajar as if welcoming visitors. Above the door, two wooden carvings of men stood brandishing swords. Leave your weapons before entering? Only brothers may enter? The interior was bathed by a soft light falling through the stained glass panes. Churches in Italy had seemed so dark, but the church in Mon Viviers seemed brighter inside than it was outside. I squinted to reduce the glare and saw two immense canvases of religious scenes in bright sharp colours, rather than the usual drab pastels that lacked fire but sparked the emotions of the reverent, capturing the severity of the event portrayed. The gaudy painting wasn't the only surprise in store. In the main chamber of the Cathedral I was struck by a life-size depiction of Jesus on a dark wooden cross. That, however, was not what jolted me. Below his feet were a skull and two arm bones in a crossed position like a pirate's flag, but made from the real McCoy. I was glad I hadn't eaten breakfast. Just below that treat was a bronze ball representing the earth. A long snake's body with a detestable serpent's head languished on the face of it. In my mind it slithered slowly through the skull's eye socket. That was what I got for reading too many Stephen King stories. Whoever constructed that wicked depiction should be writing novels or making horror movies. Was it to scare the devil out of parishioners or was it intended to put the fear of God in? I heard cackling. And it wasn't pious. Sharon exited the church fairly quickly. I had no idea why. A Judas tree with purple blooms greeted me at the exit. As I admired the massive church doors Sharon went into the courtyard. By the time I followed, she was nowhere in sight. She could have either gone farther to overlook the rooftops of town or back down to the bikes. I didn't see her, so I assumed she had gone back to the bikes. Sharon wasn't by the bikes. We had passed several boulangeries on our way through town. After checking my pittance of change to make sure I had enough for a couple of baguettes I headed down the street. Off the main street was a maze of narrow cobbled alleyways. Through an alley the Judas tree and the Cathedral's imposing tower presented an enchanting angle. A bread shop sign pointed down the cobbles. I found the bread shop, but it was closed. I continued past a church, a flower shop displaying radiant spring blooms, a sidewalk fruiterie with boxes of oranges, lemons and apples, and a patisserie with pastries costing as much as two baguettes. Another sign promised a bakery in fifty meters. I scurried along back streets, past townsfolk's suspicious stares. I saw what looked like a bank. About to enter, I hesitated, trying to decipher the cryptic inscriptions denoting their services. When I didn't see any bank card emblems, I plundered past to the bakery. Happily, the baguettes were soft and warm. When I returned to the bikes, Sharon was sitting on a bench. "You're my hero!" she called out when she saw me. But she really only had eyes for the baguettes and quickly tore into the still steaming loaves. I got out the remaining prune jam and persuaded Sharon to try some. Even though she was starving, she still pronounced it "vile." Jam sure lasted a long time when it tasted revolting. We surveyed the map. We could either follow the direct N86 route or wind around on little roads crossing and recrossing the river. On our way out of town we passed a Credit Agricole. I tried our Visa card in the Instant Teller, and voilà, received two thousand francs--the maximum the machine would dispense. We opted for a slow start and headed for the bridge to merrily meander tree-lined lanes. I admired the greenness of the countryside. We passed a pond of water covered with a layer of yellow green scum. Loud unworldly noises permeated the still pastoral air. "What is that?" Sharon implored. eyes wide. "Aliens," I replied. Before Sharon's eyes popped (she couldn't get any closer to me without making our bikes into a tandem), I told her it was froggy cacophony. "They don't sound like frogs," she said. "That's because they're French frogs and they roll their R's." Crrroak. Rrrribbit." Creatures from the green lagoon coming soon to a tent site near you." The riding was flat and serene. We passed four nuclear power funnels--steam emitting from each congested nostril. I couldn't see any three-eyed fish. But then, I couldn't see anything in the muddy turbid swirling water. Four horses, each a different colour, trotted over to investigate the strange looking horses we were riding. Sharon fed them tender grass growing just outside their straining reach. A dark chestnut stallion poised watchfully on a small knoll while the others crowded and jostled around the sagging fence, jockeying for better positions. We were out of water. The headwind had dried out my throat. I figured Sharon must be well past parched: she normally drank three water bottles to my one. I went into a "maison de sports" and filled our bottles. As I left, the woman wished me "bon courage." Our next order of business was to find a grocery store. Sharon should have gone to one earlier. She had passed the hunger stage and moved on to ill-tempered. She said I got crabby when I was hungry, but she could be a bear herself. And mama bears were tops at crankiness. When I went into a small store, I heard Sharon call out: "I don't care what you buy as long as it's not camembert again. I'm sick of that stuff." Imagine, tired of camembert. I didn't think it was possible. Well, with over three hundred varieties of cheese I was able to find something else. I wasn't sure if Sharon liked it though. Some we had tried previously were severely unpalatable. The prices in the little store were high. I was sure we would find an Intermarché along the route, so I only bought a basket of semi-ripe strawberries to tide us over. We ate the ones that weren't too sandy and then took route N86. A sign indicated an Intermarché ahead five minutes. At a junction we followed N86. Apparently, it bypassed the Intermarché. In the small town of Granges a sign pointed to a Mammouth. We cycled in its direction for a ways before realizing it was taking us into the city of Valence. At a traffic circle there was another sign for our original Intermarché: two minutes--pointing back in the direction we had come. By the time I made a decision on which one to go to, Sharon said we could have been there. I never did think well on an empty stomach. We bought bread, hot chocolate, apples, eggs (no name that you pick yourself from a large cardboard stack and fill your own small container), chocolate bars, stir fry veggies, fixings for an omelette, green onions and chopped bacon (convenience in the land of France--truly amazing), two Cordon Bleu and a barbecue chicken that was on special. Bought some grapefruit mix that tasted like real grapefruit juice and gave our drink an extra tang. It would be a delicious thirst buster if we ever got a sunny day.Sharon was dog-tired. She must have gotten too much sleep. At the edge of town we ducked beneath some trees. We set the tent up so the door had a view of purple irises growing wild on the bank. On the steep cliff side, remains of an old castle--little more than a rocky skeleton staring over the precipice--could be seen. Passing trains tooted the hours. I wrote so long in my journal that Sharon gibed me if I was writing about tomorrow. A few more minutes passed and she enquired if I was writing about next week. |
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