July 26, 2019
Chance encounters
Les Cabrils to Le Caylar
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IT'S a small world. And an odd one. One of its novelties is that the train from Béziers to Millau costs a single euro no matter the distance. Go one station or sit there until the end of the line and a euro is all it will trouble you.
A second novelty is that two trains a day stop at Les Cabrils, a station so remote and so little used that there's no platform and the exit is through little more than a hole in a fence. Two handpainted signs point to a place not on our map. But they'll return to our story in a moment.
The only way away from this bustling place with its wandering hens is a narrow and pockmarked road that climbs with a marked pout past three houses, one of which has lost its hens. The climb continues past where you think it might decently end and then, in a spiteful ramp through trees, turns on to a calmer though still contour-rich road the width of a cart yet lined by white stripes.
We were on this road when the first car to approach from behind accelerated and pulled into a gravel parking area beyond us and came to a dust-raising stop. And down came the driver's window.
"I'm sorry to disturb you," a man in maybe his 30s shouted as he started to get out.
We were inclined to ride on. It's sometimes rewarding to help lost motorists but it's always irritating.
The man turned out to be called Fred, fit and stocky with a ready smile. His wife, slender and blue-eyed with a face hard to link with a map of the world, was Sveta.
Of course... Sveta. Short for Svetlana. She was Russian but she'd lived in France for ten years.
And this is where the world showed it was small. Because Fred and Sveta had spent three years touring much of the world on a tandem. Which is why they'd stopped to talk.
America, Fred said, had been a wonderful surprise not just for the Grand Canyon and its other sights but the hospitality of the people. Colombia, on the other hand, was dangerous for the traffic and the threats they perceived from some of the people.
They told us they had lived in Grenoble and then near Toulouse before riding the road we were following now. And there they had discovered two cooperating communes each of a dozen and a half people. Those were the places on the signposts back at the station.
We exchanged addresses and promised to visit. Which we will, because I have a fascination with communes.
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The climbs continued from there until the final kilometres to Le Caylar. We had climbed 424 metres in 25 kilometres.
The village was decked out in flags, bunting and painted bikes. Outdoor people and hippie types mingled and drank beers. The sun shone. Bikes were everywhere. For a few days, we will be celebrating the glory of travelling slowly, of pausing to stop and stare.
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