Bad Barry to Camp du Lac, France

The trauma of escaping Bad Barry had us on the run.

And to be honest a tad desperate.

We were now at Camping du Lac, only camping in France sounds this fancy. I was thankful to the very handsome gentleman Nicholas and equally beautiful girlfriend Clara from next door, who also happened to be doing double masters and working towards saving our planet, and seemed like they belonged in a woody Allen movie. I was able to reflect on the last 24 hours, being abused, threatened and thrown on the street by a psychopath, lucky my years of experience with men who were nut jobs allowed me to stay calm.

The crazy part was how incredibly helpful and dedicated the neighbours were, they hung our wet laundry out to dry, made coffee and picked fresh green plums off the tree in the yard, grapes off the vine that hung over their ancient doors and Evian water, (obviously), we were in the French Pyrenees after all. After this they went back to writing their thesis’ on global warming and world hunger and we got to work on our next move.

We were now officially homeless and nearly broke with no plans and sitting in a stunning french garden in the south of France, they even gifted us a rare piece of local wood with the outline of a rare bear cub and a jar of his mothers secret recipe jam. It was a mixture of good and bad I guess, pleasure and pain. Nicolas drove us the 14km into the local camping ground. Whichall seemed fine until they asked me for my COVID19 Vaccination certificate…ummm, well I don’t have one. The look of shock, disgust and repulsion was hard to ignore. How dare I not have one (this must be said in a French accent). I said I was out of pure nervousness which started a cascade of disasters which poor Nicolas tried in his most beautiful and genuine way rectify. I with him in tow was marched off to the local chemist to get my QR code or get a COVID test.

We kissed him farewell and went to find some food while the results of my test came back, but alas, even that couldn’t be easy. We walked, and walked and walked, and no food becuase I didn’t have a damn code, I was literally becoming an unwilling 40 hour famine participant.

I started to whine about no wine, so back to the chemist we went, eyes still watering from the test, and grabbed the negative Covid QR code that would allow me to live again. Off to Aldi we went, to purchase essentials such as a red wine, Blue, Brie and Camembert cheese, I’m never too broke to give up cheese and red wine. I was exuberant marching back to the Camp du lac reception with negative test in hand and alas I was welcomed with a smiling open face, was this the same women? I hadn’t been drinking (yet). We ran, with the bare energy we had to out tent, undressed and planned to swim in the (do not swim) Ariege River that runs so beautifully through the town of Foix and into the Pyrenees, we did, it was full of duck and feathers and maybe some shit, we didn’t care, we were in France and free, or maybe that was the red wine talking…..

The plan was to head to another country, a cheap country, I missed Espana so much already. My research told me a hotel in Andorra was cheap as chips at around $45 AUS a night, I could afford that, just. We had seen a sign for Andorra along the way and Nicolas educated us that alcohol and cigarettes were cheap there compared to France as they had no tax so kids would drive over on a Thursday or Friday night and grab the essentials for a big weekend or party and then drive the hour or two back. lets hitchhike I said, Keeley was so on board, we put our heads together along with this cute little guy on the side of the road at a pizza stall and hatched a plan, meanwhile Pizza dog was drooling in our pizza box.

Next morning, we went and said goodbye to the local trailer park residents we had made friends with and hit the road, 7 minutes later in the hot sun Keeley decided that hitching sucked let’s get the bus! But the bus doesn’t go to Andorra only Toulouse which allows us to get a train to Andorra. ARGHHHHH. Wish I hadn’t given that spare bottle of red to the cleaner at the camp site.

Thirty minutes later we were sweaty and tired at Foix station, Now the bloody ticket machine won’t work, the train is at the station, Keeley is yelling at me, the bags are on the train and I’m a mess trying to translate french into Aussie.

Off to Toulouse we go.